Alnico Vs Ceramic Single Coil
A shootout between squier bullet ceramic pickups and classic vibe alnico pickups.
Alnico vs ceramic single coil. So we often hear. Whereas ceramic is used in metal as it sounds tight loud and cool. Alnico seems to be the popular favorite but on the other hand there is no shortage of popular recordings that feature ceramic pickups. There are fantastic pickups on the market which utilize ceramic magnets such as the dimarzio titan and the seymour duncan black winter.
However this is simply a misconception. 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. A lot of people automatically say that alnico is superior to ceramic in pickups. Alnico vs ceramic magnets.
Thanks to anyone who can offer up information on that. I m new to single coils and planning on buying an ssh guitar in the near future. Alnico is nice and warm and great for blues. The ceramic magnets seem to have a better frequency response but seemed to lack the open sound of the alnico s.
At its simplest an electric guitar pickup consists of a permanent magnet wrapped in coils of wire so it stands to reason that high quality magnets such as those containing alnico would make for high quality guitar pickups. Only difference between the samples is the pickups all else including strings is the same. The reason ceramic has a bad rap is probably due to its use. Btw i am now looking to find a single coil sized humbucker type pup with alnico magnets for my 91 strat.
Alnico tends to produce a very musical pickup in most setups. They provide a different flavor from alnico. However there are fantastic sounding ceramic pickups out there such as the g l mfd pickups as well as our own humbuckers and p90 s. You often hear that the sound of a pickup is dominated by the choice of magnet used in its construction.
To prevent number. From my limited music store auditioning it seems that the alnico single coils are airy and open with a laid back low end. Alnico viii is generally between ceramic and alnico v with quite a bit of magnetic pull punchy with upper mids but a little more warmth than ceramic.