Modeling Active pickups

[Hot Octopus]

When I think of active pups for guitar, I think that they're full of gain and used for metal. When I think of them for bass however, its more of a tone shaping thing.

Does the technology exist to make an active guitar pickup where you could really dial in your tone to make you're pickups sound like just about every pup in SD's line using modeling tech?

Maybe you turn one knob and it selects which pup is being modeled. So, let's say you have 15 positions on the knob.

1) JB
2) 59'
3) Demon
4) Invader
5) Custom
6) Quarter pounder
7) Antiquity Hum
8) Antiquity SC
9) Dimebucker
10) Phat Cat
11) Classic Stack
12) Duckbucker
13) Full Shred
14) Jazz
15) Basslines pup

Next you have a knob that voices each pickup depending on the magnet type.

1) A2
2) A3
3) A4
4) A5
5) A6
6) A7
7) A8
8) Ceramic
9) UOA5
10) Ceramic 8

Finally you have a knob that acts as an active EQ control..

1) Treble Boost
2) Bass Boost
3) Mid Boost
4) Treble Cut
5) Bass Cut
6) Mid Cut
7) Scooped Mids
8) Treble/ Mid Boost
9) Mid/ Bass Boost
10) + 25 DB Boost

I was thinking about the Line 6 Variax guitar and was wondering if a system like that could be applied to the preamp section of an active guitar pup for maximum tone shaping. Is it possible? Would Seymour Duncan ever consider such and idea?

 

[crguti]

Re: Modeling Active pickups

LW-Must set is the active version of JB/59.
my 2 øre.

 

[Hot Octopus]

Re: Modeling Active pickups

LW-Must set is the active version of JB/59.
my 2 øre.

I'm not talking about making a single pup active, but using modeling technology in an active preamp to model different pickups.

 

[aneyekay1]

Re: Modeling Active pickups

its actually a good idea
imagine the cost of those "modeling active pickups" would be?
well be living in cardboard boxes to afford the pickups :S

 

[Hot Octopus]

Re: Modeling Active pickups

Initial cost is always going to be high. but as time goes on, prices usually start to fall, It happens with all products.

But let's continue using Line 6 as an example. If I wanted the real deal James Tyler Variax I could goe and get one for a few thousand dollars. However if I could sacrifice the MAde in America thing, I could get the Korean built axe for much less. The same would go for these special active pickups. Have SD build the USA ones and farm out the korean production to the folks who build GFS or G&B pups.

Or, you could just have one set of expensive pickups. For a SD custom made PU, it is going to cost at least $160. The shadow active EQ pup cost the same amount. BKP's cost even more and people still buy them. It's all about tone chasing and getting what you hear in your head out through you're speakers.

And if SD wanted to make more money, maybe they could charge extra for downloadable patches that would give the active modeling pups more tonal options, more PU choices, more magnets, an out of phase option, ect...

 

[Metalblaze]

Re: Modeling Active pickups

Yeah that's quite simple with digital signal processing technology. Just think about your PC sound card and how many things you can do with it with the right software. It's the exact same thing.

EMG has done analog signal processing circuits (I think they're analog?) like the SPC.

The whole thing could be in the control cavity and not necessarily in the pickups if room is an issue. Making things small SMD parts would help.

However you have to live with the whole digital sound artificial thing.

 

[Virtual Kevorkian]

Re: Modeling Active pickups

I can't help but think it would need DSP to really do things well, as a circuit board for all that would be waaay too big to house in the guitar itself. As soon as you introduce DSP, you introduce A/D and D/A conversion, and latency - I don't want latency from my guitar, itself.

 

[idsnowdog]

Re: Modeling Active pickups

In order to do the amount of modeling your thinking of the pickup would need to become a digital audio device, rather than an analog audio device. It is possible to do limited analog modeling in a small package, like the VOX amp plugs. However to be able to store, access and process multiple presets you would need a dsp.

My preference would be to have a modeler in a floor mount or rackmount unit that is the first stage in a signal processing chain. You could simulate different pickups, but that simulation wouldn't be much more than an EQ with memory presets to simulate the EQ curves of different styles of pickups. This would be emulation through equalization, rather than true modeling. Which I suspect is really what the majority of modeling is anyways.

Shadow has an active pickup with an onboard EQ, so you can tweak its frequency response to whatever you like. However that pickup is not able to change on the fly between different EQ settings.

 

[Metalblaze]

Re: Modeling Active pickups

It is possible to change the timbre of the sound (amp modelling) as well as its EQ but it needs a more sophisticated processing. With the EQ you interefere with standard freqs. The timbre change needs specific frequencies emphasized which relate to the fundamental in a very specific way. Like you track the fundamental and then add the desired harmonic ones (or a ssimilar process). Not much of deal for the "software druggies" I'd guess.

 

[Funkfingers]

Re: Modeling Active pickups

Er, somewhere along the line, this variable modelling pickup simulation technology is still going to have to transduce the vibrations of a string. If the system uses a copper coil around a magnet, this will impose a certain tonality upon everything that follows in the signal chain. If the system uses a piezo element (or six), there will be a different initial tonality and different dynamic response. If the system uses optical detection, things would be different again.

Users of MIDI Guitars and/or Guitar Synthesizers will already recognise some of these technological options. As VK has already pointed out, all three of them will introduce a conversion time lag.

Simpler by far to stick to a pickup of fixed specifications and characteristics and run it through a hugely variable amplifier gain modelling system. My personal preference is for a highly inefficient and low fidelity form of guitar sound reproduction sound system - the valve amplifier.

 

[TheLivingDead]

Re: Modeling Active pickups

Groovy idea.

But what's the next step? Guitar body wood modeling?

 

[Metalblaze]

Re: Modeling Active pickups

It will introduce latency but not a noticable one. There are pickups with attack slowerr than the latency these units produce. Also the voicing of the sensor itself (pickup, piezo etc) can be neutralized easily once the signal goes digital, however the whole thing will be just another dsp unit like say a PODXT with one more front end. Nothing more nothing less.

 

[Hot Octopus]

Re: Modeling Active pickups

Groovy idea.

But what's the next step? Guitar body wood modeling?

Switch did that. They made a material out of plastic called Vibracell that mimicked the sound of mahogany. For body wood modeling, I'd start off with basswood as it's the most neutral sounding.

 

[flmason]

Re: Modeling Active pickups

Sorry to revive an old post, but in case others come across it...

The basic idea was implemented as the Line 6 Variax or the Roland VG-88.

Duncan could do it, maybe better if they got the right digital people on staff. It doesn't have to cost a fortune... the cheapest Variax was about $300 at one time.

 

[MattPete]

Re: Modeling Active pickups

....Does the technology exist to make an active guitar pickup where you could really dial in your tone to make you're pickups sound like just about every pup in SD's line using modeling tech?...

No.