Ceramic vs Alnico pickups - your preference and why?

[northernguitar]

In a humbucker, I’m convinced the Alnico V is the one for me. I don’t like them stupid-hot, my perfect HB is an earlier Gibson T-Top. I’ve only tried two ceramic HBs, the Gibson Dirty Fingers and a DiMarzio Super Distortion. The DF was just too one-dimensional for me, only excelling at heavy gain tones. I’m still on the fence about the SD. I put it in a guitar that didn’t play well, so I only got a taste of what it can sound like. I’m getting a bone nut installed and will see if I truly like it, which is how I’m leaning.

Lol, not much of an answer ….and IBTL!

 

[photoweborama]

I like em both.

 

[Ricky D.]

On a gig, it would never be noticed.

 

[58Bassman]

Yeah you’re right. Magnets have zero influence in the sound. I’ve been misled.

That's not true, electrically and magnetically- the frequency where they have a peak is different for various winds, wire gauge, magnets, etc. Whether it makes enough difference to care about it is up to the person who owns the guitar.

 

[Cali Dude]

I’ve slowly come to the realization that I prefer ceramic/ferrite magnet pickups vs Alnico. I’m not a metal player (more classic rock, pop, jazz, etc), but I feel I’m more in tune with the sound of ceramic pickups. As an example - I have Lace pickups in my Strat, MFD pickups in my G&L ASAT. My other Strat has Alnico along with my Gibson. The Alnico 5 based pickups seem less punchy with less full bass than the ceramics. I also find the ceramics more immediate and “snappy”/articulate. Anyone else experience this or prefer the opposite?

I'm with you on Lace gold and MFD pickups. They sound great. But, I do also love alnico humbuckers.

 

[58Bassman]

I’ve slowly come to the realization that I prefer ceramic/ferrite magnet pickups vs Alnico. I’m not a metal player (more classic rock, pop, jazz, etc), but I feel I’m more in tune with the sound of ceramic pickups. As an example - I have Lace pickups in my Strat, MFD pickups in my G&L ASAT. My other Strat has Alnico along with my Gibson. The Alnico 5 based pickups seem less punchy with less full bass than the ceramics. I also find the ceramics more immediate and “snappy”/articulate. Anyone else experience this or prefer the opposite?

And you used the Alnico V without another pickup, yet it was still not full sounding? How close to the strings are they?

Attack definitely can be different- any chance you can play another guitar with Alnico V, to compare?

 

[Trenchant63]

And you used the Alnico V without another pickup, yet it was still not full sounding? How close to the strings are they?

Attack definitely can be different- any chance you can play another guitar with Alnico V, to compare?

Oh yes - very full but soft attack - this is a Gibson 498t “hot Alnico”. Also tried Duncan Alnico II Pro - also softer but full. I was thinking maybe the Duncan Custom to get more immediacy to attack of notes - a harder attack on clean playing. That said - those previously mentioned pickups sound great but needing different attack response. I guess I’d describe it as a fuller, stouter attack on the low end primarily. Also agree - maybe the guitar is what it is … a warmoth alder Strat body .. Thanks for any suggestions!!

 

[Antigua Tele]

I don't understand why people get offended when talking about pickup specs. As if anyone wants to try a hundred pickup sets and have never develop a sense of why some sound more pleasant that others to our own ears. I've learned to avoid a lot of pickups based on knowing specs I've come to not like in a pickup.

When talking about ceramic pickups, the ceramic doesn't really matter, it's the steal pole pieces that matter. 95% of this discussion is actually AlNiCo versus steel. You could slap an AlNiCo magnet on the bottom and the outcome would be the same, just with a weaker overall magnetism. It would be sort of like a P-90 in terms of materials.

