Cast magnets

[Matt T.]

Most of the Alnico magnets I've bought or pulled out of other pickups had that 'brushed' look and were fairly shiny (maybe a 'metallic matte' might be a better description). In any case, they all looked about the same.

In experimenting with swapping magnets, I pulled the A5 magnets out of the original Burstbucker Pros that were in my 2003 LP Std. and they were different. The 'flat' sides were black...not metallic looking. The edges looked about the same as the other Alnico magnets. The magnets were slightly different dimensions; slightly shorter length and either slightly wider or taller (can't remember) or possibly both. But the length was definitely slightly shorter. These magnets also seemed to be have a stronger magnetic strength.

In comparing these magnets with some A5 pulls out of a couple of DiMarzios; when installed in the same p'up the Gibson mags had extended highs and lows and a more scooped sound. Both DiMarzio magnets looked identical and were allegedly A5, they came out of a PAF Pro and a Humbucker From Hell.

Are these Gibson magnets cast? Where (other than Gibson) can I get some of these magnets? I ask because some overwound p'ups, like a Duncan Custom 5, seem to be kind of middy and compressed/congested and they already use A5. I wanted to try these 'black' magnets in these type p'up to see if it opens them up a bit.

PS - I fairly certain these magnets are not ceramic, I have some ceramic pulls and these are different. Besides, Burstbucker Pros are advertised as Alnico 5 and these were stock in a brand new LP.

[Spence]

Sounds like you've got some cast, rather than sintered A5 magnets that have only been ground on the ends and magnet faces. Old PAF magnets used to have that finish and were sand cast.

[Possum]

it may be alnico 4, just a guess, yes its cast. there currently is no one I know who makes them that way anymore. I know the supplier that made those and I have a couple of them they gave me, its not economical to make them cast as they have to be made one by one rather than cast as a big block and then magnets cut out of that. Duncan used to use this supplier here in america now they get all their magnets from china.....

[madialex]

it may be alnico 4, just a guess, yes its cast. there currently is no one I know who makes them that way anymore. I know the supplier that made those and I have a couple of them they gave me, its not economical to make them cast as they have to be made one by one rather than cast as a big block and then magnets cut out of that. Duncan used to use this supplier here in america now they get all their magnets from china.....

Hi Possum, as in posts at the other board I am still with you on the magnets creating a unique tone. I still beleive the Old PAF's tone had something to do with the magnets. Now I really want some cast mags to test with.

[Possum]

the secret in PAFs I think now, isn't in the magnets. Cast magnets can be slightly brighter, but thats not the sole piece that makes PAFs sound good, you have to have all the correct parts in the correct dimensions, and correct alloys. To do that you have to have them made, as no one sells these parts in correct specs. Alot of it is somewhat close but put together as a whole they miss the mark. You can get that PAF tone pretty close but you have to do things a bit different than was done in the originals to compensate for not having the parts they did. And really, PAF tones arent' all THAT magical really. Alot of them were muddy and blah sounding, the good ones were probably not that numerous. Here's a good link to the only video I've ever been able to find of Duan Allman playing his guitar:
http://free-the-music.blogspot.com/2006/01/vintage-allman-brothers-video-from.html
Nice tone but not anything that can't be duplicated with alot of testing and experimentation.

[Spence]

There's a few key things going on with that tone. It 's clear that he sets up his amp for the neck pickup rather than the bridge. He's also playing through a huge rig and is clearly stoned.
Thanks for the link to the clips though; clips like that are like rocking horse shit; hard to come by.

[Luijo]

Awesome playing!
I just don't dig his slide playing (I know, sacrilege), but he had great tone and taste.
Definetively favored the neck tone over the bridge...but what a nice tone!
Any idea of what amps was he using at the time?

