Nice demonstration D! Helpful to many, Bustin' Them Myths! We're all Guilty of perpetuating them until we know Better! Well done and thanks for sharing brother!

The whole industry depends on the fervent hope that whatever sounds best is whatever isn't in your guitar.

Had to put it to the Test. Recorded an open D string . Once using a ceramic pickup, once using an alnico. Lined the 2 waveforms up and compared them. The ceramic was not too far from a regular sinewave, close to a piano waveform, rolling peaks and not a lot of harmonic content. The alnico was full of jagged peaks throughout the wave much more like a violin and full of harmonic content. Ceramics give a warm sound with a lot of fundamental frequency when clean and a controlled sound at super high gain. Alnicos are full of harmonic content and top end with an incredible musical response to the way you play and I love `em.

This is specifically why I stopped engaging in guitar forums. You get guys recommending magnet swaps all day to fix a problem with "tone", and then you realize the "advisor" just sucks at playing and dialing in their amp/eq.

don't trust guitar forums, only trust your ears

The biggest myth in guitar history is that it gets you girls.

I don't really care about pickups that much they tend to sound the same once I run them through 3 boss metal zones and tune lower than drop F Im kidding btw great vid Darrel

Bro, as an amature garage luthier, I really can't stress enough how great this channel actually is. Your presentation is clear. The editing is concise. Super efficient and super enjoyable! I'm hooked!

Bleeding love the sound of the ceramics in that Tele. Holy hells. That just sounded amazing. Warm and wonderful.

What did I learn from this video, “I need a Tele with a P90 in the neck!”

They sounded a little different but both sounded very good.

To my ears, alnico souded brighter, tipical strat sounding, reminds me of a clean John Mayer sound. Ceramics seemed warmer, with more low end. Both sounded AWESOME and had their own characteristics. Thank you for the great video.

100% agree I just purchased a squire contemporary jazz bass with ceramic active pickups and it’s soo much warmer then anything I played before. I’m pro ceramic from now on 👍🏻

4:41- "We'll talk about where some of these things come from." From guitar snobs.

"Ceramic pickups are brittle and harsh" - laughs in Seymour Duncan invader

Thanks ! Good demo. Ceramics are better for distortion (they overdrive easier and have a warmth to their sound.) Alnicos are better for clarity (They are clearer sounding, but don't have the warmth of a ceramic pickup.) Which one you use, depends on the style of music that you are playing and/or where you want your guitar part to sit in the mix. Want clarity: use alnico. Want warmth and distortion: use ceramic.

I wind my own guitar pickups, and I've made about thirty so far. I've tried different types of alnico rod magets, 2,3,4 and 5. The stronger the magnet strength, the louder and brighter the pickup sounds, using the same magnet diameter and length, bobbin size and turns of wire. I personally don't like alnico 5 magnets in Strat style pickups, because they're too bright. I don't give a damn about output, because I'm not trying to overdrive an amp, so I use alnico 2 and 3, mostly. I've also mixed alnico 2 and 4 in the same bobbin, which sounds very nice. Some cheap Squier Strats use ceramic magnets with bobbins that only measure 3.7K. They use more powerful ceramics to boost the pickup's output to compensate for fewer turns of wire. A slightly stronger ceramic magnet is apparently cheaper than copper wire and the additional time it takes to put more windings on a coil. Fewer turns of wire seems to have an effect on the attack and dynamic range of the pickup as well, fewer turns = faster attack and less compression/more dynamic range. These are not good things, if they don't suit your playing style. If you do like more attack and dynamics, then a Charlie Christian style pickup will give you that, with the heavier gauge wire on the coil augmenting those characteristics. I've also wound Strat style pickups with larger p90 sized bobbins and 38, 39, 40 and 41 gauge wire, FWIW, and I'm well aware of the effects of wire gauge as a result.

