Ceramic vs Alnico... Let's Listen To The Difference 

he stops stalling and starts playing @ 5:10 like me if it helped.

I have an American Professional Tele with alnico, and a Squier Bullet Tele with ceramic, I can easily dial in great tones with either. If you think your ceramics sound muddy, they are probably adjusted too high. Ceramic magnets are more powerful, so they need to be adjusted a bit lower than alnico’s to avoid pulling on the strings. Magnets have no sound of their own, it’s the coils that creates the sound

It's worth keeping in mind that there's more to a pickup's sound characteristics than just the type of magnet.. guage of wire, number of windings, construction, etc. In this case, I'd agree that the pickup swap was a tonal improvement. But I still maintain that quality ceramic humbuckers are up there in sound quality.. different to Alnico, sure.. but not necessarily inferior.

AWESOME JOHN !! LOVE THE COMPARISON !! HAVE A GREAT DAY !!

Beautiful demo. Your channel has jumped to the top of my list 🙂

Did a radical renovation on my 1970's Japanese Columbus strat, which had pole magnet pickups. Electronics was so damaged that I replaced the whole scratch plate assembly to a spare with pretty cheap ceramics. Compared to friend's strat with Fender (alnico?) pickups the ceramics sound clearly bright, but nothing that my Katana can't compensate. Sounds great all the way from bottom to highs. Planning to stick the 70's pole magnet pups to a new building. Let's see ... Still like your style and your commitment to Zoe's !

Lovely play, John. Well done!

Great comparison John, Very helpful.

Ceramics have kind of a "honk" quality to them which I like sometimes, while alnicos stay clear until the amp is pushed. I do prefer alnicos and would not own all ceramic pickups in my guitars... but its never broken my heart to have a ceramic guitar around too.

When does soup taste better ..when the water is heated on a gas stove or in an electric kettle?

Hi from the U.S.. As always, great video. Thanks for taking the time to educate us all. Your videos are great. Thanks again !!!

I own a 2014 Ibanez AF125. Beautiful, excellent playability, but I was not happy with the stock, Chinese "Super 58 Customs. I thought about Duncan Seth Lovers and Lollar Imperials, but became intrigued with Bartolini pickups. They use ceramic pickups exclusively and claim they have the technical expertise to make a ceramic pickup sound any way they like. I am a Jazz player and like it clean, warm and creamy. The Bartolini "Jazz Pair" delivered in spades! I'm a believer and a fan!

I can hear the difference , but I wonder if the difference in the pickups in more that just the magnets. I have an Ibanez AF75 with ceramic pickups that - depending on my guitar tone and amp settings - is quite warm and clean.

i changed the magnet of my bc rich pickup to an alnico V magnet and now it needs more gain to keep up with the distorted sound of the original magnet but it gives noisy feedback to do so, what could be causing this and what should i do?

Beautiful playing, and lots of clear info. Thank you!

Great info and such great playing.

Seymour Duncan's Hot rails are ceramic and they sound amazing

Hi John . Sorry for the delay to answer you. You have explained it perfectly. I will be changing my magnets on my 3 single coils on my strat . Thank you again . Looking forward to seeing more of your reviews. EXCELLENT. Joe Galea .

Subtle but noticeable sound quality differences between the two different pickups, interesting to listen to.

Thanks for the comparison, John. But, I've never been a big fan of Humbuckers. I prefer Stratocasters & P90 - single coil pickups. You get more definition with Single Coils.

My hypothesis -- which I think I am making up on the spot, is that a cheap pickup is one with a strong magnet and fewer turns so they can save money on the wire and turning the wire. Or perhaps somebody combined wiring and magnets and didn't care what the sound was like. But there's all kinds of evidence on the internet of people who love their ceramic pickups and if they are made with the correct winding and correct power they may sound fine. It may even be possible to have an album Niko pickup sound exactly the same as a ceramic if you adjust the wiring in the strength of the magnets. But of course nothing is the same. Alnico pickups are made to sound like people expect them to which is a lower power magnet so they are more sensitive to playing.

