SD pickup modeller

wilkinsi

wilkinsi

New member
Just curious - how hard would it be for SD to make a modeller with specific pickups emulation/transformation? Say your guitar has an Invader, and you want it to sound like a JB? Boss did something similar: Single Coil to Humbucker and vice versa. I don't remember SD ever making a modeller.
 
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Re: SD pickup modeller

wilkinsi said:
Just curious - how hard would it be for SD to make a modeller with specific pickups emulation/transformation? Say your guitar has an Invader, and you want it to sound like a JB? Boss did something similar: Single Coil to Humbucker and vice versa. I don't remember SD ever making a modeller.
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On one hand modeling is far easier than early days when Roland vg8 was introduced and it included basic pickup models. Processing power and modeling algorithms have come a long way.

On the other hand, if you model pickups with a pedal, there is a serious challenge... The model will replace all of your signal with the tone of the modeled pickup that was sampeled outside of your guitar. As a result, none of your guitar's tone will be included.

Maybe good if your guitars tone isn't optimal, but I don't imagine this is what you were looking for?

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Re: SD pickup modeller

Would there be a point to doing the modeling in a pickup, using conventional controls, and a wireless connection to a phone or tablet running an app?

You could load a guitar with modeling pickups and go to a gig with them set up a certain way, then get your phone out and change everything over for your mellow second set -- a crowd favorite.

What would it need for power? 9V? Rechargeables? Phantom? Phantom power from a pedal you use to switch presets?

Let me know when it ships.
 
Re: SD pickup modeller

Little Pigbacon said:
Would there be a point to doing the modeling in a pickup, using conventional controls, and a wireless connection to a phone or tablet running an app?

You could load a guitar with modeling pickups and go to a gig with them set up a certain way, then get your phone out and change everything over for your mellow second set -- a crowd favorite.

What would it need for power? 9V? Rechargeables? Phantom? Phantom power from a pedal you use to switch presets?

Let me know when it ships.
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Funny, we researched this about 10 years ago and couldn't find enough demand. We looked at 2 parts.
1. Digital switching for analog. All controls stayed the same but their values were read by dig card that controlled all analog signals.

You now controlled all analog signals path. So turn a knob 1 quarter and it blends 2nd pup in at 50 percent pups go out of phase 75 percent eq shifts and 100 everything plus pups in series... What ever you program the controller to do.

2.Once you are this far, it would be easy to add a DSP chip to add digital including eq, cap emulation, and pup emulation.

But market seemed small and Dev costs were medium, but no way to protect concept and big boys would likely steal it so we wrote it off as interesting research.

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Re: SD pickup modeller

That's some wild, wild stuff.

I could justify dedicating a guitar to experiment with first-generation product.

And... we?
 
Re: SD pickup modeller

I'm not a crowdsourcing kind of person, but I'm a sometimes early adopter.

If something like this made it to market and succeeded, would it help pickup sales? Hurt them? Would it replace conventional pickups? Complement them?
 
Re: SD pickup modeller

We projected a boutique market... very unlikely to go mainstream because most beginner's start with cheap epis or squiers. Low end variaxeish modeling also seemed possible st the time but hasn't developed (yet?)

So traditional beginner pups wouldn't be displaced by our concept and midroad players would probably be happy with stock or simple replacements... again there's not much displacement.

Our target was mature semipros who have used multiple guitars to get specific tones...esentially the same modifiers that we see on this forum.

Frankly the digital vs analog wars were at their peak and it was hard to tell if we could get messages to the target audience = analog variety and ease of switching is good.

The next persona we looked at was...im ok adding digital as long as I can keep my underlying analog tone.

This appeared to be an even smaller market and the component and installation costs were not cheep....

So in the end I don't think the impact on traditionsl would be great but it might be worth revisiting as component and modeling costs continue to drop.
 
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Re: SD pickup modeller

My answer is an equalizer, but it would take a lot of effort to come up with the right settings.
 
Re: SD pickup modeller

Few players have any idea what stock PU's are in their guitars, and know even less about aftermarket PU's. There's no viable market for a pedal that emulates PU's.

Another issue is sound clips for PU's. If you're playing a different guitar thru a different amp, speakers, and pedals than the clip used, you're not likely to get the same sound. The same PU can sound different in several different Les Pauls (of the same model) thru a Marshall, let alone versus a Strat thru a Fender amp.
 
Re: SD pickup modeller

The closest we currently come is the Pickup Booster, which, when used with single coils, allows you 2 lower resonant frequencies to change the sound to something more like a humbucker. All analog, of course.
 
Re: SD pickup modeller

blueman335 said:
Few players have any idea what stock PU's are in their guitars, and know even less about aftermarket PU's. There's no viable market for a pedal that emulates PU's.

Another issue is sound clips for PU's. If you're playing a different guitar thru a different amp, speakers, and pedals than the clip used, you're not likely to get the same sound. The same PU can sound different in several different Les Pauls (of the same model) thru a Marshall, let alone versus a Strat thru a Fender amp.
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I think you've just made an argument for there being no aftermarket pickup industry.
 
Re: SD pickup modeller

Little Pigbacon said:
I think you've just made an argument for there being no aftermarket pickup industry.
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Definitely niche. For every Steve Morse who combines singles for humbuckers or Alan Holdsworth who invented new melodic theory, there are 4869853 people happy with stock pups and pentatatonics.

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Re: SD pickup modeller

Little Pigbacon said:
I think you've just made an argument for there being no aftermarket pickup industry.
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Not at all. It's just that people new to this don't realize all the variables involved, and that you can't get the same guaranteed sound with a PU thru a variety of guitars and amps. Very few players have any idea of the impact winds and magnets have on tone. The ones that do, are usually going to prefer the real thing, rather than an artificial processed sound.
 
Re: SD pickup modeller

baritone said:
My answer is an equalizer, but it would take a lot of effort to come up with the right settings.
Click to expand...

I was thinking that would be the answer. I think it would have to be digital to truly change the sound from one pickup to another since the pedal would have to deal with eq, gain etc. That's what I'm thinking to fit all the features to just one pedal.
 
Re: SD pickup modeller

Lovegun said:
I was thinking that would be the answer. I think it would have to be digital to truly change the sound from one pickup to another since the pedal would have to deal with eq, gain etc. That's what I'm thinking to fit all the features to just one pedal.
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I like the idea of multisetting eq, but its somewhat different than modeling. EQ can only attentuate or boost whatever is in the signal. It doesn't create new harmonics or move frequencies...

Similar to eq on a low female voice will not create the harmonic sound of a male voice.

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