Neodymium Magnets For Pickups?

[bartbrown]

Anybody know of anyone using neodymium magnets for pickups?

Thanks!

Bart

[verhoevenc]

http://www.q-tuner.com/

Fellow Dutchmen

Chris

[RestorationAD]

Anybody know of anyone using neodymium magnets for pickups?

Thanks!

Bart

Good luck. They are very bright and harsh. They make very nice Bass Pickups.

Search here:

http://music-electronics-forum.com/f11/

[~davie]

Guitarfetish GFS. They make noiseless sets for strats and teles using Neodymium magnets called "NEOVIN"

Haven't tried them, but there are a few youtube videos of people using them.

http://store.guitarfetish.com/pickups.html

[SwedishLuthier]

There are several pickup winders using neos but they usually use then under or between steel blade or something similar. That way you get less magnetic pull and you have a bit more "manageable" magnetic fields force and shape.

They are very bright and harsh.

Yes and no. A magnet contributes to the sound in one major way: magnetic strength. Of cause there are other factors affecting the sound as we all know that there is a difference between the sound of an A2 and an A5 magnet, but the main difference between those two magnetic alloys are their different magnetic characteristics. In the same way we attribute a ceramic magnet with being bright and harsh. But if you use an A8 (Alnico 8) magnet and compare it to a C8 (ceramic 8, the most commonly used ceramic magnet and the same magnetic strength as a A8) they sound about the same. I even hear a bit more of the brightness in the A8 magnet, although the increased inductance and the introduction of eddy currents (as the A8 is conductive compared to the ceramic) will tame a bit off what can be described as "harshness". The same thing actually happens if you use neos and a steel blade. The increased inductance will affect the sound and most people feel that it also helps in balancing the sound a bit, taking away what most people regards as harsh aspects of the sound.

Neodymium and Rare earth magnet are IIRC the same thing. Bill Lawrence designed a "noiseless" set for Fender a few year ago using Samarium Cobalt magnets. They are pretty close to neos (at least if you compare Alnicos, traditional ceramic, neodymium and Samarium Cobalt).

[RestorationAD]

There are several pickup winders using neos but they usually use then under or between steel blade or something similar. That way you get less magnetic pull and you have a bit more "manageable" magnetic fields force and shape.

They are very bright and harsh.

Yes and no. A magnet contributes to the sound in one major way: magnetic strength. Of cause there are other factors affecting the sound as we all know that there is a difference between the sound of an A2 and an A5 magnet, but the main difference between those two magnetic alloys are their different magnetic characteristics. In the same way we attribute a ceramic magnet with being bright and harsh. But if you use an A8 (Alnico 8) magnet and compare it to a C8 (ceramic 8, the most commonly used ceramic magnet and the same magnetic strength as a A8) they sound about the same. I even hear a bit more of the brightness in the A8 magnet, although the increased inductance and the introduction of eddy currents (as the A8 is conductive compared to the ceramic) will tame a bit off what can be described as "harshness". The same thing actually happens if you use neos and a steel blade. The increased inductance will affect the sound and most people feel that it also helps in balancing the sound a bit, taking away what most people regards as harsh aspects of the sound.

Neodymium and Rare earth magnet are IIRC the same thing. Bill Lawrence designed a "noiseless" set for Fender a few year ago using Samarium Cobalt magnets. They are pretty close to neos (at least if you compare Alnicos, traditional ceramic, neodymium and Samarium Cobalt).

Nice answer!

While you are perfectly correct I will add an opinion not based on fact but based on experimentation.

For voodoo reasons I have never been able to use Neo mags for guitar pickups... Every time I have done sound comparisons by swapping magnets on the same pickup Neos lose to A8s or C8s respectively. I got tired of experimenting with them and moved on with the thoughts that we have been using Alnico and Ceramics for years for a reason. I want to do some Samarium Cobalt research but have been strapped for time lately.

[bartbrown]

Guitarfetish GFS. They make noiseless sets for strats and teles using Neodymium magnets called "NEOVIN"

Haven't tried them, but there are a few youtube videos of people using them.

http://store.guitarfetish.com/pickups.html

Yes -- If you go to GFS' Neovin page [http://store.guitarfetish.com/coju20nepino.html] there are sound samples for most of the "Neovin" pickups.

