Hey Ya'll,
As long as I'm sitting behind the keyboard here having my morning coffe...gotta a question I've been meaning to ask for a while now.

Ok...I'm starting to play with the idea of maybe trying to wind my own pickups. I certainly have enough "cheap" pickups laying around the work bench to "experiment" with (lots of spare parts to use for bobbins and such)...ya'll know me, I can never leave good enough alone! LOL!!! Anyways, not counting things like Rickenbacker's that have those big "horse shoe magnets" it seems that most, if not all Strat pickups I've ever seen always use either ceramic or Alnico magnets for the pickups. Now the other day I was in a store (World Market I think) and I was playing with a couple of "hematite magnets"...really strong suckers too, and I was wondering...has anyone ever tried any exotic materials such as hematite or something else for guitar pickups and if so, what were the results? I still know a few folks who do lapidary work so getting a bar...or even pole pieces cut wouldn't be too much of a problem....seems like this might be an interesting experiment...

Thoughts and opinions?

Peace,
Jim

If the magnets are too strong wont they cause a drag on the strings and actually pull them toward the pickups? I don't think that would be a good thing.

_________________
"Hope is the thing with feathers, that perches in the soul..."

-Emily Dickinson

I didn't mention it in my post but yea...that would be another good one. I've seen it used in speakers and mics so one would think it should be usable for pickups.




Well, I do agree that you wouldn't want the magnetic field too strong as yea, that would certainly effect your sustain. What I'm more curious about is how an exotic material...or at least something other than ceramic or alnico...would affect the sound/tone of the instrument. While I know there's a lot of folks who might argue this, personally I tend to truly believe that the greatest portion of a guitars tone...at least with an electric guitar...tends to come from the pickups. Yea, I'm sure the wood does contribute something to the tone and obviously the bridge does as well but I think the single greatest contributing factor is simply the pickups.

That said, depending on the material of course, one would think that it should be possible to control the strength of the magnetic field...on the other hand it's been a great many years since electronics 101 and my magnetic theory is more than a bit rusty.

Peace,
Jim

What might be interesting, is using a strong magnet, and placing the pickup as far as possible from the strings?

Wonder how that'd sound...