here's the deal, Ceramics magnets are cheaper, so ALL the cheap sucky pickups are ceramics but NOT ALL Ceramic pickups are cheap and sucky.

i have been playing guitar for 55 years. Not a thing wrong with ceramic pickups, they are great. if you are absolutely determined to spend more money, put your money in the best amp you can afford to buy! A good amp can make a lot of cheaper guitars sing.

The secret with ceramic pickups is to set them very low! Since they are a lot higher output, setting them low brings back a lot of clarity in the tone.

I would add that by adjusting the height of the pickups and using thicker or lighter strings, it changes your tone. I bought a cheap telecaster and messed around with everything. I found that setting up your amp correctly (there's cheap amp setting videos) and trying out different pickup adjustments and strings makes a huge difference using ceramic pickups. Just have fun ✌️

I have had some older vintage ceramic pickups that I absolutely loved. You're correct, telecaster Squier fell short. Thanks!

Thank you so much for finally saying what every single guitar player is scared to say!, ceramic pickups are great!, and they make so many great types of ceramic single coil pickups as well as humbucking pickups too. Your video on this matter is articulate, well-spoken, and inspiring!, thank you for also mentioning the Squier Affinity Series pickups that are ceramic and sound amazing and are perfectly fine in every possible way!, I thought I was the only person who actually likes the Affinity Series pickups! It’s comforting to know someone as unique as yourself agrees with my own beliefs regarding pickups!, God Bless You! Take care brotha!

I'm playing with ceramics for the first time. They came in a Sterling SUB Series Silo 3 that I got used for a handful of beans. They're really nice in all sorts of ways - wound kinda hot, but I get a wide breadth of tonal characteristics out of them. They're good loud, quiet, dirty, clean... Just love'm. Thanks for your videos

On some of my strats I like the guitar with a good ceramic in front and lead and an alnico with similar output in middle. It can be a very affordable upgrade.

I recently got a hardtail Squier Bullet Strat and I'm keeping the pickups in there. Not only that I'm sticking with the electronics too because the tone controls on this guitar are actually useable and if I change all the pots I may not prefer the result. These pickups look similar to the MIM Strat pickups. They have 2 thin bar magnets underneath either side of the row of pole pieces. To me they have almost a P90 quality to their tone, except not as fat or high output. I like them enough I just went onto Ebay and got another set of Bullet Strat pickups for peanuts that somebody took out of their week-old guitar!

Great video. You summed it up. It was marketing that brainwashed us all into thinking ceramics suck IMO. There is such a market for pickup replacement and they need propaganda to push it to make us spend more money. I love the ceramic pickups in my Mexican built Fender Strat. When I first got the guitar, everyone told me I needed to swap them for AlNiCo pickups, but I never did. You have a great point about having to find something wrong with a pickup set before you strip it out and I never could find a real issue with the ceramic pickups in my Strat. They handled higher distortion, gain and treble so well. They can be bright and spanky like a Strat is supposed to sound but also could do the Metal style so well to the point, it made me realize single coils could handle that kind of tone pretty well. My Strat is now around 7 years old and the pickups have gotten brighter and more twangy sounding over time. Cool to give the Squier Affinity Strats a shout out, those are some fine guitars. i like how the ceramic pickups sound in the Squier Bullet Strats. It's a shame Fender replaced the Mexican Standard line with the new "Player" Strats that have weak AlNiCo pickups in it. I've tried some Player Strats and the new AlNiCo pickups just so thin and are missing that mid-range punch that the ceramics had. I have nothing against AlNiCo pickups, but the ones in the Player series are dull sounding. Squier's Classic Vibe Strats have far better AlNiCo pickups than what Fender put in the new Player guitars.

I love the sound of the Fujigen factory Fender Japan fiber bobbin ceramic single coils from the early 80s. The Belcat ceramic single coils that come in the new Silvertone SS15 are very nice too, especially if you upgrade the caps and pots. Ceramics can sound incredibly good.

I've switched to refrigerator magnets on my pickup. It's a Ford F150 and I now have about 700 magnets on it.

Brian May from Queen used Burns pickups on his Red Special and they’re bar magnet types! Who can argue with his playing, tone and amazing innovations on all the great albums and hit singles!

Wow! I was just about to say that I got a Squier Affinity Strat for Christmas and it sounds fantastic and then you literally said right when I started typing! It’s a great guitar, fretwork, tremolo, everything. It’s become my main guitar!

Im a ceramic Fan, specially the low gauze hotrail versions. They are ballsy on the bass and chimey on the mid n high - very bubbly on the neck, thick on the bridge and it sings. Alnico sounds like youre using brand new strings all the time - jagged and square sounding.

I knew it! More sharp and dry and high pitch sound. I decide to combine it with sapele wood so I expect nicely balanced high pitch ear bleeding sound based on proper bass middle layer. This info is told only but few.

I played and heard both crappy ceramic and alnico pups and good ones. Dimarzio Super Distortion, EMG and Dimebucker are excellent ceramic pups.

This is a great video, I really hate that sound of the new Mexico Player Strat with alnico V pickups, I hope to get an old Mexico Standard Strat with ceramic pickups for lively sound. Thank you!

