software

Maybe it's a stupid question, but..with aging a pickup's magnet gets weaker I believe? What does that do to the (original) sound?

I'm no expert here, but I feel the sound gets more quot;roundquot; and quot;warmerquot;. Dont know if this make sense. My experience is wit PAF type pickup's by the way.

I heard they lose output.

I may be wrong on this, but the magnet in an older pickup doesn't significantly change by being older. From what I understand, the loss of magnetism is les than 2-3% So it probably doesn't make a huge difference to the sound of the pickup. But don't kill me if I'm wrong on this . . .

This is what I heard too... as long as you don't do anything special with it, the magnets will only change a bit. I think the sweat of your fingers does the most part in altering the tone over time

If the sound does change, pehaps it from the windings aging.

Dunno...but they do get a mellower sound to them.

Last year I scored a once-in-a-lifetime deal on a 73' Strat. Unfortunately the bridge pickup had gone on it. I got the specs and sent it off to Jason Lollar to re-wind it for me to what it should sound like with the other two pickups.

When I got the pickup back it didn't sound right to my ears; it sounded to clean and clear and not nearly warm enough. The other two pickups seemed very mature tonally and the re-wind sounded like a brat in comparison.

There's something to the years and aging....

I do believe that loose of magnetisim it's the main factor. Alnico it isn't very stable material and suffers form degauss with time. Ceramics have replaced them in industry for two reasons, they are cheaper and they doesn't degauss as quickly.

Alnico II pickups were born to emulate the effect of degaussed alnico V pickups.

I think there are a few things going on with these older pups.

1. They are slightly-significantly de-gaussed. This is going to make for les string pull than they previously had.

2. Aging of the windings. Not the metal part mind you but the insulation. Over time you know it thins out and eventually breaks down.

3. Factors in the environment. Did you spill beer on your pup? Do you sweat alot, is the pup covered? Very acid sweat can speed up the breakdown of the materials discussed in #2Luke