'Scales Posted February 10, 2014 Share Posted February 10, 2014 Mini-humbucker guitar set to 10 on both Volume and tone. Fender amp - clean channel with dials at 12 o'clock. Some reverb. Feels and sounds pretty pure to me! (o/drive when song warrants it is only change I usually make to the above formula). each to his/her own! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
krock Posted February 10, 2014 Share Posted February 10, 2014 Tbh, as long as I've got a decent level of sustain then I'm always happy no matter if its clean or overdriven Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jimi Mac Posted February 10, 2014 Share Posted February 10, 2014 It all depends on my mood... I have a few pedals set up and don't use all of them all the time. I shift around depending upon what my mood inspires in me. Plug into my Fender Blues Deluxe Reissue (a 40 watt tube amp) so it could get unGodly loud if I were to turn it up. I rarely have either channel volume over 3, usually less, midway between 2 & 3 even when closed in the studio room I built in the basement just for music playing/practicing/recording. I run my signal thru a DigiTech RP50 multi digital effects pedal (most often on bypass) a TC Electronics Hall Of Fame reverb, (which I must say is superb and I'm a reverb junkie; I like reverb so thick you can lie down and take a nap on it, most folks barely turn them on, I run reverb @ 12 O'Clock minimally) then either my GFS Greenie Classic OD, (which is an Ibanez Tube Screamer type OD pedal with a few enhancements and added settings/options - or my GFS Blues Driver OD pedal with is a more simple straight-forward OD pedal) then I run thru a GFS digital tuner on true bypass, and then thru my VOX original '67 reissue Wah pedal, then to my amp. That amp also comes with a beautiful spring reverb and it's own channel switching footswitch to go back and forth between the clean and overdrive channel. I generally switch up and am all over the place with what combination I feel like trying at any given moment... I sometimes bypass everything and play on the clean channel and I also find that all of my guitars act and sound a bit different, better or worse, at different settings on all the gear. I find the soap-bar P90's on my GoldTop are ultria clear and have a stronger presence than do most of my humbucker clad guitars. I do find my BurstBucker 1 & 2 clad Gibson Les Paul has the hottest most easily over driven signal and will go OD early and often. I find the sweetest most Gibson Les Paul-esque tone out of my Gibson Les Paul Deluxe reissue, yet my Peavey JF-1EX that I adorned with a set of Gibson 490 open bobbin pickups has some of the sweetest Gibson ES tone imaginable and is spectacular for Chuck Berry or BB King like tunes. Too many guitars/too many options... (no such thing really ) I do find myself in a dilema of what I want to play sometimes, but it's a nice problem to have! Funny, I still find myself interested in and wanting more guitars too... I think I have 6 electrics now; 2 are real Gibson Les Pauls, 2 are Vintage (brand) V100 Les Paul copies, 1 is a Vintage SG copy that I use for slide now and keep in an Open-E tuning, and one is a Peavey ES-335 copy... They all move me diferently and they all inspire not only different moods and tones, but they all respond differently to the same gear... Sometimes I'll match a guitar to a song or style, and sometimes I'll play anything with the axe I'm holdin' at the moment... It all depends on my mood... I NEVER play without reverb, and usually lots of it! I only turn it off when my DigiTech multi-effects pedal is engaged and it has it's own reverb signal in the mix or if I'm trying to mimic Peter Greens array of tones he used to play in any given song going from reverb to dry and back... But 99% of the time I got gobs of reverb goin'-on! It's my thing... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Valeriy Posted February 10, 2014 Author Share Posted February 10, 2014 Let's clarify the situation with respect to magnetic pickups to obtain the guitar sound. Magnetics, as said Cap, puts out natural vibrations of the strings, “emphasizing certain frequencies, cancelling out others, and the rest being in between”, i.e. these are, in fact, frequency distortions and they are pretty big especially for wide humbuckers (i.e., no mini humbuckers). Because of this I quite understand Milod's doubts relatively to obtain a good “pure sound” of electric guitar. And even when we have a piezo pickup (without magnetics) in the bridge position of an electric guitar, however, as a rule, on this guitar there are also two standard magnetic pickups (Neck and Bridge) which, even if they are not used, anyway, their magnetic fields continue to bring harm and to put out the natural vibrations. I.e. even