I like ceramic on single coil guitars and alnico on humbuckers.

Another great video, John! Well demonstrated. They certainly are worlds apart. The alinco on the rhythm part has a clearer chiming depth in the low end. Nicely balanced. The ceramic felt like it needed EQing down there , but that wouldn't achieve the same thing as the alinco gives. On the lead part, I personally dug the ceramic's rowdy excitement, though I agree the alinco is sweeter. Hard to be fair to the alinco lead when it's using the same setting as the rhythm, and not speaking out so much as it would with a touch more gain (which would defeat the idea of the test).. I'd probably like alinco rhythm, and ceramic lead.. Great, another reason to have MORE GUITARS!!!.. :D

You Rock John!! I love to listen to you play!!!!

Many thanks for the comparison and for sharing your wonderful guitar skills John, I love the way you play. I actually have the exact same budget Harley copy and found that once the ceramic humbuckers were lowered they sounded so much sweeter. I suppose, with guitar pickups, it depends on what your expectations are and what kind of sound you're after. I like the ceramic bridge in mine for it's 'in yer face' overdrive tone when needed and sometimes for a bit of splash-back echoed rockabilly. I'm still not sure about the ceramic neck in mine and will be trying either a magnet swap to alnico or a different pickup, maybe that will give an interesting middle position. I salute you for your charity work and any awareness you raise along the way. Best wishes.

nice vid , never had a A/B with the types of the 2 different magnets.

I suspect that this is similar to the valve/solid state debate: just as a good solid state amp can sound better than a poor valve amp, so well made ceramic pickups may sound better than cheap alnicos. That said, I have changed from ceramics to alnicos on a few guitars and have always been pleased with the results.

About half of my 14 guitars have alnico pickups and the other half or so have ceramic pickups. The ceramics have nice clarity and crisp attack. They sound very nice clean, and great with high gain. The alnicos sound warmer with more mids. They sound great with low to medium gain.

Nice improv and groove. I like the ceramic tone on that bit you just did.

I have a question: are there pickups with neodymium magnets, as they are often used in more expensive speakers, headphones or microphones? I would imagine so, but I don't really know. If so, because these are stronger magnets, do these pickups just produce a higher output or is there also be an audible effect on the sound produced by the guitar equipped with such pickups? Thanks for answering.

The Ceramic pups that you are using are bright vs your warm anilco. Some people believe all ceramic are cheap low end pups, but the Dimarzio Super Distortion, Seymore Duncan Dimebucker, EMG & Bill Lawrence are high quality ceramic pups. I actually like both ceramic and anilco pups.

great video John ,great paying too !! dont know buddy but the ceramic ones with led zepplin bought me :)

Sounds good . Both sound good to my ears. Maybe a crisper sound from the alnicos.

You could put the ceramics in the SG, put heavy strings on it and use it to play slide.

Hmm I've got a mm Majesty 6 with stock DiMarzio illuminators with ceramic magnets that sound amazing! I think it all depends on the quality of the pickups.

Love it John. Learning so much from your channel and lovely to hear a genuine northern accent instead of all the over enthusiastic Americans - bless em - who can get a wee bit annoying. I'm in my 50s and been playing, touring, tour managing and whatnot since my late teens and now semi-retired have been buying up cheap guitars to learn about setting them up and fixing them so I can sell them on at a small profit to encourage new young players while giving a few to local charity shops so they can make some money for good causes. Not as cool as what you do but I'm a great admirer and - to the point of the video - yup you can really hear the difference between the pickups. So much sweeter those alnicos - mmm baby, oh yeah, especially on the clean neck rhythm imho, and the ceramic just sounded thin and harsh on the medium gain bridge. Right... back to burning my hands with a soldering iron (I am so rubbish with one lol). Cheers mate 👍

