Ceramic Vs. Alnico. Break it down for me....

[BlueFrogs]

So school me on a 101 course for pickups for dummies. Thanks y'all.

:)

[Kap'n]

From the Mexican Pickups thread:


"Ceramic" and "Alnico" are two different types of magnets.


Alnico is an alloy of three metals, Aluminum, Nickel and Cobalt, hence the name. Nickel and Cobalt being two of the three magnetic elements. Iron would be the third. Alnico has the advantage of being relaitvely lightweight fo a given magnetic strength. Another property Alnico has is that it can be temporarily demagentized by strong magnetic fields, but snaps back. This is important for speakers, because it results in some of the compression you hear with an alnico speaker. I'm sure CK could tell you more about its application in pickups. Alnico magnets can only be made in a few shapes. Nickel and cobalt are relatively expensive metals.

Ceramic magnets are made with magnetic particles (iron?) suspended it a matrix of, you guessed it, ceramic. Because it's ceramic, it can be molded into any number of shapes, and is inexpensive to produce. Because it's inexpensive, and more stable in application than Alnico, it replaced Alnico for many applications.

[photoweborama]

deja Vu?

[NDRU]

Are there noticeable differences in sound?

Is it subtle or obvious?

[Russ]

Are there noticeable differences in sound?

Is it subtle or obvious?

The answer is found in the ears of the beholder , that being said I find most vintage spec.ed Alnico pups to sound fuller , less harsh , clearer, more responsive to pick attack and volume & tone setting. And thats what Fender used in the begining and as far as I hears it , what was in the begining was the right choice so as it was in the begining so shall it be. IMO hey other people like ceramic pups what ever , I remember in an article I read, whenLeo was doing the G&L thing, he said ceramic with a pre amp was the way to go, Music Man guitars and basses had that stuff going on as well ..some of them any way.

[jerryjg]

As far as strats go, i dont think there are so many good choices with ceramic pickups. Humbuckers, though are diffeent. There are some really excellent sounding ceramic 'buckers. The Duncan Custom 5 comes to mind.

[NDRU]

What I keep hearing is that Ceramic PU's are good for high gain stuff, but don't have a great clean tone.

I'm sure some of that is hype, but that's what I'm beginning to believe based on the PU's in this guitar...

http://www.reverendguitars.com/rever...ta_ray_hb.html

...which has ceramic pickups.

A decent sound, sure, and probably any improvement in PU will only be noticed by me (someone recently complimented my tone and asked if the guitar was a real Les Paul ) but hey I want to notice an improvement--particularly in the clean tone.