here's the deal, Ceramics magnets are cheaper, so ALL the cheap sucky pickups are ceramics but NOT ALL Ceramic pickups are cheap and sucky.

The secret with ceramic pickups is to set them very low! Since they are a lot higher output, setting them low brings back a lot of clarity in the tone.

I feel like i was listening to a very mellow David Lee Roth properly explain ceramic pickups. I stayed for the whole thing and subbed :)

I love the older MIM Fender pickups with the ceramic magnets on both sides of the pole pieces 😊

i have been playing guitar for 55 years. Not a thing wrong with ceramic pickups,  they are great. if you are absolutely determined to spend more money, put your money in the best amp you can afford to buy!  A good amp can make a lot of cheaper guitars sing.

I have had some older vintage ceramic pickups that I absolutely loved. You're correct,  telecaster Squier fell short. Thanks!

Thank you so much for finally saying what every single guitar player is scared to say!, ceramic pickups are great!, and they make so many great types of ceramic single coil pickups as well as humbucking pickups too. Your video on this matter is articulate, well-spoken, and inspiring!, thank you for also mentioning the Squier Affinity Series pickups that are ceramic and sound amazing and are perfectly fine in every possible way!, I thought I was the only person who actually likes the Affinity Series pickups! It’s comforting to know someone as unique as yourself agrees with my own beliefs regarding pickups!, God Bless You! Take care brotha!

I've switched to refrigerator magnets on my pickup. It's a Ford F150 and I now have about 700 magnets on it.

I bought a Squier bullet with one of the major reasons being that the ceramic pickups kicks ass

Wow! I was just about to say that I got a Squier Affinity Strat for Christmas and it sounds fantastic and then you literally said right when I started typing! It’s a great guitar, fretwork, tremolo, everything. It’s become my main guitar!

Great video. You summed it up. It was marketing that brainwashed us all into thinking ceramics suck IMO. There is such a market for pickup replacement and they need propaganda to push it to make us spend more money. I love the ceramic pickups in my Mexican built Fender Strat. When I first got the guitar, everyone told me I needed to swap them for AlNiCo pickups, but I never did. You have a great point about having to find something wrong with a pickup set before you strip it out and I never could find a real issue with the ceramic pickups in my Strat. They handled higher distortion, gain and treble so well. They can be bright and spanky like a Strat is supposed to sound but also could do the Metal style so well to the point, it made me realize single coils could handle that kind of tone pretty well. My Strat is now around 7 years old and the pickups have gotten brighter and more twangy sounding over time.


Cool to give the Squier Affinity Strats a shout out, those are some fine guitars. i like how the ceramic pickups sound in the Squier Bullet Strats. It's a shame Fender replaced the Mexican Standard line with the new "Player" Strats that have weak AlNiCo pickups in it. I've tried some Player Strats and the new AlNiCo pickups just so thin and are missing that mid-range punch that the ceramics had. I have nothing against AlNiCo pickups, but the ones in the Player series are dull sounding. Squier's Classic Vibe Strats have far better AlNiCo pickups than what Fender put in the new Player guitars.

I would add that by adjusting the height of the pickups and using thicker or lighter strings, it changes your tone. I bought a cheap telecaster and messed around with everything. I found that setting up your amp correctly (there's cheap amp setting videos) and trying out different pickup adjustments and strings makes a huge difference using ceramic pickups. Just have fun ✌️

I love the sound of the Fujigen factory Fender Japan fiber bobbin ceramic single coils from the early 80s. The Belcat ceramic single coils that come in the new Silvertone SS15 are very nice too, especially if you upgrade the caps and pots. Ceramics can sound incredibly good.

I'm playing with ceramics for the first time. They came in a Sterling SUB Series Silo 3 that I got used for a handful of beans. They're really nice in all sorts of ways - wound kinda hot, but I get a wide breadth of tonal characteristics out of them. They're good loud, quiet, dirty, clean...
Just love'm.
Thanks for your videos

Brian May from Queen used Burns pickups on his Red Special and they’re bar magnet types! Who can argue with his playing, tone and amazing innovations on all the great albums and hit singles!

On some of my strats I like the guitar with a good ceramic in front and lead and an alnico with similar output in middle.
   It can be a very affordable upgrade.

I recently got a hardtail Squier Bullet Strat and I'm keeping the pickups in there. Not only that I'm sticking with the electronics too because the tone controls on this guitar are actually useable and if I change all the pots I may not prefer the result. These pickups look similar to the MIM Strat pickups. They have 2 thin bar magnets underneath either side of the row of pole pieces.
To me they have almost a P90 quality to their tone, except not as fat or high output.
I like them enough I just went onto Ebay and got another set of Bullet Strat pickups for peanuts that somebody took out of their week-old guitar!

Im a ceramic Fan, specially the low gauze hotrail versions. They are ballsy on the bass and chimey on the mid n high - very bubbly on the neck, thick on the bridge and it sings. Alnico sounds like youre using brand new strings all the time - jagged and square sounding.

This is a great video, I really hate that sound of the  new Mexico Player Strat with alnico V pickups, I hope to get an old Mexico Standard Strat with ceramic pickups for lively sound. Thank you!

Great info