The best I would describe the difference in sound would probably be that the Alnico sound a bit more single coil-y, with a bit of "airiness" to it, while ceramic sounds a bit more like a humbucker, slightly more "muffled" and midrange-y. But that's still rather vague, and, more importantly, the difference clearly isn't that big and the overall design of the pickup (diameter of the wire, number of winds) will have a significant impact too, probably to the point where it doesn't really matter much what magnet is used.

Much of the difference in Ceramic vs Alnico is that usually they are of different strengths in magnets. And people fail to realize you have to adjust pickup height to compensate.

This is EXACTLY why I trust what my EARS HEAR vs the uneducated online forums. I've been a bass player for almost 30 years, and the myths like this are so discouraging for new generations of guitarist and bassists. Many factors come into play with sound. Room dynamics, pickups, type of amp, the way you play the instrument. Sound is subjective and EVERYONE hears sound differently. So test many combinations until you find what you love and what sounds best to your ears. Thank you Darrell for the video. It is a great starting point. :-)

Some of the coolest recorded guitar sounds come from ceramic magnet loaded pickups. Old Gibson dirty fingers pickups were ceramic loaded (and John Sykes wrote some badass chops there), Ace Frehley from KISS used DiMarzio SuperDistortion extensively and he got great crunchy tones as well. Ritchie Blackmore in his first Rainbow era played with Schecter Monstertones, which were/are ceramic tapped single coils. Rhoads and Lynch both did great use of the Duncan Distortion back in the day . Joe Barden made a lot of great sounding ceramic pickups as well. No reason to bash the entire category

I switched from ceramic to alnico on my strat and immediately smiled when i played the first E chord. It was chime-y, bright, sparkly and exactly what i was looking for. I thought ceramic was too warm and muddy

Another myth: Shielding eliminates single coil hum.

The ceramic pickups just seemed fuller to my ears and I preferred them over the alnico pickups

What i always love about this channel is all the content is real stuff. This guy knows what he's talking about and what he's doing of course. İ always find what im looking for in the content of the video. Never disappointed. Keep up the awesome work Darrell ! Loves from Turkey

I recently found some interesting pickups in an old used guitar I bought very cheap. The guitar is from a Brazilian brand called status, that existed during the 80, and made lower quality cheap guitars. The pickups were dead, but interestingly, they had ceramic magnets, but not like you normally see today. Instead of steel slugs and a ceramic bar, there was 6 cylindrical magnets, with the same dimensions of alnico magnets, but ceramic. So I tried replacing the alnico slugs from a pickup and it sounded the very same. By the way, they were weaker ceramic magnets, measuring virtually the same as the alnico ones, according to the phone gaussmeter. By that, I think the difference we usually hear when comparing alnico and ceramic is more related to the distribution of the magnetic field around the pickup, more than anything else.

Now that I've seen the comparison side by side I can honestly say that I prefer the ceramic over alnico.

One thing you have to consider about this test is usually the comparisons drawn online differ from like a basic tier Squier versus a Fender Custom pickup. Often they are jaded by bad potentiometers to start, but I would say Squiers ceramic pickups arent exactly the most juicy sound.

Please title this as Ceramic vs Alnico mythbusters. People need to see this video when researching pickups!! Great vid nonetheless

Sometimes harsh, brittle and gnarly is a good thing. Some of Neil Young's guitar work sounds like that - and I love it.

