Degaused refers to the magnet only – it drops the power.
Otherwise a pickup should have only one “hump” and that’s it’s resonant frequency, the response curves are very simple. That hump’s size, width and centre frequency are AFAIK the only variables.
All of the tweaks, like scatter winding, different coilwire gauge and insulation and even asymmetrical-coil sizes etc. only affect that one hump. Though gaps in the coilwire will cause microphonics – which some find desirable.

If you look up the response curve of a 12dB resonant low-pass filter, it will look just like that of a pickup.
Don’t buy into the idea that they are complex and full of magical curves that are carefully shaped to provide a special response.

“Some Alnico 2 pickups, like the APS-1 Alnico II Pro for Strat®, for instance, are actually bright sounding – not because of the magnet, but because of the low d.c. resistance and high resonant peak.”

Partially right, though the main reason is that the actual polepieces are made of alnico, and therefore these mags are positioned just mm’s from the strings.
In a PAF style unit, the alnico is a bar underneath the coils and the field is carried up through them by metal polepieces. The flux will typically be weaker just above an HB polepiece.
That’s the reason for “stratitis” or the magnets causing distortion in the vibrational pattern in a string and causing “wolftones” – you don’t get that with normal HB’s.

The type, and amount of metal inside the coil also affects the resonant frequency (”hump”).

@ MarkAnthony…
A11 HB mags can be pretty darned bright if the pickup is wound a certain way: Asymmetrical coils for instance.

I’ve got a reasonably accurate Franky replica that I made and started with a Custom ‘78 since that was where all the hype was. It was decent but really didn’t hit early VH (to validate the above posts) on the mark. It even led me down the path of upgrading my TSL’s preamp tubes with nice NOS tubes and swapping a Wolfgang for some cash and a Marshall 4×12″ with Greenbacks. another story but a great upgrade in itself.
Last weekend I swapped the 78 for the EVH pup and I can tell you it is spot on 1984. I’m not an expert at dissecting pup tones by adding fancy adjectives but imagine the low volume sweet growl you hear in Drop Dead Legs, and turning things up and still having that growl when you tap out Hot For Teacher. It sounds amazing! It’s more than just mid 80s VH. it hits Scorps very well. Jabs has amazing tone that few talk about. I’ll go out on a limb and say that it has the ability to make an ash strat body sound a bit like a LP.

Thanks for summing things up.

Cheers