[Possum]

I think he was using a 50 watt marshall cranked all the way, there's info on the net about his amps. Yes, to get that tone you gotta smoke a big spliff :-)

Also notice the covers were taken off the pickups, and yeah bridge and neck are different, thats always a problem to me, the bridge pickups if made the same way don't match the neck real well. He does use the bridge a fair amount, I think from what I read he also used the middle position alot but used the volume pots to mix that tone as well. You may not like his slide playing but realize this was 1971, by those standards in that day he was considered spectacular. Derek Trucks took that style off the planet! I'm not an Allman fan and never was, I've been looking alot for PAF historic tones from guys who didn't mess with their guitars like Page did with the elctronics, and no effects. Bozz Skaggs did a song called Buddy Loan Me A Dime with Duan playing lead, and that tone just floors me everytime I hear it, have no idea which pickup, what amp which guitar etc. Best PAF tone I ever heard.

[Luijo]

Yeah, the big difference in tone between bridge and neck in some LPs really put me off, and almost everytime this happens is because both PUs are identical (or very close). I prefer a little overwound bridge PU in LPs, but that's also sacrilege for some guys.
I get your point about his rating as a player back in those days. It's not his phrasing I have a problem with but his tuning instead. I find George Harrison a far more in-tune and very underated slide player.
BTW, couldn't agree with you more about Derek Trucks.
Wow, I'm not a Junior Member anymore! :)

[Matt T.]

Couple of comments:
Maybe it was just bad luck but one of the two cast magnets I pulled from the BB Pros snapped in half. So it may be that they are more brittle?

IMO, the BB Pros are way too 'hifi' sounding. They have a cool, unique tone especially when played clean but I didn't really like them when overdriven. Lots of lows and highs but the mids aren't right. I put one of the magnets in a way overwound PAF-type (I think, it's a WCR Goodwood bridge p'up) and it's still a bit too scooped.

I too struggle with the LP bridge/neck thing. I really believe if the neck p'up were placed farther back towards the bridge it would help them balance. I can't get them to balance unless I go hot on the bridge and really cool on the neck.

Like a lot of artists of the day, drugs really held a few artists back. You can hear certain recordings of Duane and he sounds and plays great...other times not so much. I recently noticed that many of the later Hendrix recordings had some really sloppy playing and poor singing but much of the earlier stuff (often in black & white, when he had the moppy fro) is cleaner and more polished...like this one (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F9-t9F9-LIo).

[David Schwab]

Also notice the covers were taken off the pickups

If you look carefully, it looks like the covers are on the pickups.

Here's two other pictures of him. The first looks as if it's from the same concert.

http://www.shanepruitt.com/f/DA59LP.jpeg

http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/media_content/m-8981.jpg

I agree about the tone... what is a PAF tone exactly? His guitar doesn't sound that much different from the '81 LP Standard I used to own... once you get a good amp tone, you are set. :)

[Luijo]

Placing the neck PU further towards the bridge would give it a different tone than the one we are used to. It would sense a different part of the string and so different harmonics.
What works for me is a conventional PAF-style PU at the neck and an overwound version of that at the bridge. But as I said before, some hardcore vintage buffs won't have it that way.
David's got a point there, you can get really close to that tone with quite a few of the PAF copies that flood the market, meaning no disrespect to the fine builders in this forum, just my opinion. After all, you guys know more about this stuff than I do.

[Possum]

yeah the covers were ON that guitar, huh, coulda sworn they were off. That guitar must have had the lower wind PAFs rather than the hotter 8K+ ones. The Les Paul forum has a guitar registry with pix of a bunch of LPs and some have DCR specs there, they range from just over 7K to almost 9K on some. I imagine the 9K ones probably sound pretty mushy.

[Possum]

it broke because its porous, its like a sponge instead of solid like the perfect made ones we all buy.

One comment on some bad recordings by Duane, you know they are just human these star guitar players, some of them rarely make mistakes but some incredible talents like Hendrix weren't very consistent. If you read his latest biography, he showed up at alot of gigs with zero sleep, all that travel, and yes partying, wears you down. Just being on the road wears you down. Duane Allman was a good guitar player, but not really a great talent in my opinion like Hendrix or Charley Christian, the really good guitar players these days alot of them practice relentlessly, Hendrix did that alot in the beginning, he even practiced in the car on the way to a gig and at breaks during the gig. I like it when you see one of your heroes have a bad day, makes them more human to me, and then you can see them at their base playing abilities which is more understandable sometimes :-)

[Matt T.]