Without a doubt the most honest and comprehensive pick up sound demonstration I've seen so far. The basic function of a pickup is to turn string vibration into an electronic signal that can be sent to the front of an amplifier to be manipulated by gain and eq then amplified or made louder. Simple concept, magnet reacts to string vibration and sends that reaction through multiple windings of wire for a typical -20db signal gain. The magnet strength and number of wire windings and wire gauge determine the output of the pick up. The acronym Alnico stands for (al) aluminum, (ni) nickel, (co) cobalt. This metal alloy accepts a certain level of magnetization and looses it's magnetic field over time. This suggests that the Alnico pick up will deliver reduced output over time. Ceramic accepts a stronger level of magnetization and suffers no lose over time. After market pick up manufacturers invest a lot of time and money experimenting and marketing. I've never come across a $110 pick up that had more mojo than a $30 pick up just because a well known person was paid to endorse it. An easy trick to help determine pick up output is to test it for resistance with a volt/ohm meter. The higher the resistance reading, the greater the output. I like the way the sound clips moved quickly for instant sound comparison. The ceramic are noticeably higher output. This will at a certain point slightly overload an amplifier input resulting in slight break up of the signal. A slightly overdriven sound. Want to clean it up? How about a slight adjustment of that variable resister on the front of the guitar, good ole volume pot. Sound a little brighter than your ear would prefer? Change the value of the tone capacitor which is merely a high frequency filter. Even though your tone control lives on 10, the signal is still passing through that capacitor and makes a tonal difference. Hopefully I am staying in bounds with the spirt of myth busting. Ultimately you need to allow your ears to judge.

Ever since I found you on KZfaq, I have followed your videos. Excellent information every time. I am 72, been playing guitar for 60 years. Been in two BIG touring bands. I REALLY enjoy your videos, Thank You.

I just watched the speaker video before this one (AlNiCo vs ceramic) and after watching both, I must say that I'm shocked by how much of a difference the magnet made in both instances. I did, for the most part, prefer the sound of the AlNiCo speaker, even though the ceramic one still sounded good, but in this instance, I think the ceramic pickups sound better. I'll still do listening tests before buying, but I'll probably be more likely to stick with ceramic magnets when it comes to the pickups. Great video!

I’d love to see you expend on this, similar tests for alnico 2, 3, 4, 5 etc

The best ‘myth buster’ video you have done was the tone wood comparison where you chopped up the guitar. Only very minor nearly imperceptible differences. Thanks again Darrell. Just play what feels and sounds good to you.

The difference I heard between the 2 was definition of the notes was clearer with the Alnico. Especially the crunch tones, the ceramics sounded muddier.I've played ceramic pick ups that just sounded great, and then some not so much.

Yeah, those magnetic fields do not know or care who their parents are

One single description: Ceramic are not as chimey. They have more middle tone.

Personally I can hear a bigger difference then I thought I would. I prefer the AlNiCo over the Ceramic in all cases you presented- the Ceramic sounded like they had a blanket over the amp- they were more "muffled" is how I would describe the tone- but not necessarily "bad" - just less definition I think. Funny because they are supposed to be harsh and brighter- I'd say they sounded exactly the opposite- much warmer (muffled though) and less bright. I feel like the AlNiCo was a much more musical and pleasing tone. Noticeably for me anyway.

Wow. That Tele sounded absolutely awesome with either magnet. Nice job busting the myth, too.

Great job dispelling more guitar myths. I've learned so much from Darrell. I'm a huge fan of Alnico 5 pickups because the majority of my guitars are Strats. I have two "metal" guitars with ceramic pickups and they have their strengths. My new Soloist sports Duncan Hot Rails that I've definitely learned to appreciate in the last two weeks!

Myth destroyed!! Thank you!

As a pickup designer and builder said (maybe Bill Lawrence): "magnets don't have tone, they are magnets and create a magnetic field. They don't "sound". It all depends on the global design of the pickup. You can design a pickup to sound a certain way with alnico or ceramic, whatever, you only have to design it correctly".

Another reason this myth might be repeated is from the 2 popular active pickups from EMG: the 81 and 85. The 81 is ceramic and it fits most of those descriptors. It is more bright, intense attack, lower output (it has to be raised exremely close to the strings to sound right). The 85 with Alnico 5 has a higher output, more of a balanced sound with the bigger low end.

You're such a Canadian I love it

Fralin uses ceramic in his noiseless dual bar Strat pickups and Seymour uses them in the humbuckers that fit in a strat space , both sound fantastic !