Its purely a personal choice . I would suggest watching Darrell Braun,s video on the subject and Dave barlow,s video,s on pickups . Interesting

Hi John, how refreshing it is to listen to you and your views on low budget guitars. It gives a much better insight to playing than listening to dealers/manufacturers demonstrating their products played through high gain amps, at ball bursting volumes that only shows their vanity, and does nothing to put confidence into young players, who are probably on low budgets and can only afford instruments at the lower end of the market. If these people only realised that young musicians need to be tutored better they may achieve a little more respect. Keep up the good work pal, I think you’re great

John great informative video as always. If I may ask I want a change out the pickups in a new Squier bullet mustang. Any suggestions would be welcomed.

How can I tell if my humbuckers are alnico or ceramic any tips to look for?

Is it possible if you could say , what kind of Alnico are they ?? I’m thinking of changing my pickups in my guitar but there’s so many models of Alnico’s . Thanks

I’m looking at putting ceramic pickups in an sg im building and came for the comparison but I just wanted to say your phrasing is amazing.

The differences were there, but they were slight and they could easily have been rectified with eq had you chosen to do so. The ceramic pickups are brighter but good. A gentle tapering of their top end would have easily cured that seeing you prefer a warmer sound and if you played with resonant circuitry then you could have completely changed it's character out of all recognition. And really when the tonal differences are so slight a tone control similar to that used by Quad Electronics which slants both bass and treble on a pivot point similar to how a seesaw functions would make it extremely hard to identify which of your pickups was which. It's cheap ceramic and eq for me every time. I'm amazed at how much money people spend on pickups when the addition of a cheap capacitor costing pence could completely change the character of their existing pickup's sound. I hesitate to say 'deliberate ripoff' but the words do come to mind. Let me end by saying that in no way am I accusing you of anything untoward and I have the highest respect for what you're doing.

To me the difference is that with the alnico pickups there was a lot more variation in the sounds. The subtleties of playing really well can be heard with these pickups where as with the ceramic pickups a lot of this is lost because the output of the pickups is so high that they effectively compress the signal to the point where all subtleties are lost.

Sorry Mr Robson but the alnico are thinner and lack lower end clarity , alnico's were originally used because they were the only thing available in the fifty's through the 70s , ceramic out put is cleaner and sounds much more balanced than alnico's. I used to be a pro alnico guy till I started building pick ups for my builds, I use ceramic mostly now due to sound quality. Love your videos .thx

Neat licks mate! It sounded great with the ceramics as your playing is top notch then the alnico demo sounded even more professional. Sweeter and more realistic. More like an expensive Les Paul. Most people haven't a clue about pickups and just blurt out what they hear on forums!

I think I like more ceramic.

Two things: 1. Comparison starts at 3:47 if you want to skip right to it. 2. This is a comparison of a cheap Harley Benton ceramic magnet with an unidentified alnico magnet, so it's impossible to know whether this is a fair comparison because we don't know whether the quality of the pickups was equivalent. Also, for people out there who are down on ceramic pickups, play an EBMM Cutlass HSS. A high-quality ceramic pickup gives you articulate highs with excellent crunch.

Would it be possible, to change the pickup magnates only , from ceramic to alnico magnets?? I enjoy your reviews. Thanks .

Damn....I have ceramic humbucker pick ups on my Jackson Monarch. I believe that the Alnico pick ups sounds slight bit better. Cleaner

John - Somewhere in one of the many vids of yours that I've watched it seems that I remember you making a comment about upgrading pickups in Strat (I'm sure a Harley Benton) with some inexpensive replacements for a nice upgrade. Can you tell me which those were?. I'm learning guitar tech skills by upgrading a new Glarry Strat that I got for $50 (absolutely hideous/cheesy logo on headstock already sanded off!). Got a replacement pick guard (that antique white pearloid color) and cream pickup covers and knobs. Well the covers (all the same size/spacing) only fit one of the pickups. Not wanting black pickups on pearloid pick guard (or scratch plate as it's called in your part of the world) and further knowing that the existing pups are pretty low end, I figured - what the hell let's change them. I've already lined the body cut outs with copper foil and got a replacement Tusq XL nut and roller tree strings. Hopefully my soldering skills from building up a few pairs of speakers will serve me adequately. I hope your part of the world is beinning to open up. We here in Texas are making a big move back to normalcy on Friday. Maybe totally normal by the end of May (fingers crossed)

Cool playing dude.

