The In-Depth Documentation of My Long-Winded, Brutal Quest For Tone

[DreX]

Re: The In-Depth Documentation of My Long-Winded, Brutal Quest For Tone

Let's be honest, people ask for advice all the time, and they get one or two replies, maybe. The only reason this thread is at five page and counting is because OP presents his quest for tone as a challenge to our knowledge: "I bet you guys can't figure out how to achieve this tone!" and then sits back and takes pleasure in reporting that none of our awesome suggestions are adequate, and futhermore, OP is tiring of repeating himself, so if you'd please read is (formerly) garbled post most carefully, he would greatly appreciate it, thaaaanks.

 

[Edgecrusher]

Re: The In-Depth Documentation of My Long-Winded, Brutal Quest For Tone

OP is tiring of repeating himself, so if you'd please read is (formerly) garbled post most carefully, he would greatly appreciate it, thaaaanks.

You have no room to be smug, earlier you posted this

I'll admit I didn't actually bother to read it

 

[Rockstar216]

Re: The In-Depth Documentation of My Long-Winded, Brutal Quest For Tone

We have given answers. There is.
Try the custom shop.
Experiment with altering and modding existing pickups to make one that works for you. (we have made suggestions)
Try changing something else in your signal chain such as the amp or pedals.
Make your own pickup from the ground up.
Settle for a stock existing pickup.

The problem is none of these answers are that satisfying as they are all difficult answers because they are either expensive, random, or will take time, some all 3.

The custom shop seems the most sure fire and reasonable way to get it done with one pickup at 150 each if it doesn't get too complicated, which it shouldn't.
The closest existing pickup which he could make would be probably an Alnico 4 pro. If it isn't tight enough then one side could be switched for short hex poles to slightly the bottom end up.
He seems adamant on the rest of his gear so that could be left alone.
Making your own pickup takes time and equipment he likely doesn't have so it would be easier to get some one to make it for you, like the custom shop.
He also seems to have tried every floor model duncan or other pickup in his guitar and doesn't like them, that or he doesn't have enough resources to experiment and wants to get it right first try.

Then the other problem is what if he does get the pickup from the custom shop exactly how he ordered and described it in terms of the tone he is looking to get out of it and then finds it unsatisfactory? Which is something that a lot of veteran members of the forum here are claiming because they are skeptical about the rest of his gear, more specifically his amp. There are plenty of solutions brought up, just no easy ones.

I was halfway giving an ultimatum. This thread is 6 pages in and seems to be going no where but i'm sure is entertaining for the guest viewing. Rather than going back and forth i'm trying see if the OP is serious about this or just speculating. If he is speculating than just say that no need to keep going around in circles.

He likes running through a bass amp cool. His tone sits between Hotel California and some metal band i've never heard of ok still cool. He wants a pup that will give vintage dynamics and soul with the tightness and fury of a blackwinter ok sure cool but heres the dilemma. One we don't even know what the guitar in question is. Two the pickup won't matter if the means of amplification aren't up to the task.

It's like trying to chop fire wood with a butter knife. Theirs easier ways to go about it.

 

[DreX]

Re: The In-Depth Documentation of My Long-Winded, Brutal Quest For Tone

You have no room to be smug, earlier you posted this

I was just joking. I was surprised anyone had the patience to read it in it's original format. My replies have all been to other replies. People say this is six pages of pointlessness... but I've been entertained.

 

[Falloffthebonetone]

Re: The In-Depth Documentation of My Long-Winded, Brutal Quest For Tone

I was halfway giving an ultimatum. This thread is 6 pages in and seems to be going no where but i'm sure is entertaining for the guest viewing. Rather than going back and forth i'm trying see if the OP is serious about this or just speculating. If he is speculating than just say that no need to keep going around in circles.

He likes running through a bass amp cool. His tone sits between Hotel California and some metal band i've never heard of ok still cool. He wants a pup that will give vintage dynamics and soul with the tightness and fury of a blackwinter ok sure cool but heres the dilemma. One we don't even know what the guitar in question is. Two the pickup won't matter if the means of amplification aren't up to the task.

It's like trying to chop fire wood with a butter knife. Theirs easier ways to go about it.

Good points. I agree entirely and am interested in an answer as well.

 

[Letus]

Re: The In-Depth Documentation of My Long-Winded, Brutal Quest For Tone

bassackwards champ, It works much better to tell the custom shop what you want in terms of sound then let them decide the specs. If it gets you the sound you want do you really care what the magnet is or the dc resistance? But no one here is going to be able to tell you what those specs would be. Especially given your contradictory wishes in tone through a sub optimum rig.

I just thought it would be a good idea to post it on here, so that I might get suggestions without bothering the CS if I could, especially since I'm not buying right away.