Steel is much different from AlNiCo for two main reasons, its more conductive, so you get more eddy currents, which makes the resonant Q factor low, so they sound more punchy and less ice-pick, in general, the other difference is that steel has a higher relative permeability than AlNiCo, over 1000 mu rel versus about 5 mu rel, so the difference is in orders of magnitude. That causes the inductance of a pickup with steel pole pieces to be higher than AlNiCo, therefore lowering the resonant peak frequency, and that's probably the main reason people wouldn't like ceramic steel pickups, they have a low Q factor and a low resonant peak, all else being equal.

You often find the DC resistance of a ceramic steel single coil to be 6.5k to 7k, especially the Mexican made Fender pickups. A lot of wire like that will increase the inductance, but the steel increases it further, so the inductance for a Mexi single coil is often around 3.5 henries, which is high, it can make a single coil seem more like a little humbucker in terms of tone. If you slip the steel slugs out and put AlNiCo poles in the pickup, the inductance will drop to about 2.5H, which correlates with the vintage Strat sound that was made famous by people like Dire Straits, taking advantage of the pristine clean sound of low output Fender single coils.

But you can get a ceramic steel pickup that will sound closer to an AlNiCo, some Chinese cheapos come with ceramic steel pickups with a DC resistance of only around 5k, essentially they're underwound because they're cheap, but the end result is that the inductance lands closer to 2.5H like a vintage Strat pickup. Even though they sound more like a vintage Strat, they usually come in cheap, otherwise trashy guitars that cause you visualize anything other than a vintage Strat.

Even though the relative permeability of steel is five hundred to a thousand times higher than AlNiCo, the inductance is not increased by that magnitude because when looking at the overall magnetic circuit of the pickup, the majority of the path is air, and that limits the multiplier effect, but if you look at a Bill Lawrence Q filter, it has a full ceramic enclosure, and in fact the Q filter achieves about 2 henries of inductance with merely a hundred or so turns of wire, as much as a Strat pickup with about 7000 turns of wire, so when the air is replaced by high permeability material, then the multiplier effect does become very substantial.

Electrical steel has a higher permeability that AlNiCo because it has many many many more free magnetic domains than AlNiCo, but other kinds of steel used for high strength don't, electrical steel is formulated for the purpose of having a high mu rel. The fact of AlNiCo having fewer free domains is what makes it a "magnet", the polarity remains stuck in a given direction. There's a cool youtube video where a guy uses a guitar amp to hear those magnetic domains moving around in what appears to be a piece of rebar

 

[Trenchant63]

I don't understand why people get offended when talking about pickup specs. As if anyone wants to try a hundred pickup sets and have never develop a sense of why some sound more pleasant that others to our own ears. I've learned to avoid a lot of pickups based on knowing specs I've come to not like in a pickup.

When talking about ceramic pickups, the ceramic doesn't really matter, it's the steal pole pieces that matter. 95% of this discussion is actually AlNiCo versus steel. You could slap an AlNiCo magnet on the bottom and the outcome would be the same, just with a weaker overall magnetism. It would be sort of like a P-90 in terms of materials.

Steel is much different from AlNiCo for two main reasons, its more conductive, so you get more eddy currents, which makes the resonant Q factor low, so they sound more punchy and less ice-pick, in general, the other difference is that steel has a higher relative permeability than AlNiCo, over 1000 mu rel versus about 5 mu rel, so the difference is in orders of magnitude. That causes the inductance of a pickup with steel pole pieces to be higher than AlNiCo, therefore lowering the resonant peak frequency, and that's probably the main reason people wouldn't like ceramic steel pickups, they have a low Q factor and a low resonant peak, all else being equal.

You often find the DC resistance of a ceramic steel single coil to be 6.5k to 7k, especially the Mexican made Fender pickups. A lot of wire like that will increase the inductance, but the steel increases it further, so the inductance for a Mexi single coil is often around 3.5 henries, which is high, it can make a single coil seem more like a little humbucker in terms of tone. If you slip the steel slugs out and put AlNiCo poles in the pickup, the inductance will drop to about 2.5H, which correlates with the vintage Strat sound that was made famous by people like Dire Straits, taking advantage of the pristine clean sound of low output Fender single coils.

