Help! Magnet swap gone awry on a DiMarzio humbucker
Posted: Wed Dec 23, 2015 6:36 pm
So I watched a few videos on YouTube, and decided to put an alnico 5 magnet into my DiMarzio super distortion humbucker pick up. I am hoping for less harshness and to make it sound more like my 1978 Ibanez V-2 pickup, which was a copy of the Dimarzio only with Alnico 5 magnets rather than ceramic.
Anyway, I opened up the pickup and immediately ran into two problems. The ceramic magnet is narrower than the A5, which means the A5 will not fit between the poles. Problem number two is that the ceramic magnet is also two or three times as thick as the A5, which means even if I could put it in there between the lugs, when I try to tighten down the base plate it's going to bottom out on the pole pieces long before the magnet hits the bottom of the coils.
Can this swap be done? Or should I just buy another pickup and forget it?
Could I stack the Alnico magnet between the ceramic and the base plate? If so, would it actually change the tone much?
I thought I was being really clever but I very quickly fell in over my head!
Anyway, I opened up the pickup and immediately ran into two problems. The ceramic magnet is narrower than the A5, which means the A5 will not fit between the poles. Problem number two is that the ceramic magnet is also two or three times as thick as the A5, which means even if I could put it in there between the lugs, when I try to tighten down the base plate it's going to bottom out on the pole pieces long before the magnet hits the bottom of the coils.
Can this swap be done? Or should I just buy another pickup and forget it?
Could I stack the Alnico magnet between the ceramic and the base plate? If so, would it actually change the tone much?
I thought I was being really clever but I very quickly fell in over my head!