Electric guitar pickup core-AlNiCo Magnet
Electric guitar pickups, as the key to the conversion of vibration and current signals, are a vital part of the electric guitar tone system. Today, let us have a deeper understanding of how the pickups affect the tone of the electric guitar. Many guitarists who pursue a feverish sound know that unlike many high-volume guitars that use mass-produced pickups to control costs, hand-made pickups can give the guitar a clear, natural, and high-quality sound. This is time-consuming and exquisite. The way of making the guitar can make the tone of the guitar more textured. This is the crisp and loud tone that many guitarists are pursuing for the vintage guitar with a long time.
We start the discussion from the core materials of the pickups. If you disassemble the pickups of many different guitars, you will find that most of the low- and medium-priced guitar pickups use low-cost raw materials, such as ordinary block magnetic strips, copper wires, and plastic frames. Wait for the original. We can look at the following two pictures.
Normal block magnetic stripe pickup
TERNTONE Alnico magnetic pickup
As shown in the picture above, the Terntone single coil uses independent Alnico magnetic steel and high-quality professional copper wire. It uses the same material imported base plate as many retro first year pickups.
We can see that there is a big difference between the magnet, one of the core components of the two, while the Terntone pickup uses an AlNiCo magnetic core, which is a permanent magnet material developed in the early stage. It is made of aluminum, nickel, and cobalt. An alloy composed of, iron and other trace metal elements. This material has a relatively high cost. It has been used on guitar pickups in the first year and has continued to this day. Its excellent sound quality has long been proven by time, and it is also the core that most high-end manual pickups use the most.
So how does the magnet affect the sound of the pickup? As an object, the magnet does not have any sound. In the previous article, we have introduced that the vibration of the strings will cut the magnetic lines of the pickup magnet, so that the coil surrounding the magnet generates current. The current signal generated by the pickup coil passes through the guitar circuit (volume and tone potentiometer-physical The academic sliding rheostat) enters the speaker, and finally becomes a sound wave signal that we can hear through the horn. Therefore, the magnet can be regarded as the "motor" that generates and drives the current of the pickup coil. So, advanced magnet is the cornerstone of high-quality sound. Different magnets will also bring different sounds. Terntone will use Alnico Ⅱ, Ⅳ, Ⅴ and other different grades of magnets with corresponding coils according to the needs of the timbre, with different designs. The pickups are placed on different types of guitars and in different positions to obtain the most expressive sound output.
Alnico Ⅱ will provide a warm, soft low frequency, very sweet high frequency and slightly prominent mid frequency.
Interestingly, the magnetic properties of Alnico III are lower than that of Alnico II. Therefore, the high frequency of Alnico III appears softer and rounder. The best interpretation of Alnico III's sound is the most classic guitar sound of the early 1950s. Think about the full and round clear tone in the Jazz guitar style sound of that era. Intoxicating.
Let’s look at Alnico Ⅳ again. With the enhancement of magnetic properties and the corresponding flattening of the frequency, Alnico Ⅳ will output a more balanced and natural sound. The high frequency will not be increased excessively, and the mid frequency will stay in a very comfortable range. The overall balance between high, middle and low is excellent.
Alnico V has very strong magnetism, both high and low frequencies have been beneficially improved, and the tone has become more "aggressive" and more "rock". Therefore, Alnico V has excellent dynamic performance and feedback to the subtle vibrations of the strings. It is very sensitive, so the Terntone pickup used by Ternlet guitars uses Alnico V on multiple models to maximize the acoustic vibration sound of the guitar wood and structure. In addition, it can be matched with copper wires of different thicknesses and winding designs. Get different characteristics of the sound, whether it is a retro rock tone, or a modern gorgeous tone has a perfect performance.
TERNLET T20 bridge pickup
Generally speaking, a magnet with stronger magnetism will provide more high frequency and low frequency, but in fact the high frequency in the sound does not need too much magnetism to drive, but the low frequency is needed. For the ferocious and powerful metallic sound, the clear and impactful low frequency is not available. Of course, it will also be affected by the combination of wire frame and copper wire. Below we introduce the Alnico Ⅷ which is more magnetic than Alnico V. Ceramic magnets.
Alnico Ⅷ is extremely magnetic and possesses a powerful explosive force like overwhelming mountains. When you feel the sound and waves coming from it, such as tidal rushing rivers and wind and rain crushing mountains and rivers. Therefore, Alnico Ⅷ is not common on conventional pickups and guitars. It is almost only used on metal guitars. If Ternlet launches pure metal style guitars in the future, you may use a Terntone model made of Alnico Ⅷ powerful magnets. Double coil made of metal tone.
Ceramic is another magnet that is much stronger than Alnico V. The bass and treble are improved more. Many people think that the timbre of ceramic magnet will dig out the midrange, but when we analyze and test with the instrument, we found that the midrange part is actually It stays in the original position, but the bass and treble have been greatly improved, so the EQ has a V-shaped taper output. Therefore, ceramic pickups are often more suitable for heavy-duty sounds that require fast strumming and strong right-hand plucking. Players. It should be noted that the ceramic pickups discussed here are made of sophisticated materials and professionally made. Because the cost of ceramics is lower than that of Alnico, it has also become the choice of a large number of low-end pickups. If the selection and production experience are not rich, the quality of the sound will become cheap and unpleasant, so we can often listen to some low-priced guitars. Even though the output is very high, the sound is more "smoggy", "strong", "dirty", and "scattered".
Finally, we combine the guitar to make a simple summary, so that everyone can have a better understanding of the relationship between the pickup and the timbre of the guitar:
1. Pickups that use different magnets and different specifications will have different timbres. If you want to make a good timbre, the components, materials, craftsmanship, design, equipment, production, experience, and depth of understanding of timbre are all very good. important.
2. Pickups are very important to guitars, but they are not all of the guitar's sound. The foundation of a good sound must be the acoustic quality of the electric guitar itself. This is also the sound of many mediocre guitars even after replacing a good pickup. Essentially the reason for the promotion.
3. The configuration of the pickups needs to be combined with the comprehensive consideration of the guitar's wood, structure, hardware and tone color orientation, and the appropriate combination can output exquisite, textured and tasteful tone characteristics. Each electric guitar model of Ternlet will be specially customized. Terntone pickups, insisting on the ultimate pursuit of sound is also the original intention of the Ternlet guitar brand.
