This is a very good service to all of us nerds looking for the perfect gear and tone. Very helpful man, thanks. I have the Ceramic Black Heaven but now Im thinking of swapping magnets!! hahaha .. :(
I tend to hear the mid range bark more with Alnico V. Whereas, the Ceramics I've played have had unpleasant highs. Even though there are good ceramics out there, I prefer Alnico V purely on tone. They are also more versatile, but that mid bark and the smoothness of highs is just so pleasant.
I’ve got a ceramic black heaven bridge/alnico neck in my Gibson LP and it gets tight, responsive distortion and chimey clean sounds. These are currently my favorite passive pickups.
Great information and demo!! Overall, I prefer the tone of the Alnico V pickup.....even for metal....sounds chunkier and not as "harsh" as the ceramic pickup. Thanks again!!
I’ve had many Alnico and ceramic pickups over the years, and I have to say I prefer Alnico overall. They are just simply more versatile, at least for my style of playing, which borders the hard rock/metal line. Better cleans, and a smoother top end. If you’re purely focused on hella tight high gain, ceramics are great, but they don’t clean up very well, not as much dynamic range. They do have that razor like cut though, which is perfect for more extreme styles of metal.
Ive had my Duncan trembucker wich they re labeled the patb1 parallel axis since 1989 its had a A5 magnet in it just swapped a ceramic into it and the output with distortion is insane . btw its installed in my 1988 peavey vandenburg
Ceramic just has a slicing upper mid/treble response I don’t like. I prefer alnico since they seem more controlled and rounded. Alnico 8s were the common swap because they bridge the gap in overall output while still having that rounded texture.
Actually the ceramic is warmer. The Ceramic is so much hotter that it pushes harder, and compresses more. Resulting in more distortion which gives the illusion of it being harsher. A quick easy way to a warmer and tighter tone is to simply roll off a little distortion on your amp. Not alot though, like say if your distortion is at 4 o'clock, roll it back to 3 o'clock.
Im a ceramic Fan, specially the low gauze hotrail versions. They are ballsy on the bass and chimey on the mid n high - very bubbly on the neck, thick on the bridge you dont have to put the bass dial on max. Alnico sounds like youre using brand new strings all the time - jagged and square sounding you have to max the bass knob just to get the same low end..
Alnico sounded a bit tighter when distorted in my opinion. A bit thinner on the acoustic stuff but nothing an eq couldn't fix. Ceramic sounded louder and more vibrant overall in a way. In all the alnico sounded more organic. Just depends on what sound you're looking for.
It’s interesting because I didn’t really hear much of a difference in the tone between the two, but I noticed the ceramic has some fizz behind the notes, while the Alnico produces the same heavy tone “cleaner” if that makes sense. Because of that, the Alnico sounded tighter to me.
Yeah not going to be a world of difference, especially with the same pickup just different magnets, but there are some differences between the two for sure.
In the clean section you can clearly hear the ceramic having less highs and kids and more bass than the alnico v. The added highs in the distortion section might be because of the higher output (= more distortion = more high frequencies)
Totally agree, which is exactly the opposite of what he said right? And in metal we tend to filter the treble to get rid of string noise and mess (ie overdrive or EQ) before attacking a gain stage which is counterintuitive with what he said... That's stupid to compare pickups sounds after a gain stage instead of DI with normalized volume, but that's what everybody does... (even manufacturer) this is way too sensitive to the output level which can be completley modified by the first volume/boost knob in the chain anyway, even for pickups having the exact same frequency response but different level... (though not the case here alnico clearly has more treble in clean)
@@richardschumacher6014 same here: no reason for a passive pickup to compress at all, but with higher output level it reduces the headroom on the next active device... I often had with high output pickups the problem of clipping some non "saturating" devices like multi-effect input or buffers but people tend not to check all that properly...sometimes too high output is not so great when pedals are only supplied by 9V or batteries...
I like the ceramics on my Tele, going into a Marshall. I like Burstbuckers (with alnico 5 magnets) on my Les Paul, and 57 Humbuckers (alnico 2 magnets) on my SG. I don’t know why but it just seems to work 🤷🏻♂️
Intresting. I don't like warm and fuzzy tones and would defo like to try an alnico 5. My schecter coming tomorrow has a apocalypse 6, pickup that's alnico 5, I think it's blended with ceramic too though. The unique tri-field design of our Apocalypse pickups merge Alnico-V magnets with dual flanking Ceramic-8s, producing a balanced yet aggressive and combative tone.
Came across this video while researching about the SD Nazgul pickup. Just picked up a Sterling JP sig 7 string from a local shop used and it's definitely been modded. I noticed the pickup covers said "Seymour Duncan" so I pulled them and turns out, it's the Sentient/Nazgul set (I've used the Sentient/Pegasus combo before and absolutely love them) with covers. But there's a push/push pot in the volume position (I assumed for coil splitting). Also a battery box on the rear, which I was just like ugh. So after having plugged it in, I pulled the battery and the signal went out. But the S/N set are passive... So evidently the former owner wired some kind of active/passive switch into this thing? I'm not sure what's going on here. So I'm gonna rip all that out and replace with a plain old 500k push/pull for splitting, 500k tone and wire it 50s Gibson style and call it a day. I'll leave the pickups in there because they seem to sound great!
That's super weird, idk what that dude did to that guitar. Those pickups are solid so yeah, a good rewire should do the trick. Although, now that I think of it, since it's a JP, that could be a boost that was wired in.
Ceramic sustains a bit better and has a more defined sound on the lower notes. Alinco sounds better on higher notes and for everything non metal... pretty much use ceramic for heavy metal riffs and alinco for everything else
So with Ceramics, would you say they are more crisp bell/chime like tone on an open note/harmonic? I play mostly clean but layer tracks/melodies in different ways making it thicker but overall, the more ring the better and players have the flexibility to eq the levels if needed.
