Ceramic Vs Alnico Magnets Pickups

Magnetically speaking ceramic magnets produce a stronger field than alnico.

Ceramic vs alnico magnets pickups.

For an idea of what that looks like see this image from the guitar dreamer blog. Of commercial applications starting in the 1960s but ceramic magnet guitar pickups were found to have a generally harsher more brittle in general ceramic pickups display strong treble and tight bass with noticably less midrange scooped mids. Ceramic magnets are typically stronger than alnico magnets so they produce more output. By some players the ceramic magnets are given a bad reputation when compared to alnico which is probably due to their association with cheaper instruments.

Ceramic magnets are typically a slab of material attached to the bottom of the pickup while alnico magnets are attached along the sides of the pole pieces. The stronger magnetic field is also said to put out more high end frequencies potentially leading to a harsh and brittle tone. A different frequency response or dynamics. Whereas ceramic is used in metal as it sounds tight loud and cool.

You often hear that the sound of a pickup is dominated by the choice of magnet used in its construction. A lot of people automatically say that alnico is superior to ceramic in pickups. The magnets are then allowed to cool in a magnetic field to pick up their magnetic charge. You see ceramic is easier to come by than alnico making it a cheaper magnet to make.

So now you can choose between the alnico and ceramic version of the same pickup. There are lower output pickups though that use ceramic magnets for other reasons e g. Alnico tends to produce a very musical pickup in most setups. Ceramic magnets ceramic magnets are made of ceramic surprise.

The result is a slightly hotter sounding pickup with more treble response. Ceramic magnets are made from ferrites often iron oxides. Wider frequency range than alnico and sound full and balanced when using high gain.