Pick ups near speaker magnets ?

[JayBurger]

Hi All...

 

I've just put my les paul leaning up against a 4 x 12 marshall cab..

 

Then a thought crossed my mind... can the powerfull magnets in the speakers have any effect on the pick up magnets ?

 

I'm sure they shouldn't, as I remember seeing a guitar hanger that fixed to the side of your stack.

 

But... I am curious.. and not completely sure its safe.. And I moved the les paul to a less magnetic area just incase.

 

Cheers Guys.

[A String]

Should be fine.

[Dr. Ellwood]

I've never had any problem with it, nor has anyone that I know of, but I sure would NOT lean it on a cabinet anyway, that's probably the best way to have it fall and pop the head right off that bad boy!!

[JeffLearman]

... as long as the amp is turned down, of course! We all know what mag feedback sounds like, don't we?

 

I suspect that if you took a good pup and slapped it up against the magnet on a driver, that pup might never sound quite the same again. But at the distance you're talking about, I wouldn't worry about it unless you (a) left the guitar there for years and (b) tapped on the pickups a lot.

 

Ever magnetize something? You put it in a strong EM field (from a magnet or electromagnet) and bang on it. The banging causes the crystals to bounce around a bit, and the field makes them tend to line up more with the field than against it. The stronger the field and the more volient the "shake up", the faster the item gets magnetized. The longer you keep this up, the more it gets magentized, up to a point (mostly dictated by the strength of the field and the properties of the thing being magnetized).

 

The same applies to the magnets in your pickups. Stick 'em in a really strong field and whack 'em and you might be able to detect the results. But field strength diminishes quickly with distance (inverse square law).

 

I lived in a house once with other musicians. We set the TV on the biggest item of "furniture" we happened to have, an EV PA cabinet. The picture was always funny, with the color distorted at the bottom. Well, one day we needed that cabinet so the TV went onto the floor. The picture got all better. DOH!