ALNICO 8 Magnet and a Les Paul

  • Thread starter Thread starter scottosan
  • Start date Start date
Sounds nice mang..
I was trying to find that post you had that explained all the characteristics of the different Alnico Mags, but I can't find it..
 
That A8 is chunky af, staying tight on the low end, balanced through the mids and highs.
It's mean, but composed.
Love it.
 
Damn it man your amp builds made me start building amps... now 8+ builds later you're making me want to play with winding pickups. Knock it off :ROFLMAO:

Really liking the clips of most of your stuff so far, would love to try a set but don't really record a lot so haven't tried to get in on the trial sets.
 
Not much info on the 8.. Only reference I could find is the SD Alternative 8. I like that SD gives you a basic EQ graph for the response of the pup.

Seems like your clip has a lot of mids but is solid and less compressed than a Ceramic.

Did you find that you turned the mids down on the amp??
 
midnightlaundry said:
Not much info on the 8.. Only reference I could find is the SD Alternative 8. I like that SD gives you a basic EQ graph for the response of the pup.

Seems like your clip has a lot of mids but is solid and less compressed than a Ceramic.

Did you find that you turned the mids down on the amp??
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I never touch my tone controls, though the pickup is mid heavy, but not in spiky way. On the clean side, you can really tell it’s slamming the front end harder than it’s ALNICO relatives. And yes, not as compressed as ceramic. I never find the tone charts especially helpful for mid voicing. Low mids can be perceived as bass and high mids can be perceived as treble.
 
I had an Arcane PX-8 in one. It smoked but I sold the guitar. Only 9.2K output but it sounded hotter. There's only one clip on YT of Phil X playing it and it doesn't do it much justice. I need another one. Here's the link to the pickup page.

Arcane PX-8
 
scottosan said:
Not yet. I’ve mainly been trying to get them out on the street for real world feedback and development. I will likely have a batch of several models pre made and available as a Black Friday stupid deal and official kickoff, but I’m cutting it close. I still have work on my website to do.
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Gotcha, hopefully everything works out as those pickups sound amazing.
 
scottosan said:
This is a good general guideline.
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I was unaware of the A2 long vs Short. Had picked up a pariah A2 based pickup and to be honest, it felt a little loose to me and I wanted more definition in the low end. High end was good but for me, I need it tight for riffage. That might explain what I was hearing. Might also be the way it was wound. I had heard good things about those pups but again as you mentioned, in the wild, every player and every rig is going to be different.
 
Kapo_Polenton said:
I was unaware of the A2 long vs Short. Had picked up a pariah A2 based pickup and to be honest, it felt a little loose to me and I wanted more definition in the low end. High end was good but for me, I need it tight for riffage. That might explain what I was hearing. Might also be the way it was wound. I had heard good things about those pups but again as you mentioned, in the wild, every player and every rig is going to be different
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Not sure which one of their pickups you got, but I might be able to make some recommendations from there
 
scottosan said:
Not sure which one of their pickups you got, but I might be able to make some recommendations from there
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It was the "Patina" . Described like this:

Delivers a hard driving rock tone with a “velvety” punch. The warmth of the Alnico 2 Special magnet balances out the midrange providing a defined low end with singing highs.
The Patina is an excellent pickup for blues, rock and metal.

Sounded promising but I don't hear the defined low end so much.. it seems softer and rounder. So the velvet singing highs sure which are cool but maybe a bit top heavy in the bass which makes it seem like it doesn't cut as much. It sure doesn't cut like my JB2. That thing is crunchy and defined yet rounded. Maybe I just got lucky with that pup as it was someone on this forum that swapped magnets in a regular JB but it sounds incredible.
 
scottosan said:
Not yet. I’ve mainly been trying to get them out on the street for real world feedback and development. I will likely have a batch of several models pre made and available as a Black Friday stupid deal and official kickoff, but I’m cutting it close. I still have work on my website to do.
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Count me in if you pull it off :)
 
Kapo_Polenton said:
It was the "Patina" . Described like this:

Delivers a hard driving rock tone with a “velvety” punch. The warmth of the Alnico 2 Special magnet balances out the midrange providing a defined low end with singing highs.
The Patina is an excellent pickup for blues, rock and metal.

Sounded promising but I don't hear the defined low end so much.. it seems softer and rounder. So the velvet singing highs sure which are cool but maybe a bit top heavy in the bass which makes it seem like it doesn't cut as much. It sure doesn't cut like my JB2. That thing is crunchy and defined yet rounded. Maybe I just got lucky with that pup as it was someone on this forum that swapped magnets in a regular JB but it sounds incredible.
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At 16.8k/A2 and hand wound, I would expect less mids and more bottom and top end than a JB2. Because of the lack of the mid hump and more bottom and top being let through, I could see how a A2 might feel a little loose in the bottom. I’ve always felt that A2 is more bassy, but is slow compressive way vs A5 being more immediate. I personally don’t like A2 in a high output hand wound pickup because it doesn’t need the mids balancing out like a machine wound pickup of the same specs. I think a cheap magnet swaps might get you closer to where you want to be in the Patina.
 
scottosan said:
At 16.8k/A2 and hand wound, I would expect less mids and more bottom and top end than a JB2. Because of the lack of the mid hump and more bottom and top being let through, I could see how a A2 might feel a little loose in the bottom. I’ve always felt that A2 is more bassy, but is slow compressive way vs A5 being more immediate. I personally don’t like A2 in a high output hand wound pickup because it doesn’t need the mids balancing out like a machine wound pickup of the same specs. I think a cheap magnet swaps might get you closer to where you want to be in the Patina.
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That would probably explain it and that is exactly where I was headed.. was thinking of throwing a A5 or A8 in it to see what happened to it. I guess it also shows how I like mids!
 
RedPlated said:
Duncan Alternative 8 is probably the best sounding pickup I have in a Les Paul right now. Love it.
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Same here, got the SD Alt8 in an older LP Studio and it's amazing. The midrange sounds full and the upper-mids are like a less harsh JB. Works great. The pickup in Scottosan's video sounds excellent, really love the balance of it. Powerful and full but not muddy or harsh at all!
 
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