I really hated ceramic pick ups. They were always used on cheap guitars and I just saw them as cheap. They sounded brash too. On my main Strat I like to use Fender early 80's plastic bobbin p/u's with the level Alnico poles. It means I can adjust the height of the poles individually.

can I use humbucker alnico bar magnet to a single coil pickup?I use metal pole pieces

Great demo of the differences John, i agree the warmth of the alnico stands out, Cheers

Hi John, i've sended another mail to you yesterday. Thanks. Cheers pal.

Hello John Robson. The examples of each pick up be it clean or otherwise are not close enough together to tell. do one pick up clean, then the other pick up clean. my ear can tell moe bettah then . I appreciate you taking the time to do what you do. I enjoy the jams as well. P..S.. after weighing my options and listenin' to my new sawtooth surf greet et tele copy; I feel and hear that my axe is okay to record. I like the brightness and can dial that out. . My yamaha 112v has alnico fives. ill use that for counterpoint tones. you Rock John Robson.

The only difference was on bridge pickups. I think ceramic sounded very similar to alnico on neck and even then the sound is very similar honestly

I thought the ceramic sounder warmer, maybe the Alnico were more precise...but Tone is a expression of your understanding , so it's All in the Mix in your Noggin.

I have Gotoh humbuckers from a Tokai ES100 in my '97 Epiphone Les Paul and they will remain there forever

Noticeable difference. Thanks for the info and it warms my heart you support such good charities. But I gotta ask why did you only swap ONE tuning machine? That poor Harley looks like it has a mismatched front tooth from a janky dentist, lol! It would take all of five minutes to swap them all and then they would match!

Hi John, i just send you an email regarding this Tokai SG guitar. Nice review. The ceramics didn't sound that bad i think. The Vox helped too i guess. Cheers from Belgium.

Alnico warm , yes... Mr. John warmer ... Thanks 4 all that you share , your grrreat!!!

Alnicos sound sweeter in my opinion. I have 3 Epiphone Classic T Les Pauls with ceramic plus pickups. I think I’m switching them to probuckers. Or maybe. Switch one to tron style pickups.

Great playing on that improv jam

Thank you for being so down to earth in a rather silly gear-centric world of guitar.

The misunderstanding is most of the time that ceramic is harsh and not dynamic, but that is most of the time, they put them in cheaper pickups with lower quality windings and pole pieces. If you pair them with the right materials and windings etc, they can be also warm and dynamic.

Should be only the magnets to be replaced not the pickups as a whole. You are not comparing alnico and ceramic, you're comparing junk pickups versus good ones!

I can fix that sg how much for it?

Dear John...another great comparison from a naturally generous and committed guy that deserves admiration and respect...on top of it all the pieces you play in your demos are so agreeable that I record them to emulate your solos - and they are quite easier to play than the lovely and quite intricate background groove you record as accompaniment...in fact I have trouble to reproduce them, with the M7th and and 9th and diminished chords you use...I know it's much to ask for, but couldn't post those jazzy chords progressions in the boxes that go with the vids ???...that would be greatly appreciated, and not only by me I'm sure...Gratefully yours Philswolf

I bet John's student that owns the Gold Top is Jimmy Page. Great playing as always, John.