I would care what the magnet in the pickups are and the DC resistance is, because they are my pickups, in my guitar, and I'd like to be familiar with the composition of something that embodies my personality, and is so close and valuable to me, as it inevitably will be. But that's just me.

I have said this six times before, the examples of tone I posted are not meant to be absolute representations of my tone, they were meant to convey a general idea about certain common denominators my tone also has, trust me, there is nothing contradictory about my tone.

 

[Letus]

Re: The In-Depth Documentation of My Long-Winded, Brutal Quest For Tone

OP, thanks for cleaning up your first post. I'll admit I didn't actually bother to read it in it's previous state.



One thing you must try, on account of it being dirt cheap to do, is use lower value capacitors in your tone control. Try a range from .01 to .001 uF, they will roll off the highs, but leave behind more mids than a higher value capacitor. You talk about wah sound, caps in that range become very wah-like with the tone control down.

Great idea. But the catch is, I've no idea of where to get them locally or online, and I don't know whether I already have them in my guitar (they're probably 500k caps, though)

 

[Edgecrusher]

Re: The In-Depth Documentation of My Long-Winded, Brutal Quest For Tone

I would care what the magnet in the pickups are and the DC resistance is, because they are my pickups, in my guitar, and I'd like to be familiar with the composition of something that embodies my personality, and is so close and valuable to me, as it inevitably will be. But that's just me.

Tellling MJ what mags and what dc resistance to use ties her hands. This is literally like telling leonardo here I want you to paint the mona lisa but you can only use 1 medium round brush and 1 shade of brown, grey, and green.
You can become familiar with their composition after you have them. Doing anything but deferring to her recommendations and knowledge is just silly.

 

[Letus]

Re: The In-Depth Documentation of My Long-Winded, Brutal Quest For Tone

So you are on a 'long winded(damn straight)brutal quest for tone' but you won't change your amp? Do you know how contradictory that is? you do know that you could replace your bass amp with either a small low wattage tube amp or a really good digital modelling amp for pretty much the same money as two SD pickups right? You'll pay more again for custom made ones.
You aren't happy with your tone but you won't change your amp. Priceless.

Please try to understand what I am trying to say. I will state it plainly and clearly once more, and if you don't get what I'm saying, then you will not understand what this thread is about.

My amp, as I have long suspected, and has been nearly confirmed over the forums, is a special one, because though it has it's flaws, it reacts in a certain way that is beneficial for my tone, that I have not heard in any other amp. I am eager to change my amp, but only when I find one I can record and gig with (through the PA) and has all the benefits and nuances of this amp. I am looking at some, but I don't really have the expenses to throw around on amps I am not sure will get my tone. For now, this amp is satisfactory.

Oh, and I'm satisfied with my tone, all right. I'm just not satisfied with my stock pickups.

 

[Letus]

Re: The In-Depth Documentation of My Long-Winded, Brutal Quest For Tone

Not necessarily the custom shop's ordeal so much as it is your ordeal for the custom shop. You yourself called it your "Long Winded Brutal Quest".

I hate emoticons, but this seems quite appropriate for now: :headbang:

 

[Letus]

Re: The In-Depth Documentation of My Long-Winded, Brutal Quest For Tone

Also I think the air needs to be cleaned up about what tone is. Tone is not your general sound but it is a part of it, your general sound is composed of your tone and your technique. Like if a musician is a painter, the tone would be their colors (in fact the word is used in both art forms in similar regards). You can have weak and narrow tone and still make a great song like an artist can have one dull color and still make a great painting. If you want better tone then you need different gear, because as good as your technique is, if you only have the color red you are not going to be able to paint blue, just like if you have a danelectro and plug it in to a little clip on battery powered amplifier and you aren't going to get Hetfield's tone from Ride the Lightning. Your tone is in your gear but your hands coax it all out and arrange it into your music and sound, so your hands will not make your guitar do something it can't do. Jeff beck can still make a masterpiece with a squire through a line 6 amp stuck on clean because even though his tone wouldn't be ideal, his technique is amazing. Same goes in reverse you can have amazing tone but just enough technique to get by and still make really great music, it's happened before. This is why you can copy someone's exact gear and still not necessarily sound like them unless you have their technique down; you only have half of the equation. Technique is more important in my experience but if you don't have working gear to play on it's almost as meaningless as a guitar without a player, they both need each other so it's important to find out where your sound needs improvement. Like John Suhr said, practice cures most tone issues and this is true, because the tone could be already there in your instrument and you just need to be better at coaxing it out. This seems like more of a gear and tone issue than a technique one. In a technical sense, the tone exists in the quality of your instrument even before you play it just like the color exists for a painter when it is still in tubes. I believe the OP is simply looking for new color.

I would gladly accept your description of tone as the most reliable, but for these points; the overall sound you are referring to is actually guitar tone (they do say tone is in the fingers). The overall sound of a musician also involves the music they make, and how they express themselves.