When you take ceramic and alnico pups and compare them with the same amount of gain and volume by adjusting your amp/pedals, there's no question that ceramic pickups are warmer and less harsh/piercing. Ceramic pups are said to be brighter, but they're just not. They have more gain and are louder. When you adjust the gain and volume to match the pickups to get more of an apple's to apples comparison, you get a better idea of their tones. The thing is, volume and drive are much easier to adjust than a pickups natural tone. If you're using a modern high gain amp or effects, you're going to adjust the gain and volume on either pickup to your preference anyways, so it's sorta irrelevant when comparing their tones. The myth of creamic being more crisp or brighter stems from classic amps before modern distortion. Yeah, if you take those pickups and run them through a vintage fender champ or Vox AC-15, the ceramic pups are going to seem brighter because they're actually going to achieve some decent gain when pushed. On something like a dual rectifier or JCM 2,000 with an overdrive pedal in front of it, where you can have as almost as much or little gain and volume as you want, you can really tell the difference in actual pickup tone. Ceramic pups are both warmer and less punchy.
I actually didn't adjust my gain or anything here and it still wasn't harsh, or massively different in output to the alnico V. I think where the reputation comes from of ceramic being harsh is the first pickups made with ceramic magnets were cheaply and poorly made, and so a lot of people thought the reason those pickups sounded bad was because of the magnet and not just that they were garbage pickups.
Alnico is better for cleans but honestly with distortion cranked up there’s probably not gonna be a huge difference, al 5s are almost made for nice crispy clean tones ceramic just doesn’t pull those off as well
The Black Heaven Alnico 7 just arrived. I'm hoping for a "cleaner" and more versatile tone compared to my SD Nazgul. I play metal/prog type stuff Great vid 👍
Excellent vid. As a personal preference, I have no hard and fast rule about ceramic and Alnico. I let me my ears guide me. But yes, Alnico is generally warmer, and ceramic is sharper on the high end, colder, etc. There are other variables that go into a pickup that can negate these tendencies. But as a rule, yes, Alnico will be warmer and sweeter and ceramic colder, drier, and more to the point with a faster attack. I've been playing guitar since the mid 80s and have owned many brands and have mostly been a DiMarzio guy. What I've kind of settled on is that I like Alnico for neck pups because they're a lot smoother, but generally like ceramics for the bridge. But I use both ceramic and Alnico in the bridge. I use the DiMarzio Norton and Steve's Special and Air Zone, Super 3 and X2N in the bridge depending on the characteristics I want to bring out of a guitar. I've been wanting to try Lundgrens and your tone samples sound great. I'm leaning towards their ceramic. Lots of clarity.
I just recently bought a guitar with two Ferrite core humbucker pups, gold foil, and I really like the bright clean sound I get out of the neck pup. But I'm thinking about changing either the magnet or the pup in the bridge position to Alnico. The current Ferrite core pup in the bridge position is just way to thin, though it doesn't sound to bad at all in the middle switch position. But since I want to use the bridge position as well, I will be changing it to Alnico. These are GFS pup's by the way, on an Xaviere Pro845 Tele thinline.
@@michealjoseph9943 I'm not familiar with ferrite core pickups, although I'd assume it refers to some sort of iron derivative. But I like gold foil, certainly in the neck. I've never owned one though. Lots of interesting innovation going on in the world of pickups. That's for sure. One of my favorite neck pickups is a P90. A lot of companies, from Duncan, DiMarzio and Fishman are making them. It's a very different kind of sound, but awesome. I love how P90 necks balanced with a bridge humbucker like a Duncan Custom.
I don't have either atm unfortunately, but I can tell you the black heaven is extremely aggressive and cutting, whereas the m6 is very smooth, lot of overall midrange.
I have an HSS config, all ceramic strat. I'm thinking of changing the two single coils into Alnico then leave the ceramic humbucker bridge as it is. Will this be a good idea?
@MetalHeadProductions I'm happy with the ceramic bridge. But I do like the cleans of my previous guitar, it was alnico. So i might change both single coils or just change one of them. I cant decide still
Ceramic when played clean (SSS especially) sounds like cheap plastic. Lacks mids naturally. But on high gain they sound rounded and well. Especially on a strat where single coils aren't preferred for high gains
Hey man, people say the Hughes and Kettner Grandmeister 36 isn't metal, i totally disagree but maybe they aren't overdriving it while the boost is on like i am (lightly). Maybe a future vid?
Could be, although I've had pickups hotter than this that were also tighter in the lowend, it can depend on the frequencies being pushed, but of course the output is important.
I like Alnico 5 better. Sound a bit more... organic and fuller. Ceramics are "electronicy" sound, they sound like keyboard set to "distortion guitar" setting"
No difference when distorted and during the clean the only difference I heard was your pick gauge was different. Not sure why you would change your picks during a comparison!?! Got me dayz & confused about that.
We spell it differently, our early printers were cheap and saved money by shortening words by taking out unnecessary letters in some words. Also, I'm pretty sure america and england had a war over how it's said and we won.
@@MetalHeadProductions its just so american when you say it 😂 nobody says that here in the uk, especially not scotland haha, lucky if some scots a know can say it at all 😂 "ALYA FUCKIN MINIUM AHTS WIT IT IS!!"
Intresting. I don't like warm and fuzzy tones and would defo like to try an alnico 5. My schecter coming tomorrow has a apocalypse 6, pickup that's alnico 5, I think it's blended with ceramic too though. The unique tri-field design of our Apocalypse pickups merge Alnico-V magnets with dual flanking Ceramic-8s, producing a balanced yet aggressive and combative tone.