This was new to me.

[Floyd Rosenbomb]

Pickup magnet swaps.

 

Haha, you didn't see that one coming, did ya.

 

 

In my case the pickups are ibanez V7 and V8 humbuckers. These pickups come stock in many middle range, and some of the prestige, Ibanez guitars. Basically, on the underside of your humbuckers is a bar magnet like this,

 

 

 

 

 

 

the shiny part across the middle is the bar magnet that you have heard of. It just pops right out. It is either a ceramic, alnico 5, alnico 4, alnico 2, alnico 8 type magnet. There are likely other types as well. Each one of these magnets gives it's own unique sound/tone. It is a very easy operation to get into one of these pickups and remove the magent to replace it with another. The magnets are cheep, too. So it is an effective way to up your pickups without changing out the whole thing. I'll link to a demonsrtion below.

 

So to wrap this up. The ibanez V7 was the neck pickup and the V8 the bridge. The V7 had a ceramic magnet and the bridge v8 a Alnico 5. According to people in the know, this stock set up is a little counter intuitive as alnico5 magnets are often used in the neck to give a more vintage tone. A lot of guys are simply swapping the magnets on these two stock pickups and giving very good reports. I had to give it a try.

 

What did I find? It did indeed change the tones from each pickup, and I could see the merit in the swap. Ultimately I felt that I actually liked the ceramic magnet in the neck pickup. That for this application I liked the dynamics that the ceramic offers over the more smooth alnico 5. It was cool to see how easy this was, and that the magnets can be bought cheap. This mod is pretty low impact on the wallet (in my case it was free) for someone looking for something different out of their guitar.

 

 

Here's is a link,

 

jXbzqQZu-Qk

 

The one caution that I am aware of is that you want to keep track of the polarity of your pickups as you swap them out, so don't confuse which side of the magnet is north and which is south.

 

Is this something that you would try, or have done?

Did you have good results?

[brandass]

Thanks for the run-down, nicely done! Been meaning to try it, haven't had a good opportunity yet.

[GilmourD]

Magnet swapping is a huge deal over at SeymourDuncan.com's forums. In fact, the Custom 5 was practically invented on the forum by doing that with a Custom or Custom Custom. Everybody's still waiting for the Custom 8 to appear.

[DeepEnd]

Unfortunately, it looks like it won't work with most single coils. I knew I should've gotten a guitar with humbuckers.

[Ratae Corieltauvorum]

Unfortunately' date=' it looks like it won't work with most single coils. I [i']knew[/i] I should've gotten a guitar with humbuckers.

 

You may not be able to change magnets with a traditional Strat pickup, however you can have fun re-gaussing them, ie degauss slightly to knock off some highs on some poles, you can reverse the polarity and you can fully charge a Strat pickup with a $10 NeoDymium magnet. Also a pickup winder by the name of Pete Biltoft has engineered his pickups to be able to change magnets as you wish, so his humbuckers, P90s and Strat sized P90s are all changeable within minutes.

 

Here the bucker, so basically remove 6 screws off the back and you have a little magnet compartment

 

[knotty]

I am not too up on magnets. I thought the different materials just made the field stronger/denser or weaker. If thats the case why is this different than raising or lowering the pup?

 

[WRGKMC]

Strength is am part of it, a good part. The rest you have to get down to nuclear science and how densely the dipoles align.

Impure metals have more elements that are non magnetic and don't align when magnetized so the field may be weak in one area and

stronger in another. The magnet may be stronger as a whole but its lines of force may be uneven.

 

Other metals may have a very even field along its edges because it has less non ferric impurities and it produces an smooth even field.

It gets bent and channeled by the pole pieces up through the coil and projected through the air around the strings.

If the field is denser it will pick up a more accurate string vibration.

 

A stronger magnet on the other hand will produce a stronger field and stronger signal but not necessarily more even and accurate.

The magnetic field gets disrupted and moves as the string move. If the source has less impurities it has more lines of force to follow

the strings movement and produces better copies of the overtones a string produces within the coil.

 

There may be some microphonic differences as between magnets as well. Different metals conduct the direct vibration from the body

as well. The body and pickups vibrate at a slightly delayed rate than the strings do. The sound travels down the string through the nut and bridge

into the neck and body. The body under the pickups moves up, down, sideways and the pickup screwed to the body moves as well.

Solids do conduct sound better than air does but it is slightly delayed by the time the vibrations of the strings make it around to the body and pickup.

It creates some of the unique resonant tones different guitars produce.

