goofy marketing copy of the day

[ShannonH]

here's a good way to describe pickups from the guys at Warr guitar about their "Metal" tapstick:

"You have the choice of a hard-magnet pickup design for the most thrash over-drive tone or an eleven adjustable pole-piece soft magnet design to add that thicker over-drive tone."

I'd really like some of those soft magnets. Wonder if it sounds squishy?

[Possum]

....

I have some real soft magnets holding pictures of my cat to the refrigerator, thats probably what they're using.....

[David Schwab]

Hard is probably ceramic, and soft is alnico. That is how they sound.

Then you have neos... which is a fuzzy bunny wrapped in barbed wire.

[Possum]

.....

Here's another one, these guys make cool vintage saddles and springs for strat, but their pickup advertising copy is slightly straining the bounds of credability IMHO:
Raw Vintage

[ShannonH]

For the Raw Vintage Pickups we used a magnet known as "Tall G", which has same height for 3rd and 4th string.

I knew "Tall G". He was a friend of the flat polepiece brothers. Now he's about the same height as "Tall D."

[David Schwab]

I knew "Tall G". He was a friend of the flat polepiece brothers. Now he's about the same height as "Tall D."

He had quite a stagger too...

[David Schwab]

Here's another one, these guys make cool vintage saddles and springs for strat, but their pickup advertising copy is slightly straining the bounds of credability IMHO:
Raw Vintage

Vintage springs? Do they also make vintage sweat to be poured on the guitar for that vintage mojo?

The problem with all these ways to make your new guitar vintage is the lack of vintage wood.

[ShannonH]

The problem with all these ways to make your new guitar vintage is the lack of vintage wood.

It helps to have vintage fingers... Wait can I patent that?

[Possum]

...

They do have a highly valid point and ran into the exact same stuff I have with PAFs, vintage steel is not the same was what is made now. So they made the effort to get as close as possible with the saddles and the springs. A customer of mine bought their stuff and said it made a remarkable difference for the better in his strat. This is the same reason for a real strat tone you need to replace the tremolo block, Fender is using leaded steel in their current stuff I'm told, that stuff is night and day between what was really used, Callaham is the only one I know making them the old way, I have one and it made a big difference in tone. But that said, their pickup text is borderline ridiculous, they're recreating vintage strat pickups by individually magnetizing each polepiece before they put it in the bobbin? Thats just goofy, Fender magnetized their pickups as an assembled unit. How do you "balance" the magnetics in a staggered pickup by individually magnetizing the poles? Too much blab there that sounds amateurish to me...

[David King]

Guys, "soft magnets" to me means soft magnetic materials i.e. iron which is charged by a magnet underneath i.e. a PAF or P90 type of situation. Hard magnets are ones that actually hold a charge i.e ceramics, alnicos, Neodymiums etc. I'd interpret that as a Fender type of situation.

[LtKojak]

It helps to have vintage fingers... Wait can I patent that?

Possum sure has "vintage fingers"!

Now that I think of it... Possum has "vintage" everything!

Sorry, I just couldn't help it...

[Possum]

...

True, but my magnets aren't soft

[David Schwab]

Guys, "soft magnets" to me means soft magnetic materials i.e. iron which is charged by a magnet underneath i.e. a PAF or P90 type of situation. Hard magnets are ones that actually hold a charge i.e ceramics, alnicos, Neodymiums etc. I'd interpret that as a Fender type of situation.

Alnico is softer than ceramic, etc., as far as holding a charge.

It has a spongier field too, as compared to ceramic.

You can hear that too... replace an alnico II magnet in a PAF output pickup with a ceramic and hear how hard and bright it will sound!

[ken]

Maybe what we need here is a sticky on 'ads so bad they're good'.

Then again, maybe not. I can see it now... most of my website would end up there, and some guy would copy large chunks off of it to sell their pickups on Ebay.

ken

[ShannonH]

Guys, "soft magnets" to me means soft magnetic materials i.e. iron which is charged by a magnet underneath i.e. a PAF or P90 type of situation. Hard magnets are ones that actually hold a charge i.e ceramics, alnicos, Neodymiums etc. I'd interpret that as a Fender type of situation.

I'm down with that, but would you put it in your marketing copy? It sets up the customer and others for misinterpretation of the facts. I'd like to see marketing copy actually be guilty of disambiguation. I have hesitated to even describe my own stuff, because the possibility for misleading. I'm sure there is some horse hockey on my own page that is ridicule worthy.