Can modern science help with balancing pickups?

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buddah

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Hey all,

First post here.

I have an EPi Dot that I enjoy very much. The problem is that I don't play lead (at all). My style is more of a grab a handful of chord and beat the hell out of it type of thing. That is what passes for guitar playing in my house. The pickups that are in there are fairly high output and get muddy. I like a little more clarity in the chords. So I was going to swap them out for the jazz set which has been recommended on roughly a bazillion forums. Then I ran across a pragmatic post that said that I should try to get the most I can out of them before swapping them out. And the gist was to back off the neck pickup until the face was even with the plastic cover, adjust the bridge to match the output and then tweak the individual poles for balance and eargasm.

So I did this and I must say it made quite a difference. Something resembling a useful sound is coming out of the thing now. But it all seems very empirical and non-scientific and that is probably just fine for most people but I was wondering if there was a way to do this, or get it close, or even repeatable using an O'scope or other equipment. I have every piece of gear known to man available to me (my company designs very high end digital audio systems) so equipment isn't the problem. Was wondering if anyone had any experience with this? Even if you could somehow produce a single frequency, audio is such a non-linear sport that I am not sure adjusting for the same P-P output would be correct or pleasing. Now given that the output will be an envelope and not a single sine wave, I am thinking that the best approach would be to adjust for an average P-P signal including all the harmonics and the EQ properties of the pickups themselves and any pots and switches that might be in the chain. Picking strength would also be a huge variable.

The scope input is 1M+ which might adversely affect the signal so maybe it would have to go through a clean preamp first to act as a buffer.

Thoughts anyone? Ideas to try? Yes, I know you can just do this by ear but I am looking for another approach.

Any other tips and tricks that people use to balance pickups?

If anyone cares, the strumming style I have is usually a syncopated long train running sort of thing. I have recently fallen in love with the AC30 sound and that is the tonal sound I am shooting for. A ways to go but it is my goal. Here is a video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lbLW0kpISak of the sound. Edie has some class :) It is very warm but I can hear all the little pinky notes in there.

Would love to hear your thoughts.

Peace,
Rik
 
Re: Can modern science help with balancing pickups?

Welcome to the forum.

There is no hard and fast surefire way to adjust pickups to achieve equal output. For a start, not everybody desires equal output level from neck and bridge position pickups. The whole topic is subjective.

In recent months, the appearance of the word Science in any thread has tended to coincide with a particular troll wading in to the discussion and giving it a good stir.

As ever, my response to the word "Science" is two words, "Mediæval Costumery".
 
Re: Can modern science help with balancing pickups?

Well that was supposed to be a little tongue in cheek as I have been informed that magnetism and electricity have been around a couple of years now and aren't really considered new or modern. But anyway.

Yes, not really trying to identify what "good" sounds like, just wondering if there was a way to set a quantifiable baseline or comparison point. That's all.

Now bring on the trolls!
 
Re: Can modern science help with balancing pickups?

I don't think it's quantifiable, in the sense that all the adjustments you experimented with are highly subjective. But I bet you could use some spectrum analysis to dial in the frequency response you prefer, to a certain extent.
 
Re: Can modern science help with balancing pickups?

ust wondering if there was a way to set a quantifiable baseline or comparison point.

"A one man's trash is another man's treasure" Paul Zart, from the poem "A Garage Sale"

There is. Is the one your ears tell you.

That's all there's to it.

"Not everything that can be measured count, and not everything that count can be measured"
Lt. Kojak

HTH,
 
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