But you can get a ceramic steel pickup that will sound closer to an AlNiCo, some Chinese cheapos come with ceramic steel pickups with a DC resistance of only around 5k, essentially they're underwound because they're cheap, but the end result is that the inductance lands closer to 2.5H like a vintage Strat pickup. Even though they sound more like a vintage Strat, they usually come in cheap, otherwise trashy guitars that make your eyes think of anything other than a vintage Strat.

Even though the relative permeability of steel is five hundred to a thousand times higher than AlNiCo, the inductance is not increased by that magnitude because when looking at the overall magnetic circuit of the pickup, the majority of the path is air, and that limits the multiplier effect, but if you look at a Bill Lawrence Q filter, it has a full ceramic enclosure, and in fact the Q filter achieves about 2 henries of inductance with merely a hundred or so turns of wire, as much as a Strat pickup with about 7000 turns of wire, so when the air is replaced by high permeability material, then the multiplier effect does become very substantial.

Electrical steel has a higher permeability that AlNiCo because it has many many many more free magnetic domains than AlNiCo, but other kinds of steel used for high strength don't, electrical steel is formulated for the purpose of having a high mu rel. There's a cool youtube video where a guy uses a guitar amp to hear those magnetic domains moving around in what appears to be a piece of rebar

Very fascinating - I like learning about this stuff and you introduced some new concepts to me here. Also - it’s fun experimenting and finding a path to better sound for a person’s playing situation. It NEVER gets boring!! Thanks for this writeup!!

 

[wildschwein]

I use both and can make either work great, especially with LCR networks (passive midrange filters) or treble bleeds.

 

[58Bassman]

I use both and can make either work great, especially with LCR networks (passive midrange filters) or treble bleeds.

How wide is the midrange band that you're controlling?

 

[wildschwein]

How wide is the midrange band that you're controlling?

Couldn’t tell you exactly in terms of the frequency range but it’s enough to make a humbucker sound like a single coil. I use the Wilde Q filter or Kent Armstrong Tone Choke on my guitars and wire to a pot so I can vary the amount I’m rolling off. It’s an incredible mod for a guitar.

 

[ABetterTelePlayer]

No. I'm saying you can't change multiple variables and attribute the results to one of them. I'm also saying it ultimately doesn't matter what kind of magnet is in your pickup as long as you like the sound.

Some pickup winders here in the forum claim Alnico 5 are the "superior" magnet. This makes it hard for me to buy from them as I've learned that the whole "Alnico 5 ALWAYS!" is a marketing gimmick, which explains why larger manufacturers are going to hybrid sets which either split one magnet into two (one side a different Alnico from another) or even one pickup being a completely different magnet from another.

I've converted from Alnico V loyalist to Alnico 2, Alnico 3 with Alnico 5 hybrid sets. I've found them to be quite refreshing and original sounding as opposed to Alnico 5 all the time.

As far as Ceramics, I have not paid attention to them. Maybe I'll get a set of Railhammer's Billy Corgan Z-one Humcutters and throw them in an axe. I don't play super high gain stuff.

 

[Zarkon]

It's so specific to the pickup/guitar that I could never generalize based on magnet type, but I don't think it's controversial to say that some magnet types are better for certain applications than others. It just depends on what you want.

 

[NeverTooLate]

I’ve slowly come to the realization that I prefer ceramic/ferrite magnet pickups vs Alnico. I’m not a metal player (more classic rock, pop, jazz, etc), but I feel I’m more in tune with the sound of ceramic pickups. As an example - I have Lace pickups in my Strat, MFD pickups in my G&L ASAT. My other Strat has Alnico along with my Gibson. The Alnico 5 based pickups seem less punchy with less full bass than the ceramics. I also find the ceramics more immediate and “snappy”/articulate. Anyone else experience this or prefer the opposite?

As a beginner, I only recently tried a Jem with Evo pickups right before I tried two Les Pauls, the Standard and the Guitar Center version. I have been a Vai fan since 1989 so there is that part to it, that the sound of Evo pickups is etched in my brain.