with the additional piezo any electric guitar with magnetic pickups (or even with one of them) does not give full-fledged “pure guitar tone” (string tone). Some of the harmonics, herewith, the most striking, will be distorted and killed. But this is not the fault of electric guitar , and the fault only of conventional magnetic pickups. In particular, now optoelectronic guitar pickups are being developed (i.e. without harmful magnetics). Also, Gibson developed Hexaphonic pickup (for digital guitars) with generating an x-plane and a y-plane signals representative of vibrations of the guitar string (i.e., the signals from the horizontal and vertical planes ) which are separate from each other (unlike the mixed analog signal in conventional magnetic pickups) and which can be combined together in a predetermined manner. Although these pickups are still quite complex systems, of course. But I think, better to be optimistic. Imagine that will be possible to eliminate the harmful effect of magnetics on the string vibrations (I think that is so), then what will prevent an electro guitar to sound not worse than an acoustic? :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
charlie brown Posted February 10, 2014 Share Posted February 10, 2014 Well, I LIKE the differences in sounds/tonal ranges, from Acoustic, and Electric guitars! Never really cared for "simulated" acoustic tone, from "electric" guitars, as it always seems too "canned" or "false," to me. But, that's just Me! I admit, they're "getting better all the time," but still sound "odd" to me, compared to a mic'd acoustic, which I (still) tend to prefer, even over "on board" pickup system, in an (otherwise) acoustic guitar. But again, that's just Me! CB Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jimi Mac Posted February 10, 2014 Share Posted February 10, 2014 Let's clarify the situation with respect to magnetic pickups to obtain the guitar sound. Magnetics, as said Cap, puts out natural vibrations of the strings, “emphasizing certain frequencies, cancelling out others, and the rest being in between”, i.e. these are, in fact, frequency distortions and they are pretty big especially for wide humbuckers (i.e., no mini humbuckers). Because of this I quite understand Milod's doubts relatively to obtain a good “pure sound” of electric guitar. And even when we have a piezo pickup (without magnetics) in the bridge position of an electric guitar, however, as a rule, on this guitar there are also two standard magnetic pickups (Neck and Bridge) which, even if they are not used, anyway, their magnetic fields continue to bring harm and to put out the natural vibrations. I.e. even with the additional piezo any electric guitar with magnetic pickups (or even with one of them) does not give full-fledged “pure guitar tone” (string tone). Some of the harmonics, herewith, the most striking, will be distorted and killed. But this is not the fault of electric guitar , and the fault only of conventional magnetic pickups. In particular, now optoelectronic guitar pickups are being developed (i.e. without harmful magnetics). Also, Gibson developed Hexaphonic pickup (for digital guitars) with generating an x-plane and a y-plane signals representative of vibrations of the guitar string (i.e., the signals from the horizontal and vertical planes ) which are separate from each other (unlike the mixed analog signal in conventional magnetic pickups) and which can be combined together in a predetermined manner. Although these pickups are still quite complex systems, of course. But I think, better to be optimistic. Imagine that will be possible to eliminate the harmful effect of magnetics on the string vibrations (I think that is so), then what will prevent an electro guitar to sound not worse than an acoustic? :) So what do you suppose is the effect of my Ernie Ball Cobalt strings which are more magnetically reactive than other metals? I've notices a crisper and louder output signal with more natural response to picking attack; harder = louder & softer = quieter more noticeably with the Cobalts... Not sure I'm buying the volume of effect that magnetics has on an electric guitar's output signal to a huge extent... I suppose there are subtle differences just as there are with the Cobalt strings vs other metal compounds in the strings... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kidblast Posted February 10, 2014 Share Posted February 10, 2014 Jimi-Mac not sure if that a question or rhetorical comment. the cobalt strings "do their thing" because the alnico magnets are also made from cobalt.. so there is a but of "handshaking" going on with cobalt strings that doesn't quite occur with nickel strings. this attributes to the "more output" or punch from the strings, and some of the other subtitles people notice with them. I was using them for a while, but I went back to nickel for now.. I am not 100% pleased with the feel (however I still have them on one of my les pauls) I do like how they respond tho, and they seem to last for a while. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
