Re: Why Doesn't Seymour Duncan Fix The Custom Custom SH-11 EQ Chart?
Here's the thing. I'm kinda liking this guy PicRiveraTele as he's knowledgeable and tells it straight whether you agree with him or not. Anyway, to the naysayers who insist on defending like fanbois, I'll say this. No, you cannot describe an apple to anyone without a frame of reference. If you have 10 different types of apples, then someone who has eaten one apple, can get an idea of what other types of apples taste like if given good descriptions and other references they can relate to. There is a definite difference between a green apple and a Fuji apple, and that difference has been described for centuries.
Now if a chef (as in this analogy a guitar builder) is going to cook a recipe and wants to know which apple would be ideal for that recipe, he'd either have to go to the store and sample a dozen apples (you can't realistically do that with pickups), or get on the Internet and look up a good description of various apples to determine which one would most likely have the sweetness, tartness, and acidity you want for a particular recipe. As you can see, building a guitar using various woods and other components has to synergize with the pickups that go into it.
Let's say the chef went to the #1 leader in apple sales website and looked up a description of their apples, then got them only to find out that the description was off. You see how that can cause a problem?
Then there's the technical aspect, and someone looking from a direction of circuits and capacitors might say "Ah all overdrive pedals sound the same. They're the same circuit. Stop wasting your money, etc." Then the other 95% of the people will say, "You're wrong because I can hear the difference." It's like someone saying Klon Centaurs aren't worth $2000 when there have been credible, knowledgeable players who swear by them and a host of albums where they've been part of iconic tones, but then someone comes along and says this clone or that clone is better because it's only $100.
Whatever the case is, I have enough of an idea from a technical standpoint and enough experience to know about a lot of different pickups. Therefore, the truth is that tone is not always subjective. It can be described, and is best described with common frames of reference, and it can be measured to at least a reasonable extent. Pico has a point and it may just be a business tactic to maintain market control. No one ever said everyone at SD were angels, and no one is going to like their pickups less because of it. At the same time, it would be helpful if SD, being the market leader, could put a little more into helping users decide the right pickup... and I'm not talking about a stupid thing that asks you what kind of body, bridge, style of music and then recommend the same selection of pickups no matter what you input. I just mean they can do a better job of gauging and describing their products. Enough said.
Before I continue to melt, my point was just that the values arent that drastically off. I mean what is a 4? Or a 3? Now if they listed a pup as say a 3 in treble, and yet when you play it sounds like all high frequencies and brittle, I would consider that very misleading. I am sure your experience is far greater than mine, its just the
amount off isnt exactly mind blowing. Thanks for the comments
I don't know why you keep getting stuck on the numbers. The variance in numbers IS quite significant when you take into consideration the whole description. 3,7,7, shows shallow lows, high mids, and equally high treble. However, if you ever played a Custom Custom, you'd realize that it has as much bass as a JB or Duncan Distortion even though it might have a different kind of low end that's maybe not as tight. Also, it makes it look like the treble is equal to the midrange, but it's not. In fact, you hear mostly midrange and the treble end isn't equal to the amount of mids. Therefore, if you bump the bass up to 4 as say a JB or a Distortion, raise the midrange, and lower the treble just a touch, it would probably give you a better idea of a midrange pickup that's said to warm up bright guitars. That's all beside the point anyway because it was just an example. I'll bet that if you analyzed the frequencies, the Custom Custom would NOT be 3,7,7 and would be more like 4,8,7 (of course in whatever equivalent hz or decibles or whatever measurement the instrumentation shows). Furthermore, since it's only a 3-band EQ chart, you have to consider that you're adding the low mids and high mids together. Moreover, it's a 14k or so pickup that's rated as "hot" yet why on a scale of 0 to 10 does it only make it up to 7? These things are too arbitrarily determined to give buyers a truly relative view.
Is this not an official forum for DiMarzio?
http://www.dimarzioforum.com/forum/index.php
It's not an official forum... like I told you.
pcorn:
