Pickup construction question

[travelin travis]

Anyone ever changed the bar magnet on a pickup? My fernandes strat copy has crappy pickups that use what look like ceramic bar magnets. I'm wondering if I swapped the magnets for some alnico bar magnets if the pickups would improve any.

 

[ggunn]

Anyone ever changed the bar magnet on a pickup? My fernandes strat copy has crappy pickups that use what look like ceramic bar magnets. I'm wondering if I swapped the magnets for some alnico bar magnets if the pickups would improve any.

Why not just replace the pickups?

 

[Milnoque]

All you can really know is that the sound would change. I'm assuming you have humbuckers. Swapping out the magnets is easy and reversible. Try it.

Be advised that reversing the polar orientation of the magnet in one of the pickups will make it out of phase with the other. This will affect the way the two pickups sound together. Some people like that sound.

The strength of the magnet also makes a big difference.

 

[faderbug]

maybe a bit of topic but would it work with an electro magnet?

 

[travelin travis]

Why not just replace the pickups?

Mainly because it's a cheap guitar and I might be able to improve the current pickups with a few bucks and a simple mod. Also, I just like tinkering with things.

All you can really know is that the sound would change. I'm assuming you have humbuckers. Swapping out the magnets is easy and reversible. Try it.

Be advised that reversing the polar orientation of the magnet in one of the pickups will make it out of phase with the other. This will affect the way the two pickups sound together. Some people like that sound.

The strength of the magnet also makes a big difference.

Actually, the pickups in this guitar are strat style single coils, except they have bar magnets rather than pole piece magnets. Seems kind of weird. I found some alnico v bar magnets at stewmac. No one else seems to carry them.