In my experience, the winding plays a bigger part in the tone than the magnet choice (how many turns + the orientation of the layers and how tightly the layers are wound around the bobbin). The magnet strength in conjunction with the number of windings will dictate the pickup's output, but the windings also affect frequency response. To me, "hotter pickups" tend to have less treble response and more emphasis in the lower mids. Pickups with fewer windings will have more treble response and a more subdued midrange. I'd imagine the orientation of the wire layers and how tightly they're wound would also affect tone.

As many myths as this video busts, it still reinforces the biggest myth that magnet material matters at all. It does not! A magnetic field is a magnetic field. The reason alnico magnet pickups sound different from ceramic magnet pickups is two fold: 1) Alnico magnets are (usually) rod magnets, while ceramic magnets are almost always bar magnets. The rod magnets create a narrower magnetic field that covers a smaller segment of the guitar strings, which thus produces a thinner, chimmier tone. The bar magnets create a fatter magnetic field and thus a fatter, warmer tone. 2) Ceramic bar magnets are usually stronger and thus create a more powerful magnetic field and hotter pickup. What Darrell should have done is compared pickups that used bar magnets, one with an alnico magnet and one with a ceramic magnet of similar strength.

I LOOOVE THIS VIDEO!!! After 25+ years in guitars, more than half of those as a guitar tech, luthier and builder, I have a set of EMG TC (ceramic) set of pickups on my own axe. They sound awesome, and my MIM Tele is being used as the reference instrument when clients are trying to describe what they want from a single coil. It sounds clear (not clean, but clear!). You can tell it's a Tele, there is a lot for amp's EQ to work on (as if everything reaches the amp, and EQ potentiometers now actually DO alot of work) and, regardless of clean/drive situation, there is no unpleasant aspect of tone and no noise! Thank you so much for this vid! Hope you won't get attacked too much for busting this one!

The AlNiCo magnets definitely have more bite and clarity and sounded good for the louder stuff. The ceramic magnets sounded better on the softer stuff.

In 1973 I replaced the ALNICO magnets with ceramic in my ES335's T-Top humbuckers. I also cut out the centers of the pickup covers. I thought it was an improvement in the sound and never heard any of this alleged "brittleness". Your test confirms what I heard. The ceramic tone is actually a bit warmer. Between the brighter tone of the cutout pickup covers and the warmer tone of the ceramic magnets I have a sound that I like. I nearly always use the neck pickup.

Trust your ears Not what other people say. After this demo i changed my mind totally. I was overwhelmed by the Sound of Wilkinson Humbuckers in his V100 Icon Guitars, i thought they sounded way better, more round and smooth mellow tone than the Epiphone les paul models. Now i found out they were not Alnico but ceramic material, i unterstand now. Thanks for this, Darrell.

You are right Darrell, the internet is full of this gear bs. By the way, both magnet configurations sounded great to me. Nice work man, and have always loved your telecaster, beautiful looking rock machine.

Thanks for breaking the myth. Bought a bunch of wilkinson p90s that sound great as ceramic. I'm a luthier and am guilty of the alnico myth. Was about to spend all this time upgrading the magnet to alnico. But I actually do prefer ceramic p90s.

AINiCo is very atmospheric,... The sound changes as the room warms up. The sound becomes magical and the ambiance gets better as the night goes on.

I always point out that Di Marzio súper distortion is one of the warmer pick-ups i´ve heard, and that one is double ceramic.

Great video. I definitely loved the ceramic more. I would say ceramic is warmer, mid or balanced EQ and alnico is more bright like it is EQ'd for treble and has more clarity. But both sound great. Neither was harsh. Great depending on style. Love the videos.

Wonder how those pick ups would look through a wave graph on a recording software.

That first example, MiUSA vs. MiM, made your point so clearly we could've ended the discussion right there, Darrell. Thanks for debunking the false claims.

First electric guitar I ever got as a kid was an MIJ Squier ‘Wayne’s World’ 62 OlyWhite Strat... it had ceramic Strat pickups in it and sounded killer; true single coil vintage vibes coming out of those with a 5-way... cool comparison, fun vid to watch, thx for taking the time. Side note on the whole subject, the Ceramic/Alnico Hybrid, like in those Tony Iommi pickups are a trip too...