I get what you mean. In the bass realm almost everyone would go for Alnico's and thet swear by it. I've bought about 8 basses, all with Alnico and man I was never happy with my tone/sound. I'm more of a trebly/himids bass player, I hate dull bass tone. I needed to force a lot of highmids and treble to be able to hear myself but still the sound would come too harsh and piercing. After many years (12 years) I bought this cheap Jackson JS2 in new condition. Man the sound of this bass was amazing. I was really starting to think my sound was doomed, I had ampeg amplifiers/speakers, darkglass, modulers, the whole package to deliver a metal crushing bass tone but still couldn't have the sound I wanted but maaaan the Jackson delivered. I looked to see what made the bass sound so perfect for me. Was it the wood? (It has poplar body, one of the cheapest and "worst" woods) so no, it wasn't the wood. So I looked into the pickups and to my surprise they were Ceramic and passive pickups. It had to be that. Agresive yet sweet without piercing and I didn't even needed to eq the bass, it sounded amazing from the bass itself. So I really recommend ceramic passive good quality pickups.

Mr. Travis this is one very educational video and i would like to add , that most of guitars equipped with those ceramic pups are cheap and not well adjusted or with bad fretwork ... and that will make sound wrongly any pickups equipped guitar....

All of this is true about Neodymium, too. I'd say Neo even MORE so. All the body and bass of Ceramic with the clarity of Alnico, especially when you underwind compared to normal.

It’s all about frequency response and tone. Ceramic doesn’t degauss when next to a magnet like Alnico does, they all don’t lose as much magnetism over time, traditional people think this loss is exotic in old alnico magnets, call it character, dopes.

I have 57 classic plus pickups in my all maple hollow body tele. They sound great but they are pricey. But you know i just want to be better then anyone else. And i am a lot smarter then i look. I mean a whole lot!

I bought a Strat Classic vibe 60's and I think it has alnico V, I was always used to ceramics, so I didn't like the alnico, I found it very sharp, very weak and a little artificial, could you tell me if alnicos are like that or my pickups are with defects?

I think you should do a side by side sound comparison. Try an Alnico 2 versus your best ceramic. Try different things and share. Lets hear. :)

How do you know if your pickup is ceramic?

Many of the Dimarzio main bridge pickups are Ceramic pickups. But I'd say half of their overall catalog is 50/50. The rails are ceramics, the stacked hum cancelling strat pickups are all alnico. Go to the Eddie Van Halen and Satriani stuff it's alnico along with a lot of their PAF range with are mid to low output pickups. But the high out-put modern pickups are not just ceramic magnets, but tripple ceramic to mimic the active sound. BareKnuckle I would say are another big reason for liking Ceramic pickups as they allow you to choose your magnet.

great video... i have a squier affinity tele good pickups... thanks for your video.

Why not both can’t two magnets fit on a pickup!?

I like the warmer ceramic sound (Albert Hammond jr used them in an MIM) but my ceramic pickups are cheap ones that came with a squier. Should I buy more expensive ceramic ones or will these ones sound the same enough.

Do you find that the double-magnet (MIM Fender) are a better build quality? Do they wax pot ceramic pickups in general? Would it help to wax pot & shield them? Interesting discussion - thanks for the video!

Can you change the bar to a neodymium magnet?

I am swapping out my 2018 squier bullet tele with some MIM fender pickups and caps. I am not looking for a big difference but to get a bit a clearler signal and more room to push the sound. I didn’t want to overshoot with crazy pickups, hope I notice at least a little improvement.

The pups ending up having lots of myths like ceramic vs alnico, wich is imho a matter of taste and totally subjetive and in most cases to help brands to make more money, just like the tonewood discussion. Nice video and thanks for sharing your experiences!

So underrated video, only 8300 view after 5 years. Thx all on point

Joe plays alnico 5 pickups

So why does a cheap ceramic sound thin and fizzy? Too many windings and a small magent? I My ceramics in my Ibanez s521 sound pretty good. It measures 7.5 dc resistance, and I think has a lower power magnet. But it is definitely bright. I have to take out a lot of the highs with my 10 band eq. When I do that, it sounds great.

ceramic are the best ,my favorite ic the dimarzio super distortion ,They sound so good clean and the best overdrive ,I have them in a super strat and less paul and explorer .I dont even think about any other,My gibsons are in a cigar box guitar I built and 2 of them are in my parts box,Why do you think all rock players from1973 to 2000 replaced those weak p a f of gibsons?

Any opinions on Ibanez Classic Elite Humbuckers...in a semi-hollow guitar.? This is what my guitar has.

Ceramic magnets are cheaper to make, thus the propaganda and wife's tales. Every guy doing a sound comparison here on youtube has almost (ALMOST) every tone more attractive to me being the ceramic.

TRUTH ! ! ! Thanks

Do you know any US made guitar pickup brands that make ceramic pickups that you'd recommend?

-I just bought a used Affinity Squier off of Craigslist - '04 Indonesian - so, how about the tonewood on it ?? - good/no good ?? what do you think ??

Whats the difference with the bullet and affinity neck pick up? Or are they exactly the same?

Generally squier pickups are very weak(low output) and noisy. I'm not sure about the affinity. What do you think about the pus of the bullet strat?

Hello, what do you think about the ceramic pickups of the 2009 Squier Bullet (branded SEM) ? i love the sound, but i want to sell the guitar... i have better guitars now. i would like have a set of pickups with a sound as good as the sem Bullet pickups. Thank you !

People are just ignorant & closed minded to so many guitar myths & even other things. They hear with they eyes. 99% of people don't understand tech especially with pickups. Just cause you played for 50 years doesn't make you tech savvy.

The aura around ceramic pickups is dumb... I would take the ceramic pickups in the fender standard strat over that of the alnico pickups in the player strat any day of the week.

Use your ears, adjust the amp. Let it rip.

Are the singer from black witchery?

it's hard to listen to anyone wearing a hat like that