According to GFS, ALL the Neovins are humbuckers, even though they're in single-coil-sized form factors. Here's GFS' blurb, which I'm including NOT because I'm a salesman or cheerleader for GFS, but because I'd like to hear some of the forum's electromagnetic experts' opinions of what GFS says here:

"Neovins are dual coil humbuckers that are encapsulated in a unique ground shield array. The exposed polepieces are not magnets, but rather part of this array. With high tech, high efficiency Neodymium magnets, the neovins produce all of the explosive power, tone and sparkle of vintage pickups, with virtually ZERO hum and noise."

"Look- lots of noise free and hum canceling Strat pickups claim to be “vintage”- why are ours different?? It’s the approach. From our years of pickup design we know the pitfalls of hum canceling pickup design. Stacked humbuckers lose bottom end, side by side humbuckers lose treble response, shielded pickups lose feel and dynamics, active pickups hiss and lose that “human” flex and sag that make passive, analog pickups so musically significant.

"We started with a very narrow aperture side by side humbucker, then build a grounded “Shield” array that works to acoustically and magnetically “tune” the pickup. It’s a remarkable thing really, NAILING the tone, the feel, the rich, firm PIANO-like bottom end…. The sweet, not-too-harsh and very vintage midrange response…. The chimey, sparkly golden high end….It’s all there, with plenty to spare.

"The bridge pickup is a bit hotter than vintage pickups in term of tone and output level. You may need to slightly lower the bass side of the mid and neck to balance. Since we suggest you jack the pickups up AS CLOSE to the strings as possible- tuning is a simple task."

What IS a "ground shield array," as it pertains to encapsulated (potted) pickups?

GFS offers Strat 3-pickup sets: "Pure Vintage, " "Mega Texas, ""Fat Vintage," "Overwound," and "Power Rock." Individual single-pups: NEO9 "Our Hottest Neovin," NEO7 "Hotter than Vintage," and NEO5 "True Vintage Sparkle." There are no sound files yet for the Strat pups.

For the Tele, there are Pure Vintage Bridge & Neck, Hard Vintage Bridge and "Overwound" neck, and Power Rock (Bridge-only); then there are Pure Vintage, Hard Vintage, and Power Rock matched sets (don't know why they don't offer the "Power Rock" neck pup separately ). There are sound files for ALL the Tele pups. I'd say it's pretty iffy to accurately judge pickups from sound clips, but these -- like many of GFS' pickups -- sound very good to my tin ear (I especially like -- and am buying -- their Alnico 2 Memphis "Retrotron" Filtertron-style humbucker for a project)

I don't know jack about electronic theory, especially the mystical world of magnetism, with its gauss, hysteresis, and the differing characteristics of ceramic vs AlNiCo vs rare earth, but I found a really interesting page (everyone here probably knows about it, but I just stumbled across it a minute ago):

http://www.guitartechcraig.com/techpckp/pickups.htm

that has some great info (haven't checked out the whole site yet), but I especially liked this list of pickup design rules. I'm not going to take up space with the explanations of the rules -- go check out the page -- but the rules themselves sound pretty convincing (especially when you read the explanations):

RULE 1: Tall thin coils generally have a brighter sound than short fat ones.

RULE 2: The more windings, the louder the pickup will be and the less treble response it will have.

RULE 3: Alnico magnets sound smooth and warm and distort smoothly, ceramic magnets sound brighter and distort cleaner but a bit less full.

RULE 4: Magnet pole pieces are not adjustable but increase power and sensitivity. Steel pole pieces are adjustable and enable a variety of magnet structures to be placed below the coils, but are less sensitive to string vibrations.

RULE 5: The more length of the string which a pickup is sensing, the more midrange, sensitivity, and power it will have.

RULE 6: The stronger the magnetic field sensing the strings, the more treble you will hear from the pickup.

RULE 7: Standard humbuckers cancel hum and some treble response. Air coil and stacked humbuckers cancel hum and preserve the single coil tone at the cost of a bit of power.

Are these rules accurate? Let the theorists have at 'em!

Bartr

[SwedishLuthier]

Restoration: Interesting to read as I have not done that much experimenting with neo mags.

Re GFS: I am not commenting on their pickups in general, but the way they (he) describes their pickups are really annoying to me. He fills his texts with buzz words about how he develops his pickups and try to paint a picture of a mad scientist or something. In the end these are in general standard or modified Asian made pickup. Some sound good, some sound ok and some sound not so good. I buy some of their pickups and rebuild them as it makes it possible for me to make pickups that I cannot get access to parts for.

The ground shield in the neovin pickups is probably "only” a u-shaped steel rail that shields the pickup and at the same time focus the magnetic field. DiMarzio have something similar in their noiceless pickups.