I preferred the alnico. One minor critique Mr. Braun... it is pronounced al-nih-co. Not al-nee-co. Anico stands for ALuminum NIckle and CObalt which is the composition of the magnet. Hence AL, NI, CO. Thank you for the video.

You nailed it, as always, DB. More expensive pickups =better. Right?? Well, it depends. It’s all relative to what each individual player likes and hears. However, the big manufacturers will lead you to believe that the cheaper option will leave more to be desired. Which isn’t necessarily true. It’s all about marketing and $$$. Regardless, great video DB. You’re my dude.

I have never been more blown away by a set of Strat pickups than I was a couple of months ago when I got a Squier Bullet hardtail Strat. My plans to throw the stock ceramic pickups out and replace them with alnicos has been scrapped. I even found another set of the same pickups on Ebay that I will use for a build project that somebody else took straight out of a brand new Bullet and they cost me almost nothing. They work very well for being clearly heard on a loud stage!

I have a set of Pete Biltoft Vintage Vibe pickups in my guitar - a solid body Fender Squier 51. The Biltoft pickups have interchangeable magnets - you can swap out magnets in about 15 seconds. Pete Biltoft supplies magnets for his pickups that are Alnico 2, 3, 5, and ceramic. What I have found is that there is a subtle difference between the types of magnets, mostly in the high frequencies. Alnico 2 has the least treble response and the ceramic magnets have the most treble, with possibly a slightly less prominent midrange in the ceramics as well. The difference isn't very big, no more than a couple of db's between the different kinds of magnets. With a good amp you can make the pickups with any type of magnet sound very much like any other pickup. Biltoft's pickups have a full sound that can closely match bumbuckers, even though the Biltoft pickups are single coil! I don't care much for debates about which pickups are "better." When I ordered the pickups Pete Biltoft spent a fair amount of time with me on the phone, making sure he knew exactly what sound I wanted from the pickups. And he delivered!

The ASAT with ceramic pickups was my favorite by far.

Peavey Super Ferrites are ceramic and are some of the best sounding pickups ever made. Super clean, warm, articulate and refined like a vintage piano.

I couldn't bond with the 85/15 "S" pickups in my PRS SE, so instead of changing pickups possibly being further disappointed, So I scoured the net for information on pots and alterations. Eric Johnson uses 300k pots to brighten the guitar, some companies use 450k pots to darken bright guitars. so, I experimented with resistors soldered from output to ground, I ended with 1.2 meg resistor, the 85/15 "S" now have a really nice early PAF sound. also, in my search I found a schematic for PRS DGT, it places resistors between coil tap wires and switch lugs, eliminating volume drop while coil tapped ;)

I've been kind of an alnico snob since an old geezer told me about the difference between ceramic and alnico. I asked "How do you know when the guitar has ceramic magnets?" And he said "When it's a cheap guitar" and laughed, but yeah after that I always looked pickups by "are they alnicos?" Lol. Good video. I actually like many ceramic pickups and this video made me realize that I'm not a noob if I like them.

Like Josh Scott from JHS pedals always say, "They don't sound better, just different".

My Gibson V has 498r/500t ceramic pickups. They ROCK! My best sounding guitar.

Hey Darrell! Love your videos! Here is a topic for you to check out: Scale leinght - difference between Strat 25,5", PRS 25", Les Paul 24,75", Fender Mustang 24", Gibson Byrdland 23,75" Peavey T30 23" Do they need different gauges to get the right sound? Can a shorter scale affect the tone? Or maybe some other questions?

Marketing & bottomline is so relevant to companies. As far as pickups go, magnet is ONE variable. Winding wire size, number or wraps, pole material & size, bobbin construction... Pickups are a science and an art. Why both? Because the output is subjective.

