Something I've often wondered.

[Lee]

We have endless posts in this particular forum about pick-up tone.

What i'm wondering is:

If you got a pup that was very much middle of the road (5-5-5) on the tone scale; and you had an equaliser pedal, could you emulate a number of pups pretty exactly? For example, if you dropped off the treble a little and boosted the bass - would you have a 59? Or if you dropped the bass and boosted the treble - would you have a 'jazz'? Or boost the middle and the output to get a PG or a whatever?

I'm sure you know what I'm getting at.

BTW, which pup is the closest to a 5-5-5?

Any ideas anyone?


Lee

 

[papersoul]

Re: Something I've often wondered.

Along the same lines I do find that certain pickups are much more neutral or really allow you to use the amp to its fullest potential. I am finding that with my current C-5 in my LP. Where as my Rio Grande BBQ has mucho bass and can be hard to EQ out.....and the lack of highs makes it tough to just crank the highs on the amp.

 

[jeremy]

Re: Something I've often wondered.

sorta and no. with an eq pedal you can change your tone a lot but its quite different than changing pups. if you got a 64 band eq or something like that you might be able to simulate other pups. just changing a 59n to a jazz n (both mid 7k alnico V pups) would require much more precision than a boss 7 band eq gives.
there are lots of little subtle differences that you probably couldnt get even with a expansive eq

 

[papersoul]

Re: Something I've often wondered.

I hear EMGs are a lot like that......very evenly balanced.

 

[jeremy]

Re: Something I've often wondered.

I hear EMGs are a lot like that......very evenly balanced.

i disagree. the 81 for example is a very mid focused pup, it has very high output in a narrow frequency range

 

[Surgeon]

Re: Something I've often wondered.

sorta and no. with an eq pedal you can change your tone a lot but its quite different than changing pups. if you got a 64 band eq or something like that you might be able to simulate other pups. just changing a 59n to a jazz n (both mid 7k alnico V pups) would require much more precision than a boss 7 band eq gives.
there are lots of little subtle differences that you probably couldnt get even with a expansive eq

True, you could do something like Lee describes if all p/u were built the same way, with the same materials etc... Duncans aren't all the same regarding these points...

 

[Marcel]

Re: Something I've often wondered.

Maybe with a hyper EQ you can simulate the frequence response of the pickup, but it is hard simulate other factors like muddyness, distortion, compression etc.
Sound and tone is more like just a EQ curve. I tried to simulate different tones by changing the EQ curve. I think this isn't authentic though i had some ok experience with simulating other cabs with an EQ (it was a FFT Filter 1024 Bands!?) on the computer.

Btw I like modding or changing to get a sound so much more than add some electrical boxes which modifies the sound. Maybe because in the end i like it simple.

 

[Thames]

Re: Something I've often wondered.

After the "modeling" amps...

are we ready for "modeling guitars"... imagine a guitar with a transducer and preamp/eq integrated, with which you could reproduce *any* pickups imaginable.... :\

Hmm... I should patent my idea.. what do you think ?

 

[jetjoe002]

Re: Something I've often wondered.

It's called the Line 6 Variax.

 

[y2stevo]

Re: Something I've often wondered.

After the "modeling" amps...

are we ready for "modeling guitars"... imagine a guitar with a transducer and preamp/eq integrated, with which you could reproduce *any* pickups imaginable.... :\

Hmm... I should patent my idea.. what do you think ?

Dude...!! Thats scary,.. althought i guess when cds first came out people were sckeptical and when peple started using mp3s and sharing muisc over the net , but there will always be people out there that still buy the cd,and use the good ol' passive pickups with tube amps... i'll stay one of em, but i wont be ignorant to these technological advancements.......

 

[Vasshu the humanoid typhoon]

Re: Something I've often wondered.

And cd's still have a limited bandwidth, and holes in the sound.
Turntables still run rings around those soundwise.