I'm thinking a magnet swap on my bridge pickup.

[AJ6stringsting]

I have an Alnico 5 gold covered humbucker that's rated at 17.09k ohms and I'm thinking of putting in a Alnico 8 magnet to get more tone out of my bridge pickup.

Have any of you folks here, ever did a magnet swap before?

Is it difficult ?

 

[imnotcreative]

It is not that difficult, but could be a bit of work. I swapped out some magnets in some pickups.
First remove the cover if it has one. Loosen the polescrews (on my Gibson pickups they screw into the baseplate aswell as into a metal bar underneath the coil.
Loosen the screws holding the bobbins to the baseplate, you dont have to take them out all the way. Push out the magnet a bit.
To check magnet orientation, you can hold the new magnet against the installed one (if you havent pushed it out all the way yet). Opposites attract. Just flip the new magnet over so both magnets repel and that should be the orientation. Push the old one out, new one in. Tighten the screws and polescrews, resolder cover and your done.
Removing the cover is the hardest part. If possible try and remove some solder from the cover and baseplate before wedging a boxcutter in to cut/break through the solder holding the cover on
Taking the pickup out of the guitar makes things a lot easier. I had to put quite some force on the boxcutter to get through the solder holding it on to the baseplate

 

[LP_SPC_1_P90]

Before doing surgery on a pickup ? Pots, what values are those ? What tone capacitor is soldered in line ? The DCR is one measure, the other is the Gauss of the magnet itself in Henries ? Perhaps a magnetic recharge might get what the pickup where it sounds better. And if you're going to Alnico 8, would a ceramic magnet swap or a pickup that already has a ceramic magnet in it save an Alnico V Humbucker ? What if the tone circuit board for an active pickup is what is really the driving component hat would need to be altered to accomplish this tone mod & not the magnet ? some amps have a high & Low Input for a preamp stage as well. What may work for the mod you want to do for one rig set up, might not work for a another. And then in that case, the cab's speaker might be what is changed. Either way, pickup or speaker may end up being a costly experiment. The pickup thing, might ruin a good pickup or the bridge pickup you prefer might cost closer to +/- $ 100 ? And that's what a speaker swap might also end up costing. The pots or tone capacitor are low priced electronics in comparison. Just me, I'll leave the pickups alone, chase EQ or a pedal. Unless the pickup is dead, it's doing what it's supposed to do. And that's another thing to experiment with, pickup height adjustment. Every guitar has it's relatively unique voice. The only upside I can see to swapping magnets, you may learn something you wouldn't have in the process. But without knowing what the rest of the tone chain circuit of the guitar is, are you blindfolded & just throwing darts at the desired tone, hoping to luck into declaring that the tone is "perfect" or even better. Like string action height & relief, tenths & hundreds of a mm for pickup height micro adjustment(s) might matter & be the tone fix you're after.

Alnico vs. Ceramic Pickups, What’s the Difference? - Guitar River

If you’ve ever looked at the different spec sheets for guitars and wondered what the difference is between the various pickup types, you’re not alone. So what is the difference between ceramic and alnico pickups? Is one better than the other? There is a difference between alnico and ceramic...

www.guitarriver.com

 

[LP_SPC_1_P90]

Another thought too. Might be choice of guitar pick ? Materials, shapes & thickness affect tone. And that's the cheapest, non-invasive/destructive method & solution. When I went back in on guitar & music in 2019, one of the first things I did was get the Alice assorted pack of guitar picks, That was chasing tone for same material & shape, but varying the thickness of the plectrum. They say tone is in the hands, it might just be the plastic material that's in between your fingers ? Turns out with me, I like the pearloid picks of medium thickness for the way & what I play. I mean, I'm no music star either way, but I also know certain guitars sound better & worse with the pick I'm using to my ears. And the pick also interacts with the gauge set of strings I use.

And depending upon the guitar, my LP use 10-46, Strats 9.5-44, Teles 9-42, but I'm going to experiment with 10's on a Tele for the next string change. I have 2 of each for the Strats & Teles, 1 LP and 10's seem to be ideal for a Gibson type single cut with the shorter scale. For the Strats, the SSS HT has 9.5'-44. he SSS Tremolo I've experimented with 9-42 & 9-46 & 9.5-44. I keep coming back to 9.5-44 for the Strats. The acoustic electric, that has 12-53's on it. And the 4 string Bass guitar is 28.6 short scale has 45-100, although the newer model has 45-105. The thing with string changes, tone will change as they play in, anything from new to dead will have it's tone. And like anything that has a useful life, it's going to have that sweet spot of tone to the ears that changes almost indiscernible from fresh => dead. There are some days I walk away from a session that the strings just felt more magical than a prior session. Was I having the performance of my life as a better day, or was it the guitar that was aligned with the universe that day ?

The other day I changed strings on one, tweaked the set up enough to be a couple fronts that I battled that guitar for optimizing the tone. For the most part the setup was a matter of micro adjustments for subtle changes. I haven't really adjusted the set up on the guitars. But humidity changes, some days are +/- 5 RH % delta, others, a front comes in and there's a 20-30+ RH % delta.

Guitar Pick Shape Impacts Tone: Here's How

Many in the guitarists community have debated whether or not the guitar pick shape used really matters in terms of guitar tone. Here's our take.

ironageaccessories.com

 

[Noodling Guitars]

I have an Alnico 5 gold covered humbucker that's rated at 17.09k ohms and I'm thinking of putting in a Alnico 8 magnet to get more tone out of my bridge pickup.

Have any of you folks here, ever did a magnet swap before?

Is it difficult ?

It's not difficult, but two things:
1) you don't get "more" tone, but you change the frequency response a bit by going to A8
2) since this all points to use for high gain, just make sure you have the tools to repot your pickup.

It's really as easy as loosening the screws holding down the bobbins - you don't need to do this completely, just enough to allow the magnet to slide out. slide out, swap, screw back together, then repot. done. Should take at most an hour with the repotting. If the pickup was originally vacuum potted, you will lose a bit of that "security" when you break the seal and repot. But if you don't over do it or go too hot, the coils shouldn't move much and the wax should still be holding it all together