Wow, this looks pretty damn innovative!

[Chicago]

"Honestly Speaking",
We did the test on the Alumitone,
(I do not think I said anything about Alembec.)

The Alumitones two bar magnets would literally pull a "loose E String" right out of our hands at a distance of a 1/2" away.

As soon as you raise the pups up to where they would sound "OK" the intonation was lost.

Putting a full ceramic bar up 1/8" to 3/32" right smack under the strings is asking for a world of trouble. When the little round heads on the AlNiCo 5 Slugs are already know to be bad enough, whoever in the heck think's that a ceramic bar is going to do less damage is not looking at the whole picture here, or the tuning meter for that matter, they need to raise the pickup's up into the needed field and watch what happens then. Your adding almost twice the pull at the same distance a AlNiCo which already has problems with Stratitus..

If your adding steel or covers or anything to reduce the gauss then its OK. but and exposed ceramic bar directly placed under the strings at 1/8" to 3/32" is going to be a problem.

There’s no laws or industry standards in the USA, that prevent flawed deigns from being marketed.
A few things are bound to slip through the cracks and get loaded into hundreds of guitars.

There's enough new players (who do not know better) to support almost any product you want to distribute these days.

Intonation? What’s that? Never heard of it!

Thanks for replying DS,
You’re a nice enough person, I'm sorry we did not understand one another earlier.

CT

[David Schwab]

"Honestly Speaking",
We did the test on the Alumitone,
(I do not think I said anything about Alembec.)

No, you didn't mention Alembic, but you inferred that putting a ceramic magnet directly under the strings will cause intonation problems. My contention is it will not. There's no evidence to back up your claim, and a lot of existing pickups made with ferrites that don't exhibit intonation problems. There are even pickups using very strong rare earth magnets...

I used Alembic as an example, because that's precisely how their pickups are constructed. It's a ceramic bar magnet glued between two sheets of copper clad PCB, with the wire wound directly on the magnet. So the ceramic magnet is sitting right under the strings. It's a pretty wide magnet too.

EMG also use ceramic magnets and advise to adjust the pickup as close to the strings as possible.

It doesn't cause intonation problems... so why would the Alumitone?

As soon as you raise the pups up to where they would sound "OK" the intonation was lost.

What gauge strings were they... 8's? I put a link in one post with a review of the Alumitones. They had THREE on a S style guitar... He didn't report intonation problems.

How about these reviews on Harmony Central? Five reviews... four gave them a "10" and one was a "9".

I don't read anyone griping about intonation. In fact these reviews are so positive, that I'm dying to try these things myself.

Putting a full ceramic bar up 1/8" to 3/32" right smack under the strings is asking for a world of trouble. When the little round heads on the AlNiCo 5 Slugs are already know to be bad enough, whoever in the heck think's that a ceramic bar is going to do less damage is not looking at the whole picture here, or the tuning meter for that matter, they need to raise the pickup's up into the needed field and watch what happens then. Your adding almost twice the pull at the same distance a AlNiCo which already has problems with Stratitus..

Twice the string pull? According to what data? Ceramics are generally weaker in attraction (remanence) but stronger in coercivity than Alnicos.

I've made pickups with two ceramic bar magnets used for blade pole pieces... I didn't have a problem. The alnico magnets in three strat pickups are stronger than a ceramic bar magnet. Also Fender uses two ceramic magnets in the steel poled Strat pickups.

If your adding steel or covers or anything to reduce the gauss then its OK. but and exposed ceramic bar directly placed under the strings at 1/8" to 3/32" is going to be a problem.

Adding steel poles does not "reduce the gauss." Steel conducts magnetism. Adding steel increases the permeability of the magnetic circuit, and increases the inductance of the coil. Plus in the case of a humbucker, you have the two rows of poles both attached to the magnet. My bass pickup has 4 ceramic magnets conducting to 10 3/16 steel poles.

So a humbucker like a Duncan Invader, with the big screw caps and big ceramic magnet has more of a chance of adversely affecting the vibration of the strings, and yet, it doesn't happen. Another one is the DiMarzio X2N... wide-bar steel pole pieces and a big honkin' ceramic bar magnet.

Covers on the other hand will effect the magnetic field to some degree, and also cause some high end loss due to eddy currents.

There’s no laws or industry standards in the USA, that prevent flawed deigns from being marketed.
A few things are bound to slip through the cracks and get loaded into hundreds of guitars.

One person's flawed design is another person's gem. One could say that Strat pickups are flawed, since they have too strong a magnetic pull, and they hum. In a modern market they wouldn't have lasted a year.

These days, if a product isn't any good, it wont last in the market place. Let's take PJ Marx as one example.