Ceramic pickups radiate personality. They're very unique. Alnicos seriously just sound like any guitar

just like tonewood on solid body electric guitars. We use alder cause its warm and balances well with maple. More advertising buzz words that make you feel good. They dont want you to know the wood they choose is cheap to buy and easy on their tools.

Found this 5 year old video to be still so very usefull. Thank you! Excellent objectivity and excellent playing.

I'm not musical at all, can't play a guitar, and just watched this video out of curiosity. So, now that I've let you know my total lack of any qualifications to make judgments; to me the Alnico is like the soft nap on the inside of a sweatshirt, soft and comfortable but not really deeply furry, while the ceramic is more like a thicker fleece, furrier, warm and cozy with more pouf. I think that makes as much sense as any of the other descriptors used in this video. But then, as I said, I'm not musical and a lot of the terminology just zooms by while I'm left saying, "What the heck was that?". Others may disagree but that's OK. It won't really bother me because I know that I'm the great unwashed and am comfortable with it. I like to listen to both and am perfectly happy not having to try to decide which to buy.

When I play Ambiant music with my Gibson Explorer it’s with a strymon big sky, I like the tone of my Seymour Duncan jazz neck (alnico ) it has a lovely presence . And a Duncan distortion in the bridge ( ceramic ) for that heavy stuff , But with my Mexican strat with the singles (HSS -stock ceramics) it sounds very clear ,chimmy , more articulate in responsive , I have a Pegasus (alnico ) in The bridge and it sounds bright when I play metal music , and has too much of a lively presence . It’s a tone that’s taken me awhile to adapt with but it sounds good nonetheless. Depending on what I record , most of the time I go with my fender strat My PRS S2 custom 24 has Alpha/Omega sets (ceramic ) Ambiant, classical music and jazz ..sounds angelic with my strymon big sky . aggressive , full and clear with distortion All in all .. I guess it just depends on what someone’s intent is , how much Output they want and what genre they want to play .. Can’t go wrong with alnico and ceramic mixes sorry for the long stories lol

How about "String Through Body vs Top Loader," particularly looking at Teles and Jazz/P Basses?

What happened to me, and made me believe that ceramic pickups are harsh and brittle is because several gear changes happened simultaneously. It's not just ceramic magnet pickups but it's HIGH output ceramic pickups that can sound particularly harsh, brittle, and without vocal character. The mids on Super Distortions and Invaders smooshed the dynamics and vocal character of any guitar into which they are installed, IMHO. At the same time, high gain guitar amps were becoming easy to come by and a hot pickup was no longer necessary to kick a mid-gain amp into overdrive. Lastly, locking trem systems became the new, must have item, little did we know that, by choking off the excess string vibration above the headstock and beyond the bridge, the guitar's sound became further choked down in dynamics and vocal character. Just get a guitar with high-output pickups and a Floyd system and play it through a Laney AOR to hear the worst case scenario of crap clean to onset of breakup tones! BLECKKKKKKK!!!!

I asked a local winder to wind some pickups according to a described sound, no restrictions on what he can use. He came back with a ceramic assymetircal humbucker that is the best sounding blues/Jazz pickup. DiMarzio often use ceramic pickups that I prefer over competitors. I've always though SD pickups difficult to get an attractive sound out of. With Gibson pickups you can see similar designs with different alnico magnets. I can only say that I prefer their alnico V pros instead of the alnico II 57. The magnets are just a means to an end, while they have characteristic sounds, I wouldn't worry about what they are made from. Just know what you want.

Bottom line: Will you get the gig if the promoter finds out your guitars has ceramic magnets?

Great Video!!! Thank you for spreading the message to a wider audience :) I have guitars with AlNiCo pickups and Ceramic pickups and they all sound great. Of cause there are a lot of bad ceramic pickups out there especialy on budget guitares where the factory did not so much care about the sound but about saving money, but that's also true with cheap alnico pickups. It's more the cheap pot metal rods and the thin low-quality

Perfect analysis. Companies do not tell the truth, they need excuses to charge higher. Great "myth buster" series, few on the market have courage to tell the truth about wood, alnico/ceramic, etc.