 

[Letus]

Re: The In-Depth Documentation of My Long-Winded, Brutal Quest For Tone

Soooo seeing as none of us have given the OP a answer that has solved his issue of tone I have to ask you Letus what now? Are you going to order or save up for a set of pups? Are you going to save up for a new amp?

I think I'll e-mail the Custom Shop, but before that, try to get some sound samples on here somehow, and that might take a few days for various reasons, because it seems we are running into a lot of confusion with only words representative of my tone.

 

[Letus]

Re: The In-Depth Documentation of My Long-Winded, Brutal Quest For Tone

We have given answers. There is.
Try the custom shop.
Experiment with altering and modding existing pickups to make one that works for you. (we have made suggestions)
Try changing something else in your signal chain such as the amp or pedals.
Make your own pickup from the ground up.
Settle for a stock existing pickup.

The problem is none of these answers are that satisfying as they are all difficult answers because they are either expensive, random, or will take time, some all 3.

The custom shop seems the most sure fire and reasonable way to get it done with one pickup at 150 each if it doesn't get too complicated, which it shouldn't.
The closest existing pickup which he could make would be probably an Alnico 4 pro. If it isn't tight enough then one side could be switched for short hex poles to slightly the bottom end up.
He seems adamant on the rest of his gear so that could be left alone.
Making your own pickup takes time and equipment he likely doesn't have so it would be easier to get some one to make it for you, like the custom shop.
He also seems to have tried every floor model duncan or other pickup in his guitar and doesn't like them, that or he doesn't have enough resources to experiment and wants to get it right first try.

Then the other problem is what if he does get the pickup from the custom shop exactly how he ordered and described it in terms of the tone he is looking to get out of it and then finds it unsatisfactory? Which is something that a lot of veteran members of the forum here are claiming because they are skeptical about the rest of his gear, more specifically his amp. There are plenty of solutions brought up, just no easy ones.

Thank you for summing that up. This should help clear up some of the confusion on this thread.

Now what I stated earlier is that, working my current rig to it's fullest capabilities, I have managed to get a passable version of my tone, with only a few kinks and small flaws that come from the limitations of my current pickups. That much is discernible. Now a new pickup like the one I described will make my tone bloom into completion, and what it was meant to be all along, as well as give me more versatility from my rig, because the rest of my rig already does so much for my tone. My rig will be complete when those pickups are in a custom-spec Les Paul through (possibly) an ENGL Retro Tube or Marshall JTM45. That's it.

 

[Letus]

Re: The In-Depth Documentation of My Long-Winded, Brutal Quest For Tone

Let's be honest, people ask for advice all the time, and they get one or two replies, maybe. The only reason this thread is at five page and counting is because OP presents his quest for tone as a challenge to our knowledge: "I bet you guys can't figure out how to achieve this tone!" and then sits back and takes pleasure in reporting that none of our awesome suggestions are adequate, and futhermore, OP is tiring of repeating himself, so if you'd please read is (formerly) garbled post most carefully, he would greatly appreciate it, thaaaanks.

No. I am trying to dissect my tone and present it in words, which is easier than trying to describe a Rembrandt through a mime, but, as it turns out, just as awkward, because the Forum members are confused by the sheer amount of all the matter that I have put down here, and can remember only a part of what I've said, and since accurate expression rests on all that I've said forming a cohesive whole, there is conflict, for example of the causes of confusion that plague this thread.

The reason that this thread is at six pages and counting is because I still haven't managed to clear up that confusion.

 

[DreX]

Re: The In-Depth Documentation of My Long-Winded, Brutal Quest For Tone

Great idea. But the catch is, I've no idea of where to get them locally or online, and I don't know whether I already have them in my guitar (they're probably 500k caps, though)

Your guitar probably has a .047 uF or a .022 uF caps, the two most common values. Note that we're talking about the tone capacitor, and not about pots or their values.

You can get a whole assortment for $10 before shipping (free with Prime) http://www.amazon.com/Elenco-100-Ca...03771568&sr=8-7&keywords=capacitor+assortment

Here's a video where a guy demonstrates some lower cap values so you can hear the difference http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZxizsEX0ygs . Note these are different capacitor values altogether, not different capacitor materials, so none of that Orange Drop, PIO bullcrap.

 

[Letus]

Re: The In-Depth Documentation of My Long-Winded, Brutal Quest For Tone

I was halfway giving an ultimatum. This thread is 6 pages in and seems to be going no where but i'm sure is entertaining for the guest viewing. Rather than going back and forth i'm trying see if the OP is serious about this or just speculating. If he is speculating than just say that no need to keep going around in circles.

