Ceramic magnets

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Uke Man

Posted 04/02/2008 20:16:24

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Group: Forum Members
Last Login: 2 days ago @ 19:50:44
Posts: 54, Visits: 162

Re: your answer to my pick-ups question posed in the forum topic (I should learn to cut and paste here) "In response to Uke Man" by DanVLP - dated yesterday: What is a ceramic magnet?

Why don't you repost some of the answers you have recently given regarding short scale necks, pickups etc onto this part of the forum?

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Uke Man - "Man Overboard!"

Post #2182

Spacehog

Posted 04/02/2008 23:04:26

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Group: Forum Members
Last Login: 22/09/2008 14:33:09
Posts: 191, Visits: 562

I'll try and get to posting some of my recent pearls of (possibly dubious on occasion Wink

) wisdom later in the week when I'm a bit more awake... in the meantime, "what is a ceramic magnet?"

I'm not going to bore folks with too much science, but typically there are two types of magnetic pickup, typically called Alnico and Ceramic. An alnico pickup is so called because it's made up of three elements: Aluminium (Al), Nickel (Ni) and Cobalt (Co)... to get the name, they just bunged the three chemical symbols together, in the same way that the cymbal manufacturer Sabian got it's name (Sam, Bill and Andrew if I remember correctly).

A ceramic magnet (which doesn't really have much to do with ceramics as you might associate them with pottery or whatever, except that they're created by heating stuff up lots (which is what "ceramic" actually means)) means that it's a compound based around iron (ferrite). There is iron in an alnico pickup too, but a ceramic magnet is a more simple compound than an alnico one.

The two types of magnets used give different sounds in guitar pickups because they respond differently to vibrations, and have different frequency responses. It's not true to say that an alnico pickup is better suited to high gain applications, while a ceramic one is more vintage sounding, or vice versa - a look at DiMarzio's excellent website will disprove this (the Evolution pickups are ceramic while the Breed, Fred and others are alnico) - but generally an alnico pickup will give a fatter sound, while a ceramic one will be more focussed.

Voyager Project - Christian Progressive Metal

Post #2187