Sage-Tips

What are pole pieces pickup?

Pole pieces are the screws, poles, or posts that run through the guitar pickup’s coil to serve as a magnetic conductor for each string. Frequently you see one pole piece per string (or two, in a humbucking pickup), but many designs also employ one long pole piece, or blade, to detect each string.

How do I identify an alnico magnet?

The only way to tell what type of alnico you have is to measure the gauss of the magnet when it’s fully charged. Alnico 5 is the most commen and it’s got a max gauss of about 1200 but most of the time it’s degaussed to about 700 to 800.

What magnets are used for guitar pickups?

The two most commonly types of magnet used in guitar pickups are Alnico and Ceramic. AlNiCo is an alloy composed of iron, aluminium, nickel, cobalt, copper and titanium. Different grades of alnico have varying amounts of each component material.

What is a magnetic pole piece?

A pole piece is a structure composed of material of high magnetic permeability that serves to direct the magnetic field produced by a magnet. Pole pieces are used with both permanent magnets and electromagnets.

Are pickup pole pieces magnetic?

they are NOT magnetized… REAL Strat pickups do not have a bar magnet on their bottom and the pole pieces are individual magnets.. usually alnico magnets.

Why are pickup magnets different heights?

To put it simply, they help bring the volume of each individual string into balance so that one string or a couple strings aren’t disproportionally loud compared to the other strings. Since string height corresponds to a fretboard radius, the strings themselves vary in their height above the pickups.

What are alnico magnets used for?

While alnico magnets have largely been replaced by stronger rare-earth magnets, alnico are still commonly used in the manufacturing of sensors, guitar pickups, relays and high temperature handling equipment. Alnico magnets play a critical part in all electro permanent magnetic chucks and lifting magnets.

What’s the difference between Alnico 2 and Alnico 5?

Alnico 5 is a little stronger magnet, resulting in a slightly brighter tone. Alnico 2 is a little weaker, resulting in a slightly warmer tone. Alnico 5 has more MAGNETIC material and less FERRIC material, resulting in slightly lower Inductance.

What is the difference between Alnico 2 and Alnico 5?

What is Alnico magnet?

Alnico magnets are permanent magnets that are primarily made up of a combination of aluminium, nickel and cobalt but can also include copper, iron and titanium.

What are the different magnetic poles?

There are two types of magnetic poles, called the north magnetic pole and south magnetic pole. North magnetic poles are those that are attracted toward the Earth’s geographic north pole. Like poles repel and unlike poles attract.

What is the difference between the north and south pole of a magnet?

Magnets are objects that can either attract or repel other magnets. The main difference between north and south pole is that a north pole is attracted towards the south pole of another magnet while a south pole is attracted towards the north pole of another magnet.

What is an alnico magnet on a pickup?

In a P.A.F. humbucking guitar pickup the Alnico magnet provides a pick attack and compression that many players find pleasing when compared to the tonal characteristics of a ceramic magnet in a humbucking guitar pickup. Alnico magnet installed in vintage P.A.F. pickup.

What is the weakest alnico magnet?

Alnico 3 is the weakest of the Alnico magnets and has the lowest amount of string pull in a bar magnet. As a guitar pickup magnet, it’s lows are soft and bouncy, mids are generally warm and full, and highs are glassy.

Do slugs affect the tone of a PAF electric guitar pickup?

As with the pole screws the steel chemistry of the slugs affects the tone of a PAF electric guitar pickup. As part of research for ThroBak PAF replicas I lab tested multiple examples of vintage PAF slugs.

What type of magnets do guitar pickups use?

In guitar pickups, we use Permanent Magnets. These are magnets that produce a persistent magnetic field – a field that will keep pulling and pushing, all the time. This can be an alloy (a mixture of metals) – like AlNiCo (Hey! You’ve heard of that!), or, Rare-Earth magnets like Samarium-Cobalt and Neodymium magnets.