Fender Ceramic Pickups Vs Alnico

Alnico vs ceramic magnets.

Fender ceramic pickups vs alnico.

Ceramic pickups generally offer a brighter and more glassy sound. And that they did alnico magnet pickups were found to produce a smooth warm and highly musical tone. Back then alnico was the high tech material of the age and fender continued to use it through the 1950s and 1960s. A lot of people automatically say that alnico is superior to ceramic in pickups.

To crown a winner in our alnico vs ceramic magnets shootout we would need a way to accurately compare the two which is not an easy task. Ceramic pickup magnets for you. The result is a slightly hotter sounding pickup with more treble response. Ceramic even brighter than alnico v or iii and often used for high output pickups to help counterbalance the treble lost by the higher dc resistance many other factors effect tone.

You often hear that the sound of a pickup is dominated by the choice of magnet used in its construction. Whereas ceramic is used in metal as it sounds tight loud and cool. There are a lot of different components and modifications that go into shaping the sound of a pickup. Magnetically speaking ceramic magnets produce a stronger field than alnico.

For example the guage of the magnet wire is known by pickup manufacturers to effect tone. These include the type and gauge of wiring how many times it s turned the material the magnet is made of and its size. So we often hear. Alnico tends to produce a very musical pickup in most.

Sure enough fender started making pickups with alnico magnets as early as the late 1940s. You ll notice more midrange and treble response from a ceramic pickup. Alnico is nice and warm and great for blues. Alnico seems to be the popular favorite but on the other hand there is no shortage of popular recordings that feature ceramic.

Ceramic magnets are made from ferrites often iron oxides.