Pickup demagnetising

The Earth itself is a giant magnet. What are you going to do now?

 

How to Demagnetize a Magnet

 

You are worrying about this too much thus I put forth that you are already misinformed.

In 40+ years of playing I’ve never experienced, or heard of from another musician, a story about their pickup being demagnetized. I’m sure there’s someone out there that has and I’m also sure that the events preceding that diagnosis were probably the result of very silly actions.

 

Enjoy!

de-gaussed guitar magnets | Lollar Pickups Blog

 

^proving my point...

“What happened?! My pickups got demagnetized and all I did was rub them with a piece of steel!”

(Or put them adjacent to another huge magnet)

 

Here comes another 300 page thread!

Just messing with you I've never heard of a real world case of this, there are old abused basses out there with the original pickups that are fine. With all this worrying, your bass and its pickups are likely to outlast you

 

Don't worry about it. Small devices like phones, ear buds, etc use neodymium. It's magnetism will outlive the devices lifespan many times.

True, alnico pickups can loose magnetism but they can be re-magnetized. They usually have to be very very old for that to be an issue. Alnico pickup pole pieces can also loose magnetism if you strike them hard with a tool, for instance if you are trying to force a pole piece upwards when it wasn't designed to.

 

No apology necessary! You're enthusiastic, and asking questions, that's what TB is for. When we're not worshipping tort-clad P basses with flats and debating whether you can play metal with a Jazz Bass or not that is

 

See "Charge the Magnets", about 90% down the page:
Single-coil Pickup Kits | stewmac.com

Here's the magnetometer they suggest:
RB Annis - Magnetometer 50-0-50 #180-020

EDIT: Would need to research it more if interested. Googling around, I see other numbers for magnet strength (for bass pickups) way larger than those.

 

You're worrying about unnecessary things. Wasn't it you being paranoid about the corrosion on your PU poles? I've been playing since the early 90's and haven't had a single PU on any of my basses demagnetized. My advice: stop being paranoid and play your bass

 

My oldest bass is 1987. My second oldest 12 1992?3?

I wouldn't worry if I were you.

 

You'll be dead long before this will be a problem. Really.

 

just play your bass, bro

 

Thank you for starting this thread, RM3! Thanks to that Lollar article, I think I discovered why my late 60's Realistic violin bass suddenly had way low output...the pickups may have become demagnetized. But it's a 50 year old bass with really cheap pickups, and in about 45 years of playing bass, this is the only time it's ever happened. So while I agree with the others not to worry about it so much, you did maybe help me solve the problem with that old bass.

 

Get neo pickups and the magnetism will be there when your gransons play your bass

 

Get a Tbird, and join the Thunderbird Club where no question is ignored nor any apology necessary!

Frankly, I think Fender’s recent switch from ceramic to alnico PUPs in the basic MIM basses is a blatant attempt to build obsolescence into their instruments. (I shouldn’t need to say this but my tongue is, of course, planted firmly in cheek).

Don’t worry about it, except maybe avoid placing your bass against your drivers. If something happens, just replace them.

Can’t wait to read about @JimmyM’s new pickups!

 

I would never get new pickups in my Realistic! I'll get them re-magnetized.