He likes running through a bass amp cool. His tone sits between Hotel California and some metal band i've never heard of ok still cool. He wants a pup that will give vintage dynamics and soul with the tightness and fury of a blackwinter ok sure cool but heres the dilemma. One we don't even know what the guitar in question is. Two the pickup won't matter if the means of amplification aren't up to the task.

It's like trying to chop fire wood with a butter knife. Theirs easier ways to go about it.

The OP looks at this as a part of what will define his life in the days to come. That is not something that stays as speculation. This came out of that phase a long time ago.

I have stated what my guitar is in my original post. I have also stated exactly what I want from the pickup earlier, and let me give you a hint; there is nothing contradictory about it's characteristics. I have also stated, six times before, that my tone does not sit between 'Hotel California' and the metal band you've never heard of, as much as have some things in common with both tones that you were supposed to perceive. Not reading my statements results in your frustration, much worse inconvenience to me, and a lack of resolution to this thread.

And for the third time since DreX suggested that discussion about my amp should cease, I'll say, my amp is up to the job, and you aren't qualified to be a judge of it till you've at least heard it.

 

[Letus]

Re: The In-Depth Documentation of My Long-Winded, Brutal Quest For Tone

Tellling MJ what mags and what dc resistance to use ties her hands. This is literally like telling leonardo here I want you to paint the mona lisa but you can only use 1 medium round brush and 1 shade of brown, grey, and green.
You can become familiar with their composition after you have them. Doing anything but deferring to her recommendations and knowledge is just silly.

We seem to have misunderstood each other. I thought you were saying that I shouldn't care about the specs as long as the job was done, and I replied saying that I had a personal vested interest in the components of my gear. Of course I'll let MJ do anything she wants to get me that pickup, and defer completely to what she does, but I'll still maintain a knowledge of what goes into it, and have my say on specs such as output and bobbin colour.

 

[Letus]

Re: The In-Depth Documentation of My Long-Winded, Brutal Quest For Tone

Your guitar probably has a .047 uF or a .022 uF caps, the two most common values. Note that we're talking about the tone capacitor, and not about pots or their values.

You can get a whole assortment for $10 before shipping (free with Prime) http://www.amazon.com/Elenco-100-Ca...03771568&sr=8-7&keywords=capacitor+assortment

Here's a video where a guy demonstrates some lower cap values so you can hear the difference http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZxizsEX0ygs . Note these are different capacitor values altogether, not different capacitor materials, so none of that Orange Drop, PIO bullcrap.

Thank you very much, for the advice, and the correction. I still have to do my research on caps, though. But is there any way I can find out the cap values in my instrument, before I make this purchase or consult the CS?

 

[DreX]

Re: The In-Depth Documentation of My Long-Winded, Brutal Quest For Tone

I'm guessing an Epiphone LP-100 would have come with a .022 uF stock.

 

[Falloffthebonetone]

Re: The In-Depth Documentation of My Long-Winded, Brutal Quest For Tone

I would gladly accept your description of tone as the most reliable, but for these points; the overall sound you are referring to is actually guitar tone (they do say tone is in the fingers). The overall sound of a musician also involves the music they make, and how they express themselves.

That is the point I was making. "Tone is in the fingers" is a misconception that was derived from a misused definition of what tone is. All the anecdotes and messages are still true, that if you want to sound better or like someone then you must master the technique. Really the only difference would be "Sound is in the fingers." Guitarists aren't the bunch to go to for vocabulary clarification you know? Bolt on is actually screw on, tremolo bar is actually a vibrato bar, modern electric guitar strings aren't so much strings anymore as they are wires, etc. These things just stick and it's impossible to get rid of them. I'm so picky about the tone discussion though because it constantly derails gear related threads and insults the skill of the player by insinuating that it is not the gear's fault, it is the player's, when the player could have fantastic technique and the people saying "tone is in the fingers" are none the wiser. So I just like to give people the benefit of the doubt about their technique until proven otherwise. Like if somebody buys Jeff Beck's exact rig and they can't sound like him then yes, I will say you need to get his technique down, but if I see another guy say he really wants to sound like Dimebag or something and that guy has been studying his technique for years but just needs proper gear to coax it out, I never wanna tell that guy that the answer is in more practice when it actually isn't. The overall sound is NOT the guitar tone, but the guitar tone is a part of the overall sound. If I plugged into EVH's rig and hit an A chord, then he steps in and he hits an A chord too, chances are the chords would be indistinguishable and you wouldn't for sure be able to tell who is who. His hands aren't getting a different kind of tone than my hands are, he just applies his technique differently. If we were playing Panama or something, then yeah you would be able to tell major differences, especially in the solo. But it is not like me hopping onto his rig would be like "suddenly the tone is scooped or muddy or wayyy to bright" or something like someone messed with the amp between the A chords we played. Your hands have influence over the tone, but the tone does not DERIVE from your hands or reside in them. Your hands are however responsible for bringing the tone out.