FWIW - I just read that Fralin and RS Guitarworks are jointly selling a PAF-clone and LF is using cast A4 magnets (individually tested for a few properties...then cryogenically treated). So if true...it would appear cast magnets are available, just wish I could find where to get them.

[David Schwab]

So if true...it would appear cast magnets are available, just wish I could find where to get them.

I did a quick search on Google for "cast alnico magnet" and got some results... here's the first few:

Bunting Magnetics Co. - Cast Alnico & Sintered Alnico Magnets (http://www.buntingmagnetics.com/mag-alnico.cfm)

Sintered and Cast AlNiCo Magnet (http://aicengineering.en.alibaba.com/product/50235131/51251444/Magnets/Sintered_and_Cast_AlNiCo_Magnet.html)

China Cast Alnico Magnet,Cast Alnico Magnets Manufacturer, Supplier, Factory, Exporter in china (http://www.chinamagnets.com/Cast_Alnico_Magnet.htm)

Looks like they are available. :)

[Matt T.]

Thanks David but I didn't see any in the right size. I'm not a maker, just a tinkerer and only need a few. I'd like to try A8 too but going from the difference between A2 and A5 and extrapolating from that ...I might not like it.

I used to have a pair of 8K/9K Fralin Unbuckers with (allegedly) A4 magnets and I didn't particularly care for them. They were just the opposite of what I expected, reduced clarity and a rather ass-less low end.

[Possum]

Where did you hear that about Fralin? Yes of course alot of alnico is cast, but they are cast as big blocks of material then cut up. The difference between that and old stuff is the old stuff was done as small long pieces that were cut up, so the wide flat sides are rough. In modern times this stuff is cast in gas atmosphere to keep oxygen out etc. Big difference than the old way. This cryo stuff is bunk, it supposedly makes some tiny difference, sure as hell they weren't dunking alnico magnets into liquid nitrogen back in the 50s. Alnico 4 makes nice neck buckers if done right, here's a sample of a set with A2 in bridge and A4 in the neck:
http://www.sdpickups.com/audio/tone%20king%20dirty.mp3
You either like it or you don't, for me A4 has a little more definition than A2, doesn't work in bridge pickups too well for me.

[Possum]

forgot to mention that in the sound clip the last sample is the neck with A4, guitar is an LP clone, amp is blackfaced vibrolux.....

[Matt T.]

Possum,
I can't find the 'cast' part now. I thought I saw it on the RS guitarworks description but it's not there anymore.

FWIW, the A5 magnets that were in the BB Pros that came in my '03 LP Standard had the rough, black surfaces.

[David Schwab]

Thanks David but I didn't see any in the right size...

yeah I have no idea who these people even are... but it seems makers still make cast magnets.

... a rather ass-less low end.

That's funny! I'll have to remember that one. :D

[Mark Hammer]

I was fortunate enough to catch the Allman Brothers around the time those videos were taken. I enjoyed Duane's playing (and yeah, our band at the time covered "Somebody Loan Me a Dime" largely *because* of Duane's solo on it), though more because he had a really good sense of how and when to go for those high notes (as he did on Derek and the Dominoes), than because of anything terribly unique or sublime about his tone. There are a lot of wonderful things that happen when you hold your pick just the right way and hit the strings just the right way, with a guitar that feels just right, and a respectable amp turned up loud. I strongly doubt that there is any single technical component of that which assures something memorable or distinctive, and I imagine any one of us here could nail it on a $99 Behringer guitar into a $49 practice amp on the right day with the wind at our back.

My wife bought me a DVD of Hendrix on the Dick Cavett show and there was Jimi playing a Flying V straight into a B-15 Portaflex likely borrowed from one of the house band members, at levels acceptable to the production staff, and damn if it didn't sound EXACTLY like everything you typically associated with a white Strat through a Marshall stack and a Roger Mayer pedal of some kind. There were only two things in common between those two scenarios: the Flying V was also white, and Jimi's fingers. I strongly doubt the white paint was the determining factor.

