I've got a Seymour Duncan Hot Stack in the middle position of my Strat, it's a stacked humbucker so it's quiet but it also uses a ceramic magnet. This pickup is not harsh at all, it's powerful but it's got a nice glassy, ringing tone that responds very well to picking. If I'd listened to the ceramic magnet naysayers I'd have missed out on a lovely pickup, it's much better to see what other people who have actually used the pickup have to say.

It's awesome to live in a time where we can share knowledge with each other.

Thank you for taking the time to share some of yours with all of us.

According to Bill Lawrence, a magnet by itself has no sound.
As a part of a pickup, the magnet is simply the source to provide the magnetic field for the strings.

The Duncan Custom SH-5 is the perfect example of a great sounding ceramic magnet pickup. A friend of mine used to rag on ceramic pickups all the time until he fell in love with my PRS CE24 with a Duncan Custom in the bridge. I couldn't wait to tell him it was a ceramic magnet ;-)

The original picks had more warmth than the Rocking R set up. But the new ones had a brighter sound to them .

It's interesting that those Mexican Fender pickups are basically built like a P90.  Different sound for sure due to the coil shape but I'm sure it has some effect.

I’ve purchased loaded pick guards from that guy before, good stuff!

Here's the cold truth of guitar gear. Yesterday's trash tends to be tomorrow's treasure.

Not always, but more often than not. I've been playing for 32 years and gear that was crapped on 20 years ago is celebrated today.

I honestly really like the stock pickups in my Mexican Strat.  The only improvement I made was to put in a Freeway 10-way switch to get not only the Gilmour mod, but also series combinations that are otherwise impossible.  What I really like about the 10-way switch is that there are no holes or switches added to the pickguard and the guitar still looks stock.

Just had a play this week with my old 70’s strat (japanese) through my Orange combo - and had a major shock! My modern Aria strat has ceramic pickups and sounds pretty damned nice - especially for a bit of blues and jazz - but the old strat, with alnico pickups, sounded amazing. A touch ‘thinner’… but so much brighter than the Aria - and without any effects, straight into the Orange - it sounded amazing; I just sat there for a whole morning rediscovering the beauty of one guitar, one amp… and no effects! Music like it used to be - and with only a 3-way switch, I rediscovered the joy of finding the inbetween spots… priceless!

Nice video man, straight to the point, useful information, no fancy recording or video edit..nice!!

I've been playing over 50 yrs and always prefer the ceramic pickups😂

i use to always swap out Squire ceramic magnets, until I came across a set in a Squire Standard that sound awesome. So, there must be something true about your assessment here!

That magnet arrangement is also used on the DiMarzio SDS1.
It's basically a P90 magnet configuration in a strat size pickup, which would account for the slightly fatter warmer tone.

G&L MFD pickups are ceramic. I like them. On the bridge pickup, I always need to dial down the tone, takes the bright edge off a little. That’s just me though.

Thanks for your explanation of how the winds affect the ceramics. I had an '09 MIM that I couldn't wait to get the pups out of (classic bad brittle/wooly problems), yet I just got a '13 MIM, and, while they want to take off and distort at the least bit of pick attack, the tone is clear and balanced, and I enjoy not having the tone pot engaged on the bridge pup. It's just more of an aggressive sounding strat, and the action/ playability is super, so I'll just keep this one stock. This video clears up why ceramics can vary, which I didn't suspect before.  Thanks.

The alnico sounded like there was more down low and up too but less in the middle. The ceramics sounded more level/even output throughout. Just my $.02. Thanks for the video.

The vast majority of us would benefit more from additional practice...than worrying about the equipment.

I swapped out the stock humbuckers in an Epiphone Les Paul Special for Warman humbucker sized ceramic P90s, totally transformed it for the better

Wired them to a blend pot with a series switch instead of a 3-way, love that wiring

The number of winds the gauge of the wire.  Also the amount of METAL adding a metal plate to the back of your cheap pickups can actually improve them also 6 penny nails cut the head cut off the points solder on back of pickup typically 6 of them per humbucker... Cheers 🍻🥃🥃🎸🎵🎶🎶🎶