pharmd07
Experienced
I have Classic 57 pickups in my Les Paul. I like the sound of my bridge pickup, but the neck pickup sounds pretty wooly, especially on lower notes, even with a very low pickup height.
I could get a new neck pickup, but then I would have to replace all the electronics as well since my Les Paul has the circuit board in the control cavity. The pickups need to plug in to the circuit board and no one sells aftermarket pickups with the plug installed.
That leaves me with considering changing the magnet in my neck pickup. Classic 57s have alnico II magnets, and changing to an alnico V magnet should, in theory, make the pickup brighter and less wooly. The process looks fairly easy.
Has anyone done a magnet swap? How difficult was it? Were the results significant?
I could get a new neck pickup, but then I would have to replace all the electronics as well since my Les Paul has the circuit board in the control cavity. The pickups need to plug in to the circuit board and no one sells aftermarket pickups with the plug installed.
That leaves me with considering changing the magnet in my neck pickup. Classic 57s have alnico II magnets, and changing to an alnico V magnet should, in theory, make the pickup brighter and less wooly. The process looks fairly easy.
Has anyone done a magnet swap? How difficult was it? Were the results significant?