Magnet Swapping in a JB

[groverj3]

Hello all, I'm looking to get a little tighter low end out of the JB in my soloist, after hearing people talk about Alnico 8 magnets on the seymour duncan forums I figure I could try to swap the magnet instead of buying a new pup. Seeing as a magnet would be a lot cheaper than a new pup and I'm not looking for a huge difference in output or sound, just a tighter bass response. Has anyone here tried a JB with an A8 mag? If so, what did you think of it and where did you buy the magnet?

[charvel750]

If you want more bass out of a JB wouldn't you want an Alnico 2 magnet? Going the other way like you're suggesting makes the highs greater, and the lows looser, right? Or, did you try a 250K ohm volume pot on it?

And, are you sure you know how to disassemble the pickup, remove the old magnet, put the new one in, and then seal it all back up again? It's not exactly hard to do, but you can easily damage the pickup's coils if you don't know what you're doing...

[groverj3]

I'm not looking for more bass necessarily, I'm looking for a tighter sounding bass response (less muddy). Supposedly Alnico 8 sounds quite similar to ceramic magnets in terms of bass response while keeping the highs more like an Alnico 5 (which I do like). I could be full of BS though .

Apparently people on the seymour duncan forums have done A8 in a duncan custom or distortion, I would think that A8 in a JB would sound similar to the distortion with an A8 magnet. As far as taking it apart, that doesn't really scare me too much. I played around with disassebling an EMG HZ and was able to put it back together and it sounded just as bad as before .

[wilkinsi]

Just turn the bass down a bit on your EQ

[tonemonster]

you can always try to swap the pickup with someone here, or sell it and buy one used to keep the costs down . that way you can get a pickup that is more suited to what you want to hear.

[tonemonster]

Just turn the bass down a bit on your EQ

DONT GIVE UP ALL THE BEST SECRETS!!!!!!!!!!!!!! DUMBASS!!!!!

[groverj3]

From my understanding swapping a magnet is actually easier than soldering in a new pup in most cases. No luck finding an A8 magnet that I can buy pre magnetized and without buying 10 or so at a time. There's a guy on ebay that sells lots of humbucker magnets and guys on the SD forums use a lot... but he's only selling A8s pre-magnetized in groups of 6 or something like that. I'll just keep looking I suppose.

[MakeAJazzNoiseHere]

You can do that. With a ceramic magnet the JB tightens up pretty good, the Alnico 8 should do the same.

[straycat]

Use a 300k pot that will do the same thing essentially.

[Dreamland_Rebel]

try an UOA5. It did the trick for me in my superstrat.

[groverj3]

I've heard some talk about the UOA5s. Maybe I'll just buy a bunch of different magnets since they're cheap and start playing around!

I have to replace the volume pot in my SL2H anyway, so maybe I'll do something with different pot values too.

[sixx_ gunner]

Post some feedback on what you did with what parts. Interesting for sure.

[groverj3]

I just bought 1M Audio Taper volume and 300k tone pots. As well as a couple UOA5s, A8, and ceramic mags. I'll post a new thread once I get it done since this has gone beyond the scope of just a magnet swap

[JACKSONFREAK]

A 1 meg pot will increase the jb's output and its high end u newsroom go the other way to a 250k pot.

[Axegrinder87]

From my understanding swapping a magnet is actually easier than soldering in a new pup in most cases.

I find that extremely difficult to believe. For me, the hardest part of swapping pickups is installing the rings. Removing, and soldering 2 connections takes about 15 seconds.