Regarding the "rules":

rule 1, check

rule 2, if we are not considering that the windings should fit into one of the archetype pickups traditionally used this is wrong. If you could do a tele bridge and not care about the resulting bulge, you could do it with, say 12000 turns av AWG38 wire and ending up with a high output pickup that does not attenuate the treble response. But it will not fit a standard tele bridge. If we limit ourself to thraditional shapes this is in general true.

rule 3, beauty is in the eye of the beholder... that is his personal opinion, not hard facts. I don't think he has ever tried Alnico 8 or 9 magnets...

rule 4, I make a dynasonic clone with adjustable magnetic poles. go figure...

rule 5, check

rule 6, no not really. Think "loudness effect" as in pushing the loudness button on your hifi amplifier (does anyone still have their old hifi amp with the button...)

rule 7, standard HBs does cancel a bit of treble. That is in part due to the increased DCR (dc resistance) that is part of the electrical filter that form a pickup. It is also the phase cancellation that does this. If you space the coils differently you will alter the treble attenuation. A traditional SC pickup in conjunction with a air coil to create a hum cancelling circuit also alter the sound. In my experiments i get a clearly attenuated midrange, useful but very noticeable.

[RestorationAD]

Restoration: Interesting to read as I have not done that much experimenting with neo mags.

While working on building my first pickups I spent spent a lot of time testing Neos in traditional setups. I thought they would be a low cost high output alternative to traditional magnets. Were I would replace a regular mag with a neo and test it. All the results were not optimal. Then I started to get creative with placement and changes. They were always very bright and harsher than the originals... again not scientific just giving an ear test. However IF I were to revisist the issue I would sit down with Bill Lawrence's Patents and see if I could discover an answer. He was a pioneer of stainless steel and blades and SCobalt mags.

I think there is a possibility that you could design an active pickup with neos that work for guitar.

Swede you and I have been around the pickupmakers forum enough to see were the experiments have been a mixed bag.

Re GFS: I am not commenting on their pickups in general, but the way they (he) describes their pickups are really annoying to me. He fills his texts with buzz words about how he develops his pickups and try to paint a picture of a mad scientist or something. In the end these are in general standard or modified Asian made pickup. Some sound good, some sound ok and some sound not so good. I buy some of their pickups and rebuild them as it makes it possible for me to make pickups that I cannot get access to parts for.

I have actually had some email dialog with the Asian companies that __might__ supply GFS pickups. I am only speculating that he is indeed just importing stuff from Asia... but the pickups looked identical and at those prices it sure looks like it. I am not going to say anything else on the matter as it is not really an issue just making a point.

rule 6, no not really. Think "loudness effect" as in pushing the loudness button on your hifi amplifier (does anyone still have their old hifi amp with the button...)

Magnet strength has a much larger effect on output. I will tell you that in my experience a simple magnet swap can increase the output of a pickup.

Lastly I will say this. It is hard to make good pickups without quality materials as everything effects the sound of a pickup.

[SwedishLuthier]

Restoration: Interesting to read as I have not done that much experimenting with neo mags.

rule 6, no not really. Think "loudness effect" as in pushing the loudness button on your hifi amplifier (does anyone still have their old hifi amp with the button...)

Magnet strength has a much larger effect on output. I will tell you that in my experience a simple magnet swap can increase the output of a pickup.

Lastly I will say this. It is hard to make good pickups without quality materials as everything effects the sound of a pickup.

That was said in the aspect of rule no 6; "The stronger the magnetic field sensing the strings, the more treble you will hear from the pickup." A stronger magnet boost the output of the pickup. A higher output will drive the input stage of the amp harder, resulting in a higer degree of distortion (even on clean settings). That will be most noticable in the treble range and that is IMHO what makes people think that a sronger manget mainly boost the treble end of the spectrum.

[bartbrown]

Thanks for all the info!

Bart

[Graado]

On 7/6/2010 at 9:11 PM, RestorationAD said:

 

 

Good luck. They are very bright and harsh. They make very nice Bass Pickups.

 

Search here:

http://music-electronics-forum.com/f11/

You are crazy as hell. I got an Asian strat with non magnetic pole pieces went to hobby lobby got button NEOS and placed one under each pole my shit sounds better than a hendrix set up on a cheap piece of shit. Don't listen to these bums.  Use neo buttons on no magnetic poles and Seymour Duncan will go outta business