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Originally Posted by ibznorange  all they do is use a smaller magnet or some sort of spacer. not a big deal really. shit you could slide anything nonmagnetic in between the poles and magnet and be good to go |
Yeah, that's right. In most standard pickups, on each side of the magnet there is a metal bar w/ holes for each row of studs that the studs go through. This completes a magnetic circuit. If you remove the metal bar and instead put some plastic or other non-paramagnetic or non-diamagnetic material between the studs and the magnet you weaken the magnetic field at the strings and reduce the pickup's power without changing it's tonal response too much. I think Dimarzio uses thick plastic washers on a few studs for their airing process, along with studs that narrow as they reach the magnet.
I've aired one coil of an old Dimarzio IBZUSA pickup, and it sounded much more interesting!