 

If a pickup has allot of foam in back of it most of that body resonance will be absorbed leaving the strings to produce most of the sound.

Anything holding the pickup in place like a plastic pick guard, metal mounting rings on the body itself can influence the microphonic tone.

I have one Strat like guitar I built. I tried a number of pick guard materials like Plexiglas and Plastic. I eventually made a pick guard made

out of thin wood and the difference in tone was amazing. Its my best floating whammy bar guitars that remains in tune after vigorous use of the

tremolo. With the wood pick guard I can get incredible dive bomb tones. The speakers from the amp hit the wood pickguard and inject the pickups

with that vibration instead of absorbing it like plastics can and it adds to the sympathetic sound regeneration to get Santana like sustains

[knotty]

^^^^

Top stuff. Thanks very much for that. philthumb

 

ps. I could not work with magnets in physics, if I hold one or keep it in very close proximity they make me nauseous, like I am seasick. Dont know why. Not psychological either. Some of the lads hid them as a test. It still worked when I did not know. Not so bad now I am older.

[gdsmithtx]

As GilmourD said, there are a lot of threads talking about it on the SeymourDuncan and other forums. Some of them bring up extremely interesting ideas, including the "half air" mod, in which a non-conductive spacer is placed between the magnet and the polepieces, often resulting in a more "open" sounding pickup. (http://www.lonephantom.com/2010/07/m...-half-air-mod/)

 

EWHat the hell's up with posting inline links and the signatures? And the frickin' cursor is jumping all over the damned place when I'm trying to edit a line ... iit goes to the end for some damned reason.

[Floyd Rosenbomb]

I'm tempted to try the half air mod, it's so simple to do it's just begging to be done.

[WRGKMC]

^^^^

Top stuff. Thanks very much for that. philthumb

 

ps. I could not work with magnets in physics, if I hold one or keep it in very close proximity they make me nauseous, like I am seasick. Don't know why. Not psychological either. Some of the lads hid them as a test. It still worked when I did not know. Not so bad now I am older.

 

The earth is one huge magnet so you're always having magnetic flux passing through your body.

And on top of that, you have millions of different magnetic radio and cosmic waves passing through

your body at any given second of the day.

 

I don't hold any belief that magnets can affect you in any way. The only materials in your body might be affected

by magnetism is the iron in your blood but that percentage is so low its barely measurable, plus its part of the

blood cells which are pumped by the hear very quickly. Holding a magnet in your hand is not going to stop your blood flow

for sure. Maybe if you eat nails for breakfast you could get a magnet to stick to your belly like a refrigerator.

 

 

Along this same line is those Snake Oil salesmen who sell magnet shoe inserts and bracelets. Its all a bunch of

poop with no scientific evidence. You will have people swear by it, the same way as they swear UFO's exist and

the Kennedy Assignation was a Conspiracy. If it turns them on to believe it, no harm is done.

 

People seem to have a need to believe in things as a relief from reality. As musicians we should all know about this

because its our jobs to give people an escape from reality and elevate them to higher plains of thinking.

We just want to be sure we take responsibility for this ability and don't abuse others with it. If you take them for a ride

with your music, its best to bring them back to earth afterwards and don't get lost in fantasy ourselves.

 

You'll always have those who don't want to come back, or hurt themselves in the process and wind up mentally ill.

Look at what happened to the Stones when they had that guy pull a gun in the audience. They had a bunch of people

doing drugs, lost control of the audience, and couldn't talk them back down. I've been in similar situations and it

can be scary as hell. Nut cases are drawn to live bands and you have to know they may be stuck in the ozone.

you may even be part of the cause so if anyone, you need to keep your feet on the ground, if not to help others,

but to keep your whit's about you in dangerous situations.

[onelife]

 

ps. I could not work with magnets in physics, if I hold one or keep it in very close proximity they make me nauseous, like I am seasick. Dont know why. Not psychological either. Some of the lads hid them as a test. It still worked when I did not know. Not so bad now I am older.

 

That's very interesting. I've often wondered what effect electronic and magnetic waves have on the human body and if those effects are sometimes too subtle to be noticed enough to warrant investigation or change.

[onelife]

 

... its our jobs to give people an escape from reality and elevate them to higher plains of thinking...

 

Wouldn't the view of reality be more accurate from the higher plain of thinking?

 

 

[guitarcapo]

I had a Gretsch Corvette with "Megatron" pickups in it. These were hotly wound Filtertron type pickups with ceramic magnets. Instead of going the usual route and spending $150 on some TV Jones pickups to replace them, I swapped out the magnet for a $10 alnico bar magnet. It sounded great that way. Very much like a TV Jones Powertron pickup. Saved me some money.

