Horseshoe Magnet Mystery

[weemac]

your re-charging magnets look in better shape than the shoes...which are very corroded !!!

You are really firing today arn't you...

Emac.

[iiipopes]

Yes, unfortunately, the alloy of the original horseshoes is not magnetically stable. For those who insist on the tone and don't mind taking their instruments apart periodically, recharging is what you do.

Here's the deal: it's not just magnetism, or everyone would automatically change out to the newer version of the HS pickup with its stable alnico slugs. It's the inductance. Each alloy has different electrical as well as magnetic properties, and that combines with the coil to set the inductance; and with the changes in inductance from using different magnet and polepiece materials, the impedance and resonant frequency peak of the pickup changes, and therefore the tone changes. That's why a lot of folks recharge the magnets as best they can. It can make a difference in tone, not just wanting the original pickup for the original pickup's sake.

This is also why toasters are wound with @ 7.4 kohms' worth of wire, and new highgains have @ 10 to 11 kohms' worth of wire. The alnico slugs of the toasters have more inductance than the non-ferrous bar magnet on the bottom of the highgains.

You can get close, however, by changing the windings. I have found that you can get a similar tone out of a lot of single-coil pickups, whether Rick pickups or other famous models, by winding @ 10 to 15% more wire on a pickup with ceramic or non-ferrous magnets and steel poles as compared to one with alnico slugs, depending on the size and gauss of the magnets and polepiece makeup. This will raise the impedance and the intra-coil capacitance to lower the resonant frequency back down to where it is with alnico magnets, but there will be a little steeper falloff of the top end, so the overall tone is a little different. So it's not identical, but close enough to gig with, and not have to worry about what might happen in the middle of a set.

So yes, save your original HS pickups for the recording studio and purchase a reissue HS for gigging.

[cjj]

Yes, unfortunately, the alloy of the original horseshoes is not magnetically stable...

But the mystery remains: Why are the horseshoes on steel guitars apparently stable while those on basses are not?

So, for anyone who has put an original HS pickup from a steel guitar into a bass, did it keep its magnetism, or lose it like an actual bass HS pickup?

[johnallg]

Yes, unfortunately, the alloy of the original horseshoes is not magnetically stable...

But the mystery remains: Why are the horseshoes on steel guitars apparently stable while those on basses are not?

So, for anyone who has put an original HS pickup from a steel guitar into a bass, did it keep its magnetism, or lose it like an actual bass HS pickup?

My first ones, off a 1962 lapsteel, are in my 4003S bass and are holding the charge just fine. So I am not sure it is just what the shoes are in. The set (year of the shoes unknown) that doesn't hold a charge are mounted to the aluminum bass but no coil in the gap and sitting on a shelf.

[Ivan3000]

This sounds dumb, but does the fact that maybe low frequency wavelengths comeing from the strings have any affect on it?

[cjj]

This sounds dumb, but does the fact that maybe low frequency wavelengths comeing from the strings have any affect on it?

That's actually not such a dumb idea. You can actually demagnetize things with an alternating magnetic field and there will be some frequency where this will be most effective, probably lower than higher frequencies.

But, the range of frequencies where effective vs. non-effective comes into play is probably far larger than the audio spectrum.

And then, it generally takes a fairly large alternating field to demagnetize things, far larger than the tiny fluctuations present in a guitar string or the signals generated in the coil of the pickup.

But who knows? Without doing a bunch of experiments, it's all a guess and would depend on the actual characteristics of the materials involved...

[jps]

This sounds dumb, but does the fact that maybe low frequency wavelengths comeing from the strings have any affect on it?

Have you read Atlas Shrugged?

[Ivan3000]

This sounds dumb, but does the fact that maybe low frequency wavelengths comeing from the strings have any affect on it?

That's actually not such a dumb idea. You can actually demagnetize things with an alternating magnetic field and there will be some frequency where this will be most effective, probably lower than higher frequencies.

But, the range of frequencies where effective vs. non-effective comes into play is probably far larger than the audio spectrum.

And then, it generally takes a fairly large alternating field to demagnetize things, far larger than the tiny fluctuations present in a guitar string or the signals generated in the coil of the pickup.

But who knows? Without doing a bunch of experiments, it's all a guess and would depend on the actual characteristics of the materials involved...

Maybe after decades of playing, those small vibrations would add up and decrease the magnetism? Just a thought?

[cjj]

Well, since it's unlikely that we'll have a bunch of original horseshoe pickups around to experiment with, we may never know.

But, if we can get info from a number of people who have put the pickups from steel guitars into basses, we might learn something. If those pickups lose their magnetism over time while the same pickups that are in steels don't, then we can start to figure that somehow being in a bass causes more rapid degradation of the magnet's strength.

If the pickups transferred to basses don't lose their magnetism, then we might conclude there's some difference in the materials or construction between bass and steel guitar pickups...

[Ivan3000]

Well, since it's unlikely that we'll have a bunch of original horseshoe pickups around to experiment with, we may never know.

But, if we can get info from a number of people who have put the pickups from steel guitars into basses, we might learn something. If those pickups lose their magnetism over time while the same pickups that are in steels don't, then we can start to figure that somehow being in a bass causes more rapid degradation of the magnet's strength.

If the pickups transferred to basses don't lose their magnetism, then we might conclude there's some difference in the materials or construction between bass and steel guitar pickups...

You can you the same shoes for that, just not the same bobbins, right?

[jps]

Well, since it's unlikely that we'll have a bunch of original horseshoe pickups around to experiment with, we may never know.

But, if we can get info from a number of people who have put the pickups from steel guitars into basses, we might learn something. If those pickups lose their magnetism over time while the same pickups that are in steels don't, then we can start to figure that somehow being in a bass causes more rapid degradation of the magnet's strength.

If the pickups transferred to basses don't lose their magnetism, then we might conclude there's some difference in the materials or construction between bass and steel guitar pickups...

You can you the same shoes for that, just not the same bobbins, right?

The later 1¼" shoes yes, not the earlier 1½" shoes, unless you're Mark Walker.

[cjj]

Or you're got a really good shoehorn...

[johnallg]

Hey, I've got one of those!

[rickendelic]

Toasters have six poles, couldn't you use the whole thing?

[opticnerve]

Toasters have six poles, couldn't you use the whole thing?

You would think that would work, like the toasters (all have 6 poles)...but it doesn't.