Guitar player recently did a review of a hand made guitar that had Alumitone pickups. They liked the guitar, but they thought the pickups were too bright, and maybe a little harsh sounding. They did not report any intonation problems, they said the guitar played in tune nicely... and they are more than a little thorough with their reviews. And as I said, they didn't care for the pickups, so they weren't being kind with the review.

The fact that no one else has reported intonation problems with these pickups leads one to believe it's not a wide spread problem.

You didn't like the pickups... that's fine. I haven't heard one myself, so I have no opinion. But I do know that putting a ceramic magnet under the strings wont make them go out of tune, and you have not presented any evidence to the contrary.

I'm not arguing with you, I just don't agree.

[Chicago]

“When Horse’s fly and meters lie!”

Sorry, David
I honestly feel you have too much at stake here and you need to defend your pups and the other brands that need pulled off the market as far as I am concerned, your long winded replies confirmed that theory. I need not read the thread.

You want proof?

Please learn how to use a meter to look for these magnetic field problems and proof you will see my friend.

Or how about you take a loose E string and gently position it over a ceramic bar.

The time it’s already took you to set at your PC and try to defend this totally flawed pickup design,
You could have run these tests!
I know It would have been much less then the time you have already spent here trying to run the conversation to your favor, and this obvious attempt to cover up your own products defects and anyone else's similar designs.

I’m sick of this whole mentality and cover up horse carp that goes on in this industry, you may have picked the wrong guy here to try to baffle?

Nothing personal, but I’ll believe you and the others out there in the sea of denial. when “Horse’s fly and meters lie!”

[David Schwab]

Sorry, David
I honestly feel you have too much at stake here and you need to defend your pups and the other brands that need pulled off the market as far as I am concerned, your long winded replies confirmed that theory. I need not read the thread.

Too much at stake? Defend MY pickups... why on earth would I have to defend my pickups... we weren't even discussing my pickups, except I mentioned I used ceramic magnets... along with many other pickup makers. There's nothing wrong with my pickups.

Of course you wont read the thread, because at no point have you substantiated anything you said.

You want proof?

Yes, I do. When are you going to supply some?

Please learn how to use a meter to look for these magnetic field problems and proof you will see my friend.

You talk in circles. What does looking at a magnetic field have to do with hearing intonation problems? Nothing really.

I know how to read test equipment... I worked in the electronics field 25 years ago.

Or how about you take a loose E string and gently position it over a ceramic bar.

Duh! It's a metal string and a magnet! And if you position a loose E string above an alnico magnet? it does the same thing...

What does that prove? Nothing.

The time it’s already took you to set at your PC and try to defend this totally flawed pickup design,
You could have run these tests!

You could take some time and work on your grammar and spelling... but ok.. let's see... I was set at my PC... I don't use a PC by the way...

So... in that time I could go out to a store, buy an Alumitone pickup (assuming I want to spend $127 to test a pickup), install it in the guitar, and see if it pulls the strings out of tune. All that in 5 minutes, huh? Wow. Cool. You put your foot in your mouth on that one!

So explain how it's flawed. You haven't done that yet. I'm waiting for that. If you are going to say something stupid like it has a ceramic magnet under the strings... So what? A LOT of pickups use ceramic magnets, and guess what... no problems. Ceramic magnets are not two times stronger than alnico. You make sweeping generalization on how it's a "very poor" design from the 50's.

You know what's flawed? Your logic.

A flat ceramic bar magnet style design that place's the ceramic magnet directly under the strings.

Yeah, and so? How about the Ric horseshoe pickup... that placed the strings INSIDE the magnet.

I know It would have been much less then the time you have already spent here trying to run the conversation to your favor, and this obvious attempt to cover up your own products defects and anyone else's similar designs.

Listen.. you clearly have no clue what you are talking about. You said a number of things that were clearly incorrect, which leads me to the conclusion that you know little about pickups and magnets. I was stating some facts... but I'm covering up my products? Yeah, ok. I guess we all need to use noting but alnico, right? You better tell that to EMG, Bartolini, Fender, Gibson, Duncan, Dimarzio...

I pointed out a few reviews where no one said there was intonation problems.. including Guitar Player. You know something they don't I surmise?

I’m sick of this whole mentality and cover up horse carp that goes on in this industry, you may have picked the wrong guy here to try to baffle?

What's your mentality? You don't like something, and everyone must agree with you? Who are you? Then you must try to add credence to your views with some imaginary empirical data. Everyone has an opinion. I respect that you don't like those pickups and think it's a bad design. But if you are going to claim problems that no one else seems to be having... back up your claims. You have not done that yet.

