Advice needed my friends..pickup magnet swap

stainy

Advice for magnet swap in a  Gibson 500t and 496r.cheers guys n gals..

Adam_MD

Advice as in how to do it or which magnets to get?  

stainy

Which magnets.

xscaramanga

Rumours persist that the 500T is just the 498T with a ceramic magnet instead of Alnico V; and same for 496R and 490R. 

I prefer the 496/500 to the 490/498 personally. 

stainy

Yeh had read that,just liking lower output pickups "at the minute" and wondered if I change these rather than new Pu's.

Teyeplayer

stainy said:

Yeh had read that,just liking lower output pickups "at the minute" and wondered if I change these rather than new Pu's.

If you need a few magnets for the swap pm me, I’ve purchased a bunch recently to try but don’t think I’m going to go through with it. 

Sarge

If you like lower output you could try AlNiCo 2 mags, softer than A5 and imo much more musical, more defined with better note seperation. 

normula1

I'm quite liking an Alnico 3 in the bridge and a 5 in the neck at the minute.

Funkfingers

Alnico 4 in the neck/Rhythm position.

Generally, with humbuckers as overwound as the 500T, a magnet swap is not necessarily going to bring improved tone.

With Seymour Duncan pickups, changing the bar magnet in an SH-4 JB from A5 to A2 goes some way to turning it into an SHAH-1 Allan Holdsworth model without paying custom shop special order prices.

robinbowes

I did this very thing and wrote about it on here. I messed it up and had to get a pro to fix it but the end result is good.

normula1

I've never had a screwdriver slip when jiggling the magnet out of some stubborn wax and go straight into one of the coils..... honestly