[guitarcapo]

I had a Gretsch Corvette with "Megatron" pickups in it. These were hotly wound Filtertron type pickups with ceramic magnets. Instead of going the usual route and spending $150 on some TV Jones pickups to replace them, I swapped out the magnet for a $10 alnico bar magnet. It sounded great that way. Very much like a TV Jones Powertron pickup. Saved me some money.

[guitarcapo]

I had a Gretsch Corvette with "Megatron" pickups in it. These were hotly wound Filtertron type pickups with ceramic magnets. Instead of going the usual route and spending $150 on some TV Jones pickups to replace them, I swapped out the magnet for a $10 alnico bar magnet. It sounded great that way. Very much like a TV Jones Powertron pickup. Saved me some money.

[guitarcapo]

I had a Gretsch Corvette with "Megatron" pickups in it. These were hotly wound Filtertron type pickups with ceramic magnets. Instead of going the usual route and spending $150 on some TV Jones pickups to replace them, I swapped out the magnet for a $10 alnico bar magnet. It sounded great that way. Very much like a TV Jones Powertron pickup. Saved me some money.

[guitarcapo]

I had a Gretsch Corvette with "Megatron" pickups in it. These were hotly wound Filtertron type pickups with ceramic magnets. Instead of going the usual route and spending $150 on some TV Jones pickups to replace them, I swapped out the magnet for a $10 alnico bar magnet. It sounded great that way. Very much like a TV Jones Powertron pickup. Saved me some money.

[WRGKMC]

Wouldn't the view of reality be more accurate from the higher plain of thinking? ~~

 

Depends on who and how you're trying to connect with others.

Unlike words Music can connect with people subliminally and consciously.

If a person hears a piece of music it may make them feel good or bad and they may not even think of why it influences them.

Poetry too can do these same things and having lyrics and music combined is doubly effective.

 

Words only seem to be less subliminal. People seem to have certain defense mechanisms they use to filter

the spoken word and let in what they like and block or ignore what they dislike. I can remember many a day sitting in

school listening to some teachers boring lecture and got into that Charlie Brown mode and saw the teachers lips move but heard no

cognizable words.

 

 

That's very interesting. I've often wondered what effect electronic and magnetic waves have on the human body and if those effects are sometimes too subtle to be noticed enough to warrant investigation or change.

 

There have been many studies on the topic done but so far nothing is conclusive. They just cant come up with any real medical facts.

They had some scientists tell you magnetic radio waves from cellphones gave you brain cancer.

Another one about living near high voltage transmission wires caused the same thing.

The problem is the same cancers occur whether someone has a cellphone or live near high voltage wires.

And you'd have to screen all those other causes and rule them out as well.

 

There are waves magnetic waves like micro waves that will cook you instantly. I know a guy in my business that did

cell tower repairs and he accidentally waved his hand in front of the emitter and fried his hand. Those waves are closer to

light waves which are extremely high frequency. We all know too much sunlight will cook your skin too.

Who knows, We may find most of the cancers and illnesses come from cosmic radiations.

Some of them like X-ray can diagnose and heal as well as cause cancers.

 

 

Its not to say you don't do the research. Maybe some day there will be conclusive proof that low frequency waves have some effect

on us physically or mentally, but when I hear someone saying something weird like the fillings in their teeth are acting as radio

receivers and the are the cause of why they hear voices in their head I'd say that person not only needs medical help, but

they should lay off the Sci Fi Movies until the symptom goes away.

 

Hell, they didn't even know what electricity was until a hundred or so years ago, and even then the only way they could

explain the invisible force was to use mathematical theory to validate its effects. I got my degree in electronics in 1980 and

they were still using the old water and hose analogy to explain how electricity worked. Electricity uses the same math formulas

used in all physics. You simply throw different values into the formulas. You only really understand electronics and magnetism

when you get down to a nuclear level. All the electronic components are made up from different materials that come from the

elemental chart. Having at least some idea of how these elements react with each other is the key to understanding how those

components work.

 

It wasn't until the 30's or 40's when the electronic microscope was invented by some German Scientist.

It took another 30~40 years to where they were able to use it to actually see electrons move through materials.

We'd still be using antique computers and laptops the size of a suitcase with less than one gig speeds without that tool.

They used it to see what was causing chips to heat up and cause the electrons to slow down passing through silicone.

They were then able to remove the impurities and make faster chips that produces less heat.