I'm not trying to baffle anyone.. substantiate your claims. I'd love to see some data on your tests... only I doubt there is any. I have no interest in these pickups besides the fact that they look interesting, insofar that they are unlike anything made to date.

So what do you think is a good pickup... the other 50 year old designs?



Yeah, that's it. No one try anything new! let's all make strat pickups... Yawn....

Nothing personal, but I’ll believe you and the others out there in the sea of denial. when “Horse’s fly and meters lie!”

First, that sentence made no sense. Me and "the others" ... oh oh, everyone is ganging up on you! And what am I in denial about? Not a thing. Did you supply any data? No. No one agrees with you, so you have to have "proof" ... test are only as good as the testing method. And we don't even know that you tested anything. You don't seem to know much about magnets... but you did tests? So what was the gauss reading on those magnets?

OK.. here's my bass pickup, 4 ceramic magnets and all. No intonation problems what so ever. The bass is a bit out of tune, but that's because I didn't take the time to tune it before I recorded this... and that's not an intonation problem. The pickup is about a 1/16 under the strings. You notice there's no warbling, right?

SGD Bass pickup

So let's see some of your non flawed designs...

You must be the guy that came on the old forum and said ceramic makes bad sounding pickups.

[Zhangliqun]

I think a lot depends on how strong these little ceramics are.

Maybe they are very thin in which case they're just not going to have as much pull as a full-size 2.5" x 0.5" x 0.125" bucker bar ceramic. Maybe they are partially degaussed for this application. There's just too much we don't know about this design and it seems odd to me that Lace or any other winder worth their salt would be unaware of string-pull issues with a magnet so close to the string.

Then again, if Chicago is hearing the Strat-itis warble with these pickups, then that's what he's hearing. And it does seem strange that the magnets would be on top of the pickup instead of on the bottom.

In other words, for me the jury is still out...

[David Schwab]

I think a lot depends on how strong these little ceramics are.

Maybe they are very thin in which case they're just not going to have as much pull as a full-size 2.5" x 0.5" x 0.125" bucker bar ceramic. Maybe they are partially degaussed for this application. There's just too much we don't know about this design and it seems odd to me that Lace or any other winder worth their salt would be unaware of string-pull issues with a magnet so close to the string.

Then again, if Chicago is hearing the Strat-itis warble with these pickups, then that's what he's hearing. And it does seem strange that the magnets would be on top of the pickup instead of on the bottom.

In other words, for me the jury is still out...

The magnets are actually in the middle of the coil. The aluminum part you see is the coil. It's a single turn coil. The original Transensor pickups had a single turn of 18 awg copper.

Back at the old forum, Dr. Strangelove said "The filled in area between the loops was originally a bonded magnetic material akin to refrigerator seals."

I have not seen any of these in person, but Lace uses flexible magnets in some of their other pickups. Rickenbacker uses a big rubberized ceramic magnet under the treble pickup on a 4003 bass. So they aren't unheard of in pickups.

Lace claims the magnets are low power. I'm not sure you can degauss a ceramic magnet... not easily anyway. They have very high coercivity, so they are hard to demagnetize. This is partly why they sound different from alnicos.. they have a "hard" magnetic field, while alnicos are a bit "softer" which is probably why alnicos have that "sag" in their tone.

Ceramics are not all that strong really... not much more than alnico. You just usually see larger ceramic magnets. My objection was to the premise that using any ceramic magnet will cause problems... and that's total nonsense. None of the reviews I have read on these pickups stated any problems with stratitus. And they had three of the suckers under the strings.

I think the real issue was getting the pickup way too close to the strings.

[madialex]

I disagree with chicago also

I have a set of strat pickups with the bar mag along the bottom and the steel slugs, I can set this set closer to the strings and still get little to no stratitus, a regular set of alnico ploe pickups and the stratitus is worse by about 70%. I just checked 2 ceramic bars and 2 alnico 5 bars, the alnico bars to me had a stronger pull when pulling them apart than the ceramic did. Also the alnico bars repeled harder than did the ceramics. Yes ceramic is magnetically or coersive or whatever than alnico but the attraction of the alnico seems way more than the alnico to me. Just my opinion.
If you argue this point you will get this

[SK66]

Unless I'm mistaken, magnetic pull CANNOT affect intonation. Pickups have nothing to do with intonation. Intonation is the length of a string between nut/saddle and frets/saddle...if magnetic pull is causing the string to "sag" enough to affect this, you certainly are not tuned up to pitch. It CAN cause issues such as "stratitus" (and difficulty in setting the intonation I guess) but it is not as simple as magnetic "strength" that causes this. Of greater significance is the shape and orientation of the field. A wide field with a low peak due to a "quick return" can have LESS string pull even if the magnet is actually "stronger" than another magnet with a concentrated field and a high peak. A wide/short magnet will have a lower wider field than a narrow/tall magnet for any given "strength". Ceramics in and of themselves are not "bad", and Alnico's are not necessarily "good" for any given application. The overall design and construction must take everything into consideration and apply "what works best" for the desired results.
There are certainly "bad designs", and more certainly designs which are "bad for you", but it's not simply because of the type of magnet used.