I literally needed this video. I have been planning to change the stock pick ups on my squier bullet which have cheap ceramic and scratchy pickups. This led me to believe that ceramics tend to have that tone characteristic.

Well there's definitely, 100%, for sure a difference in the sound. I wouldn't call either one better than the other, but if someone is saying there's NO difference, that's just not the case.

Always prefered ceramic pups. The whole vintage craze was always lame to me, so I avoided them that way, but I just prefer the sound. Thanks for confirming these things

In physics, there isn't an AlNiCo or Ceramic magnetic field; there is only one type of magnetism. A stronger magnetic field intensifies the signal from the string, without intensifying any EMI noise going into the pickup. All else equal, with a stronger magnetic field, the pickup will have a better S/N ratio.

Given the guitars I was buying in the mid 2000s, I settled on Alnico for Teles and Ceramic for Strats. Brings out the best in each and you can get a really bright Tele, and a very woody Strat!

Darrell great video! About time someone started breaking this stuff down. The pickup is designed to be a system in itself. Designed to be a device that makes AC electricity and send it to the amp. It's only my opinion here, but I think it's quite easy to keep these stereotypes going with all the cheap crap pickups coming out of Asia with a 'fridge magnet hot glue gunned to the bottom of an imitation Strat pup. Most of them sound like the descriptive garbage they use. But if you take the Alnico Squier pups coming out of the Cort factory in Indonesia for example, they sound good Really good. But they are weak, and thin. They have that Strat chime we all look for, but nowhere near the volume of say a MexiStrat with the ceramics in it, The big thing about Alnico vs Ceramic is this... Alnico magnets over time, will lose their magnetic strength. Ceramics will not. They will never go flat. So over time, an Alnico will sound like a "vintage" pup. One that has been sitting around for 30 years. But they can be topped off again, and sometimes they sound like crap. That is one of the services I provide. Remagnetizing old pups that have lost their charge. And sometimes I end up having to pull some of the charge back off, just to get it sounding good again. But aside from the MexiStrat pups, the big thing that Leo had learned before his death, was how great the ceramic magnets were. The magnet's big job is, to work in conjunction with the specific winding, and to take that AC charge and hit the front end of the amp, with varying degrees of strength. Anyone that has heard Leo's MFD pups, would never call them harsh or brittle. They are probably some of the fullest and warmest sounding pups I have ever heard, especially from a single coil. Great pups!!! And they will always sound that good, because the ceramic mag will not lose strength over time and they are not shock sensitive. Now I know you did that G&L review with the MFD pups a couple weeks ago. But have you done any reviews with the Z-coil MFD's in a guitar? That would be a great video!! I have a G&L Comanche with the Z-coil pups in it. That is one very unique sound! Almost like a humbucker in it's strength and warmth, but definitely a pup all on it's own!! I've never even messed around with raising or lowering the pole pieces yet. They are all bottomed out, and sound great. That's a video I would definitely be excited to see. Even the Asian model of the Comanche... can't remember what it's called right now, but from what I hear, they are dead quiet in the 60 cycle hum department, without having an onboard preamp. That was the whole idea behind the Z coil anyway. Get rid of the hum, yet still be a single coil. Great pups, but don't expect it to sound like a Strat, regardless of the shape. yeah I would definitely love to see a video on that one. But beware Darrell, you go playing one of those, and you might just have another keeper on your hands. Your collection would definitely end up growing by at least one, because you won't be selling it to make room lol. Great vids as usual Darrell, and definitely a thumbs up for breaking down some more of these stupid guitar myths. If we could tear some more of those down, perhaps the guitar industry could move forward out of the 1950's!!! I like vintage cars as much as the rest of the guys out there, but you don't see me going down and ordering a brand new 1956 Plymouth Belvedere.... Bob in Germany BiG

Thanks for some practical demonstration of this topic. there is so much snake oil surrounding guitars, and their construction, that its nice to see some of this nonsense dispelled with actual demonstration. It just goes to show some people simply recycle what they read as opposed to fact.