 

Magnets are the coolest thing though because its force is invisible.

magnets are related to gravity and maybe they do bend space time like a sun does bending light.

Gravity is a magnetism so strong it attracts all elements. It dates back to the beginning of time.

Its also one of 4 key elements that created everything in the universe during the big bang.

Our gift in life is we are given power over gravity for the short time we live before that same gravity

drags us back into the earth eventually there by validating the old phrase from dust we come and dust we go.

[plasticscouse]

I did it to the p90 on my Epiphone Junior it's not potted and really easy to do on it, It had ceramic in it already, I bought some alnico 2 and 5s, both mellowed it a bit. the 2 a bit too much, o I kept the 5 in it.

That made me brave/foolish and I tried with my LP standard the neck worked, but I ruined a good couple of (cheap) bridge pups. I think I crushed the wires when I put it back together. I'm not trying it again with potted covered humbuckers again.

 

 

[Floyd Rosenbomb]

 

Depends on who and how you're trying to connect with others.

Unlike words Music can connect with people subliminally and consciously.

If a person hears a piece of music it may make them feel good or bad and they may not even think of why it influences them.

Poetry too can do these same things and having lyrics and music combined is doubly effective.

 

Words only seem to be less subliminal. People seem to have certain defense mechanisms they use to filter

the spoken word and let in what they like and block or ignore what they dislike. I can remember many a day sitting in

school listening to some teachers boring lecture and got into that Charlie Brown mode and saw the teachers lips move but heard no

cognizable words.

 

 

 

 

There have been many studies on the topic done but so far nothing is conclusive. They just cant come up with any real medical facts.

They had some scientists tell you magnetic radio waves from cellphones gave you brain cancer.

Another one about living near high voltage transmission wires caused the same thing.

The problem is the same cancers occur whether someone has a cellphone or live near high voltage wires.

And you'd have to screen all those other causes and rule them out as well.

 

There are waves magnetic waves like micro waves that will cook you instantly. I know a guy in my business that did

cell tower repairs and he accidentally waved his hand in front of the emitter and fried his hand. Those waves are closer to

light waves which are extremely high frequency. We all know too much sunlight will cook your skin too.

Who knows, We may find most of the cancers and illnesses come from cosmic radiations.

Some of them like X-ray can diagnose and heal as well as cause cancers.

 

 

Its not to say you don't do the research. Maybe some day there will be conclusive proof that low frequency waves have some effect

on us physically or mentally, but when I hear someone saying something weird like the fillings in their teeth are acting as radio

receivers and the are the cause of why they hear voices in their head I'd say that person not only needs medical help, but

they should lay off the Sci Fi Movies until the symptom goes away.

 

Hell, they didn't even know what electricity was until a hundred or so years ago, and even then the only way they could

explain the invisible force was to use mathematical theory to validate its effects. I got my degree in electronics in 1980 and

they were still using the old water and hose analogy to explain how electricity worked. Electricity uses the same math formulas

used in all physics. You simply throw different values into the formulas. You only really understand electronics and magnetism

when you get down to a nuclear level. All the electronic components are made up from different materials that come from the

elemental chart. Having at least some idea of how these elements react with each other is the key to understanding how those

components work.

 

It wasn't until the 30's or 40's when the electronic microscope was invented by some German Scientist.

It took another 30~40 years to where they were able to use it to actually see electrons move through materials.

We'd still be using antique computers and laptops the size of a suitcase with less than one gig speeds without that tool.

They used it to see what was causing chips to heat up and cause the electrons to slow down passing through silicone.

They were then able to remove the impurities and make faster chips that produces less heat.

 

Magnets are the coolest thing though because its force is invisible.

magnets are related to gravity and maybe they do bend space time like a sun does bending light.

Gravity is a magnetism so strong it attracts all elements. It dates back to the beginning of time.

Its also one of 4 key elements that created everything in the universe during the big bang.

Our gift in life is we are given power over gravity for the short time we live before that same gravity

drags us back into the earth eventually there by validating the old phrase from dust we come and dust we go.

 

I'd don't know if you will dig this or not, but your last post makes me think that you would find this video interesting,

 

5qkcfs-wlG8

[allisonpaige]

had these 2 also.

[Floyd Rosenbomb]

had these 2 also.

 

Interesting first post, Allison.

Which two are you referring to?

Welcome!

[gdsmithtx]

[video=youtube;WloCr8VOGXU]

[datac58]

I know its been quite a while since you posted this, but where did you find the magnets for this swap. I would like to do this, but I understand that the alnico magnets would have to be 1/4" thick. Is this correct?