[David Schwab]

Here's an interesting quote from EMG's catalog (italics added for emphasis):

The first choice in design is the string interface. The selection of a bar magnet or individual pole pieces is an important one. All initial EMG designs used a bar magnet for two reasons. Pole pieces place too much magnetism under the strings and cause the lower ones (primarily low E, A, and D) to go "out of pitch" with a Doppler effect. This is especially true of the Fender Stratocaster* where 3 poles under each of the strings push and pull them through a variety of unnatural movements. Poles can also make intonation and tuning difficult. On the other hand, pole pieces have the benefit of a percussive attack giving the pickup much more of a "plucky" sound.

STRING INTERFACE Designs featuring a bar magnet have a much more linear (balanced) output from string to string. Its attack is less pronounced than the pole piece design resulting in smoother distortion, and much better sustain. String bending is smoother because the output doesn't fade when you bend strings. By relying on the internal preamp for gain the bar magnet can also be smaller, further limiting the magnetic "pull" on the strings.

Most EMG Pickups use a magnetic bar. Single coil pickups are available in both bar and pole-piece designs. There are fewer negative attributes to the bar and it's preferable, but if you like pole-pieces for your playing style then there is an EMG model for you.

Incidentally, the "plucky" nature of rod pole pieces is due to the shape. If they were square (as in older Bartolini designs) you wouldn't get that sound. Bartolini also used parallelogram shaped poles, and some designs had a flat metal bar on top of the magnets. This was to shape the flux lines.

So I think we can all move past the "ceramic bar magnet under the strings is a no-no" now!

[Rob S]

Here's a little experiment to try which illustrates the issues raised here and will make it obvious that *any* sufficiently strong magnet placed near a vibrating steel string (particularly the most magnetic low E) will cause trouble...

Capo the 12th fret. Take your neodymium magnet (one of your alnico magnetising ones) and hold it near say, the 20th fret and pluck the string.

Listen to the 'stratitus'. Look at your tuner giving up.

Wonder why there's not enough adjustment to set intonation (try it if you dare).

The magnet creates a sort of floating anchor point on the string a bit like a string harmonograph. A weak magnet will still do this - it's just a question of degree.


Rob.
(dodges bullets, but pass that over here)

[David Schwab]

The magnet creates a sort of floating anchor point on the string a bit like a string harmonograph. A weak magnet will still do this - it's just a question of degree.


Rob.
(dodges bullets, but pass that over here)

Oh I'm sure all magnets affect the string... if not the pickups wouldn't work!

But, yes, a question of degree.

BTW, I can't read your posts without hearing Groucho's voice reading them...

[Rob S]

BTW, I can't read your posts without hearing Groucho's voice reading them...

You'll have to speak to my secretary about that

http://music-electronics-forum.com/a...1&d=1150402770

[Zhangliqun]

I have a set of strat pickups with the bar mag along the bottom and the steel slugs, I can set this set closer to the strings and still get little to no stratitus, a regular set of alnico ploe pickups and the stratitus is worse by about 70%.

The problem with your analysis is that the alnico magnets themselves are right there at the strings while the ceramics are way down below. Traditional humbucker pickups won't give you stratitis either, again because the magnets are at the bottom of the pickup rather than a 1/4" or less from the strings. I guarantee you that if you had ceramic rod magnets (don't even know if there is such a thing) instead of Alnico rods in your pickups, you would get at least as much stratitis with the ceramics.

Just my opinion.
If you argue this point you will get this

There are different grades of ceramic as well as Alnico, and some grades of Alnico are as strong or stronger than your typical ceramic pickup magnet. Alnico 8 is right there with ceramic. I assume Alnico 9 is even stronger but have never tried it.

Blast away...

[David Schwab]

Here's something interesting... the guy who invented the Lace Transensor pickups, is named Villen Khanagov. This is the same person who runs Villex pickups, the ones used in the Chapman Stick.

I guess he has a something new... his passive pickups are said to be as powerful as active, and they have a "passive magnetic mid range circuit" controlled by 50 K pot.

[Rob S]

Have a look at this... what's it coming to eh?

http://www.harmosmusic.com/EG/indexEG.htm