Fender Ceramic Pickups Vs Alnico

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.

Fender ceramic pickups vs alnico.

Alnico vs ceramic magnets. Back then alnico was the high tech material of the age and fender continued to use it through the 1950s and 1960s. Ceramic magnets are made from ferrites often iron oxides. Ceramic pickups generally offer a brighter and more glassy sound.

Alnico pickups provide a warmer sound and generally have a little more bass response. You ll notice more midrange and treble response from a ceramic pickup. Alnico vii is in some pickups but this is rare. Alnico tends to produce a very musical pickup in most.

You often hear that the sound of a pickup is dominated by the choice of magnet used in its construction. There are a lot of different components and modifications that go into shaping the sound of a pickup. A lot of people automatically say that alnico is superior to ceramic in pickups. So we often hear.

Alnico is nice and warm and great for blues. Sure enough fender started making pickups with alnico magnets as early as the late 1940s. Ceramic even brighter than alnico v or iii and often used for high output pickups to help counterbalance the treble lost by the higher dc resistance many other factors effect tone. Magnetically speaking ceramic magnets produce a stronger field than alnico.

Well good because we decided to go ahead and write a short comparison guide on alnico vs. Alnico seems to be the popular favorite but on the other hand there is no shortage of popular recordings that feature ceramic. For example the guage of the magnet wire is known by pickup manufacturers to effect tone. These include the type and gauge of wiring how many times it s turned the material the magnet is made of and its size.

The result is a slightly hotter sounding pickup with more treble response.