Jb’s just don’t work for me..so let’s swap magnets 🧲!!

My inspiration took me a different way today, I ended up instead swapping a double-thick ceramic into a 7 string JB, into an all mahogany guitar with maple top. Really happy with it so far, super hot, tight enough for me, and it has a ‘hairy’ and aggressive character that works well for this guitar as it’s natural sound is big and round but laid back in the mids and not that aggressive. I could see it being all brash mids and treble in a more balanced or brighter guitar.

Also did a fret level on a pine tele I built years ago but don’t play much since the fretwork sucked… I put a Dimarzio PAF 7 in the bridge, which doesn’t sound much like a PAF to me… it’s more ‘low output modern voiced’. Very clear and dry but lacking depth/oomph, and kinda plinky and shrill on the top end. I changed the ceramic (!) magnet for alnico V (out of the JB-7) and that makes it sound much more natural in the top end, and kinda fillled out the mids a bit. Now I’m tempted to put a nickel silver baseplate on it as all Dimarzio 7 and 8 string pickups have pcb material baseplates and as I understand it makes a difference to the sound.

I will probably do my PAF magnet swapping this weekend.
Very cool!
 
I hate it. Always have. Completely irrational I know. If a guitar had one in it and I didn’t know it would probably be fine…. Maybe 🤔 I have only ever had one in superstrat guitar so… might kill in a Les Paul…
It’s great man come on lol
 
Another thing I just thought to keep in mind with pickup magnets. Rough cast vs polished, oriented vs unoriented of the same magnet type will have slightly different characteristics. If you're just experimenting to see how shit sounds it wouldn't hurt to play around with that as well.

I think @scottosan would be the guy to give you some good insight.
Magnets change the tone in 2 ways. Each type has a different ferrous content making them have different inductance levels. The higher the inductance the lower the resonant peak A2 has a higher inductance than A4 and A5 and that’s why they sound meaty.

Ceramic has the lowest inductance and why they sound the brightest and scooped. That said, the stronger tha magnet the more highs and lows. This can be mitigated a little because you can bring an A2 closer to the strings without affecting the sustain
 
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