Great video. One thing I think I remember about Alnico, is that as it ages, it becomes more mellow, so, a vintage Alnico pickup would be much different from a modern one.

That is literally the opposite of what I've heard people claim in the AlNiCo vs ceramic debate. The first time I heard people complain about ceramics was on Gretsch re-issues of the early 1990s. People said the ceramic filtertrons were not articulate, clear, sparkling, bright, etc. They also complained the output was too high. I've literally never heard someone complain ceramics are too bright, too loud, too harsh, etc. Too muddy? Sure.

The ceramic pick up basically sounded like the alnico with the treble turned down.... So the Alnico sounded much more open and for me, better. The only sample I thought the ceramic sounded better was the high gain/crunch chords you played. But, you can probably just dampen the treble a bit on the alnico to smoothen that out. You can’t open up the ceramic any further, therefore it is limited compared to the alnico. My two cents

To my ears, ceramics are just warmer/rounder/better for jazz, yet dead in distortion. Alnico - better high end, tighter bass and mids, belly/chimy, and MUCH livlier w/ distortion.

Always thought that alnico magnet pickups had more clarity and articulation than ceramic magnet pickups.Your video proves this. In your video, the ceramic magnet pickups to my ears sound more muddy, less dynamic, less interesting. I suspect in a mix or a live band setting it would be harder to distinguish what a guitar part was actually doing if ceramic pickups were used compared to alnico. I think that could be why Fender's latest basic Mexican Strats and Teles (the new Player range) that have replaced the old Standard range now have alnico pickups instead of the ceramic pickups the old Standard range had installed. I have played a new Mexican Fender Player Strat against a new Mexican Fender Standard Strat in a shop going through the same amp. The new Player Strat sounded far more "stratty" to my ears. I also got one of the guys in the shop to swap between the 2 guitars while I looked away and couldn't see which guitar he was playing. It was very easy to tell them apart! If you want more output or a thicker sound than you can get from alnico single coil pickups - I'd say you would be better off going down the P90 or humbucker route (still using alnico pickups) - and base your choice on output levels near-ish to those you'd expect from single coil pickups.

Speaking as a physics teacher and guitarist, a magnetic field is just a magnetic field. That’s it, nothing more. It doesn’t matter how it’s made. It could be electro magnetically made too by applying an ac current to the strings. The pick up need not be a combined coil and permanent magnet unit either. All you have to do is magnetise the strings,behind the bridge or ahead of the nut, with a magnet and have a coil under, over or around the vibrating string. When the string vibrates it induces a current in the coil which is sent to an amp. Pick ups are electric generators or dynamos.

Great myth buster and video Darrell. Totally agree with your assessment here. How about testing bone nuts against a plain old inexpensive synthetic nut for sound next?

I think you should do a live show together with @PhillipMcNight. I think that would be simply awesome watching you both guys talk guitar!!!

The 1st pickup I bought was a Seymour Duncan Custom in 1983 in double cream. The pickup uses a ceramic pickup. At 17 years old I didn't consider the magnet materiel. I just bought the one the dude at the store said was great. It was great in the ash body strat I'd just assembled. I also bought a Schecter tremolo with a brass block the same day I got the Duncan Custom. I was also oblivious to the fact that trem had a big brass tone block. Later I put the Duncan Custom into a 1971 Gibson SG Special. Again it sounded superb. Even later I put that same pickup in a 80's Kramer super strat with a Floyd Rose trem. I sounded like crap.... A used $10.00 Ibanez V1 sounded great in that Kramer. The lesson I learned was a superb pickup can sound like crap in the WRONG guitar. You can't judge a pickup by the magnet type or any other spec. You must trust your ears. Fact: If it sounds good it is good. Thanks for busting that myth. Great channel.

Darrell will make us believe, listen it, feel it, then make it right! Don't believe on such descriptions, Darrell is here to burst out all myths! Love your channel Darrell!