So sorry,john i forgott your channel😱 but you'r topy rockn rolly! Greets!🦧👿🥱🌱😁👍🎸🔊🎵🎶

A guitar shop nicked my alnico ones and gave me ceramic ones when id paid 100 pound on a new set of alnico pickups when my old ones stop working

I Think everyone is effing crazy. I listening to this through professional studio monitors in my recording studio. I am a lover of all guitars cheap or expensive. I have a personal collection of 24 electrics. From my very expensive 58 Jazzmaster to to my almost free guitars Ive found at garage sales or on craigslist. I have Fender Strats, SG's, Les Pauls. Ive even played Luthier and invented some of my own. You can have any pickup in the world on your guitar but if you suck at playing then you suck at playing. I was jumping the timeline between the two examples and im sorry but I heard nothing. I think its all in your head people. I can hand Clapton or Perry or Paige or Slash ect.. a First Act bought at walmart and I promise they will sound amazing. The only guitar i don't understand is the Randy Jackson. I didn't even know that guy played guitar but I bet even he being a judge would not be able to tell the difference. And if he said he did, Id call him a LIAR. I think its just a way to sell you more crap you don't need.

The ceramic pickups didn't have covers, while the alnico pickups had covers. That can make a big difference in the sound.

ah ! ....taste and chops ....a rare breed - nice .

This is a pickup comparison. Not a magnet comparison.

I just didn't hear enough difference to swap ceramics for Alnico. And you can always swap a bar Alnico for a bar ceramic for a few bucks & glue work. RU-vid videos for that, it's meticulous work though, but can be done if you don't want to pay $ 100'+ dollars for the already done solution. The Gaussing & DeGaussing the magnets for strength is also an option.

I tested this out using two Strats, comparing back to back recordings, and found the OPPOSITE of what I was told. Ceramic pickups had more bass, Alnico V pickups had more treble. Both had the about same output / volume.

that Harley Benton looks soo slick!

Creamics have a wider frequency response and sound much more transparent. AlNiCo are just sweet and reproduce that classic electric guitar tone that's in your head.

The ceramics have that "80's" sound...

Didnt realise I wasnt subscribed.

It's true, they do sound better just not as loud.

Way too many variables to call this any sort of comparison. Ceramic magnets are often used in very cheap pickups, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t used in higher end ones either.. Covers will also warm the tone a bit. Completely different manufacturers. Etc.

Cheap ceramic pickups suck. I love my Seymour Duncan Custom, though. A great versatile pickup.

I hear a lot of Peter Frampton in his playing. And I like it!

very good comparison video! 2questions- replacing pu's in new Squier affinity Strat, found Wilkinson at Amazon $30 for set. vintage tone w/ alinco or high output w/ ceramic. I play mostly blues, classic rock, your thoughts? THANKS !!

Use the Tokai for slide, mate. That's what happens to dead guitars. Also dead strings.

My Rule: For distortion, humbucker! For clean, Single coil!

Definite improvement but still not top quality. My trouble is I can remember Peter Green playing his LP and getting the most amazing tones :-) .

Probably not intentional,. but very Schenker-esque playing (in a good way).

Want to hear the difference and buddy is sitting there with out any pickups even in his guitar.lol but i did enjoy the video cool sg

If you didn t say which were which, no one could tell the difference. Leave in the ceramics and say they were alnico and the majority would say the alnicos were better somehow. Try it.

I have an old Agile LP with Ceramics and then bought a gold top Les Paul with Burstbucker Alnico's. A side by side comparison led me to return the Les Paul gold top. It wasn't as full and warm sounding as the alnicos in the Agile.

I don’t loan instruments that I’m in love with for months at a time.

Nice demo. Alnico cleaned the floor with the ceramic pickups. The ceramic pickups didn't sound terrible, but the alnico pickups sounded far better.

I have enjoyed your playing but your comparison of ceramic to alnico pups is biased and non informative. Who knows you might be comparing a $3 ceramic pup from AliBaba to Seymour Duncan’s Custom 5 alnico.

demo one sounds better, ceramic won the alnico is a bit anemic in demo two

That definitely isn't "clean". Best to turn the reverb off so we can hear it properly.