If you go to the Sugarmegs site (http://tela.sugarmegs.org/_asxtela/_new_additions.html a vast repository of concerts people have surreptitiously recorded over the years), you'll find some Hendrix "concerts" that are not a whole lot more organized than a bunch of 19 year-olds having band practice in the basement. My sense, especially after viewing the Cavett appearances is that Jimi was a very shy guy and quick to apologize for any absence of professionalism or perfection. Maybe it WAS due to impossible sleeping schedules (as seems the case on cavett), but it translated into a lot of nervous hesitant introductions that evoke sentiments of "Just PLAY already!" from the listener.

One of the other things you'll find there (at Sugarmegs) is that the concert recordings depict the tone of our collective favourites in their naked form. Remember these are not commercial releases of concerts with post-production enhancements. These are folks holding a circa-1972 5" reel-to-reel and a single dynamic mic, and what you hear is what the player of your choice (and they are ALL there, folks, from Allman, Beck, Buchanan, and Clapton, through to Trower, Young and Zappa) sounded like to themselves when they played. It is the tone they got without studio trickery or overdubs.

If you want to just cream your jeans with guitar tone, check out this recording of Danny "The Humbler" Gatton: http://tela.sugarmegs.org/_asxtela/DannyGatton1989wetlands_lonestar.asx Go to the 22-minute mark and listen to his tone on "Harlem Nocturne". It's enough to make the staunchest Wahabi-ist give pause for thought as to whether they've been praying to the right god all this time. Tone like that comes from beyond technology.

And Dave, I recently heard a live recording of Boz doing "Dime" with John Hetherington playing and it's pretty kickass too. He nails Duane's tone, and injects his own as well.

[JGundry]

I got some cast A5 magnets from a supplier. One magnet was cast but had all faces of the magnet ground smooth. The other had only the north and south pole edges ground smooth. The rest of the magnet was the dark, rough cast surface. The unground magnet did have more top end air to it. There are two factors I can think of that might explain the difference in tone. The act of grinding would likely knock down the magnetism of the ground magnet. Another possible factor would be that the rough cast, oxidized surfaces of the unground magnet are less conductive than the ground magnet. The cast surfaces are a resistive surface. I don't know if it would have the same effect as the DiMarzio Air PAF trick has? Where they place a non conductive shim between the slug and the magnet edge but it seems it might have an effect especially if the north and south edges of the magnet were not ground smooth. It certainly is making the magnet less conductive against the base plate.

[CL-10]

Hello--I'm Dave and I'm new to the forum. I was directed to the forum after Emailing Steven Kersting for some information. (THANKS Mr. Kersting!!). I have just started dabbling in winding. I saw that some here might be looking for Rough Cast Magnets. I recently bought a batch from "All Star" Magnets if anyone is interested. I bought both Alnico 2 and Alnico 4. The rep. Bob Paar stated that they also had Alnico 5 available. I have'nt got to play around with them much yet, but so far so good. The magnets are already charged. I put a set of Alnico 4's in some S.D. Antiquities I have, that had pretty weak magnets, and so far I like the tones. I also tried some Alnico 2's in some S.D. '59's which are in a fairly Bright guitar and am pleased with the results--so far. Hope this helps if your looking for Rough Cast Magnets

[Zhangliqun]

I talked to Fralin on the phone one day to get some A4's from him way back when. He told me he uses nothing but A4's on his humbuckers, but does keep some A5's on hand in case a customer complains that the pickup doesn't have enough output.

The Burstbucker mags are designed to look like old oxidized PAF mags. I'm guessing they cast them with a rough surface dye (or maybe even actual sand?) to give them that pitted look. They are also slightly shorter as some PAF mags were, 2.25" instead of 2.5".

As far as I know there are only two basic ways to make Alnico magnets, cast and sintered. Sintered Alnico is made by mixing the metals in powder that is then put under great pressure to form it into the shape. It's magnetically a bit weaker than cast Alnico but can be made into more intricate shapes.

The people I've talked to in the mag biz say that all Alnico bar and rod mags used for pickups are cast.