Magnet Strenght vs Tone

[soundmasterg]

The strength of the magnetic field, and more importantly, the shape of the magnetic field, and how that reacts with the coil is going to be important in my mind. If you have a weak magnetic field, then less of the coil will be within the magnetic field, and will react differently. I remember a couple years ago on the old forum how someone was modelling the shape of the magnetic field and talking about how that would interact with the coil. Unfortunately I don't recall any details about it though.

[madialex]

I still say tension has a lot to do with the magnetic pull. I proved this last night. I brought this up in another thread that got ignored. I said the more tension you use effects it somehow, not sure how or why but to my ears it does.

I have noticed that I get more stratitis with more tension, and as I said, i proved it again last night, I wound 3 singles, each with more tension than the last and as I suspected, more stratitis and to my ears less output, maybe not, it may be that the tone was just getting duller but each time I had to raise the pickup 1/16 to compensate for the output difference. I dont have any equipment to prove any of this, just my ears.

Anyone else noticed this before??

[Joe Gwinn]

So its safe to say that the strength of the magnetic field affects tone a very small amount?

In the pickup, yes. But a strong magnetic field can physically affect the string vibration directly, causing the harmonics of the fundamental to move out of their normal places.

And it's also safe to say that the strength of the magnetic field affects dynamics (touch sensitivity) a very large amount?

Not so fast. Depends on the amount of magnetic pull (in pounds or kilograms force) in relationship to the string tension (also in pounds or kilograms force).

[corduroyew]

I have noticed that I get more stratitis with more tension

What exactly do you mean by stratitis?

[David Schwab]

What exactly do you mean by stratitis?

Those wolf tones you get on a Strat when you get the pickups too close to the strings. It's a warbling out of tune sound.

[tbryanh]

The magnetic field dampens the strings vibrations.
The stronger the magnetic field, the more the strings are damped.
It is possible that the low and mid frequencies are damped more than the highs.
If so, this would be a reason why increasing the strength of the magnetic field makes the pickup sound brighter.

[David Schwab]

The magnetic field dampens the strings vibrations.
The stronger the magnetic field, the more the strings are damped.
It is possible that the low and mid frequencies are damped more than the highs.
If so, this would be a reason why increasing the strength of the magnetic field makes the pickup sound brighter.

You need a really strong magnet to damp the string vibrations enough to change the tone. I have yet to hear that happen. Generally you get wolf tones first. The other thing is the high frequencies are harmonics to the fundamental... if the string is damped you loose high end, not low end. Stick a piece of tape on your string and see.

And on bass strings which have a lot more mass, magnets that might cause stratitus on a guitar won't cause a problem on a bass. And stronger magnets will make brighter sounding bass pickups. Q-Tuner pickups use neodymium magnets for both guitar and bass. No string damping problems.

The reason why a stronger magnet makes the pickup brighter is impedance. Impedance (AC resistance) increases with frequency. So high frequencies require more energy than low frequencies. A stronger magnet does exactly that.

This is the reason over wound humbuckers almost always use ceramic magnets. It's real easy to wind a muddy pickup because of the high frequency loss due to increased impedance.