Jem--evolution, ceramic
LP standard with A2 and the GC version with A5.

Back-to-back, same person, same settings, same pick, same everything.

I loved the Jem to the point that despite its pretentious looks for a beginner, it shot straight to top of my wish list for when I develop enough to not feel too stupid holding one (even if only the dog is watching LOl). The LP standard I liked a lot, the GC, I did not really like (aside from the playability where comparing an LP to a Jem is like comparing a 1950s race car to a modern F1, lol).

As for isolating the pickups, there is nothing wrong with that given amps/modeller, speakers/headphones are the same. Unless one is a tonewood believer, of course.

Since then I have been paying more attention to magnets and it is indeed true that I love good ceramic ones best and I also like Gibson Alnico 2 ones. I do like my Player Plus A5 stacked humbuckers but they lack the output I want. I am sure I like some Alnico 5 but as a general rule of thumb, I seem to gravitate towards air burning hot ceramic ones OR towards warm, friendly, subdued A2 depending on mood.

 

[Trenchant63]

As a beginner, I only recently tried a Jem with Evo pickups right before I tried two Les Pauls, the Standard and the Guitar Center version. I have been a Vai fan since 1989 so there is that part to it, that the sound of Evo pickups is etched in my brain.

Jem--evolution, ceramic
LP standard with A2 and the GC version with A5.

Back-to-back, same person, same settings, same pick, same everything.

I loved the Jem to the point that despite its pretentious looks for a beginner, it shot straight to top of my wish list for when I develop enough to not feel too stupid holding one (even if only the dog is watching LOl). The LP standard I liked a lot, the GC, I did not really like (aside from the playability where comparing an LP to a Jem is like comparing a 1950s race car to a modern F1, lol).

As for isolating the pickups, there is nothing wrong with that given amps/modeller, speakers/headphones are the same. Unless one is a tonewood believer, of course.

Since then I have been paying more attention to magnets and it is indeed true that I love good ceramic ones best and I also like Gibson Alnico 2 ones. I do like my Player Plus A5 stacked humbuckers but they lack the output I want. I am sure I like some Alnico 5 but as a general rule of thumb, I seem to gravitate towards air burning hot ceramic ones OR towards warm, friendly, subdued A2 depending on mood.

This sounded familiar to me. I like the A2/mellow A5 in the neck, and a ceramic focused on the bridge. Someone else here emphasized the material of the pole pieces being almost more important than the bar magnet type itself - but in keeping with the pickup manufacturers marketing - I simplify it down to Alnico vs Ceramic. That is cool and thanks for the perspective!

 

[Zepfan]

I've found good use of both types.
Lately I'm enjoying the Neodymium mag pickups that Deneb-Tone made(Vladimir).

 

[Vocalion]

I really like the ceramic pickups on my MIM Stratocaster, but...

I had one of those ten-way Free-Way pickup selector switches installed, and the positions where pairs of pickups run in series instead of in parallel are so hot wide open they're borderline unusable, in particular the neck and middle combined. I suspect that the switch would work better on lower-output Alnicos.

 

[NeverTooLate]

I just listened to two pickup samples on the Seymour Duncan website not looking at magnets at all.

The first was their PAF 59 using, as I later saw, Alnico 5.
The other was Dimebucker. Turns out it is ceramic.

I compared them on all available settings, but the first, clean tone/rock immediately made me prefer the Dimebacker and that preference remained.

To me it is significant because I was not even thinking magnets and in no way was looking to confirm or disprove what I wrote above.

 

[johnnyASAT]

I think a lot of it has to do with how they build around the magnet, along with other factors involving your guitar as others have said. So there are plenty of ceramics I hate (whatever was in my LP Studio back in the day), but the G&L MFD is probably my favorite sounding pickup. Conversely there are plenty of Alnico pickups that follow the “correct” vintage recipe but just sound boring to me while others sound great to me.