capmaster Posted February 10, 2014 Share Posted February 10, 2014 Let's clarify the situation with respect to magnetic pickups to obtain the guitar sound. Magnetics, as said Cap, puts out natural vibrations of the strings, “emphasizing certain frequencies, cancelling out others, and the rest being in between”, i.e. these are, in fact, frequency distortions and they are pretty big especially for wide humbuckers (i.e., no mini humbuckers). Because of this I quite understand Milod's doubts relatively to obtain a good “pure sound” of electric guitar. And even when we have a piezo pickup (without magnetics) in the bridge position of an electric guitar, however, as a rule, on this guitar there are also two standard magnetic pickups (Neck and Bridge) which, even if they are not used, anyway, their magnetic fields continue to bring harm and to put out the natural vibrations. I.e. even with the additional piezo any electric guitar with magnetic pickups (or even with one of them) does not give full-fledged “pure guitar tone” (string tone). Some of the harmonics, herewith, the most striking, will be distorted and killed. But this is not the fault of electric guitar , and the fault only of conventional magnetic pickups. In particular, now optoelectronic guitar pickups are being developed (i.e. without harmful magnetics). Also, Gibson developed Hexaphonic pickup (for digital guitars) with generating an x-plane and a y-plane signals representative of vibrations of the guitar string (i.e., the signals from the horizontal and vertical planes ) which are separate from each other (unlike the mixed analog signal in conventional magnetic pickups) and which can be combined together in a predetermined manner. Although these pickups are still quite complex systems, of course. But I think, better to be optimistic. Imagine that will be possible to eliminate the harmful effect of magnetics on the string vibrations (I think that is so), then what will prevent an electro guitar to sound not worse than an acoustic? :) It was an amazing experience for me to what an extent pickup magnets affect the frequencies the more they transduce them which exaggerates sound deterioration by creating audible beats, especially on low strings and high frets. When using the piezo signal of the same guitar, the share of beats in the signal is much smaller. In my opinion, the all-steel strings, i. e. steel core and wound wire, in general contribute more to the overall brighter tone when compared to bronze wound acoustic guitar strings. Well, I LIKE the differences in sounds/tonal ranges, from Acoustic, and Electric guitars! Never really cared for "simulated" acoustic tone, from "electric" guitars, as it always seems too "canned" or "false," to me. But, that's just Me! I admit, they're "getting better all the time," but still sound "odd" to me, compared to a mic'd acoustic, which I (still) tend to prefer, even over "on board" pickup system, in an (otherwise) acoustic guitar. But again, that's just Me! CB Another stunning thing is how well my solidbodies bring out the pure string tone via piezos. When I first tried a Gibson Alex Lifeson Les Paul Axcess and a Fender Nashville Power Telecaster, I was smitten by their clearly acoustic feel and sound. It changed my way of playing forever. Furthermore, the woods seem to contribute to the piezo tone in a similar way as to the resonance of a hollowbody and to magnetic sounds. My piezo-modded Strat with a rosewood neck sounds deeper with rounder lows than the Strat with one-piece maple neck and maple top veneer which clearly has a sleeker bass and more midrange edge - either through the same type of Floyd Rose piezo system. The Power Teles sound a bit "smaller" than the Strats. The SG Supra has a hard, dry, clear, "full range" acoustic tone which may result from the maple body and the Richlite fretboard on a mahogany neck. The Alex Lifeson Les Paul using the same piezo like the Strats has the "biggest" tone of all, and the most "unreal" sustain. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Valeriy Posted February 10, 2014 Author Share Posted February 10, 2014 ...But, that's just Me! I admit, they're "getting better all the time," but still sound "odd" to me, compared to a mic'd acoustic, which I (still) tend to prefer, even over "on board" pickup system, in an (otherwise) acoustic guitar. But again, that's just Me! CB Your feelings do not deceive you, Charlie. That's right. And the experience of many who spoke here confirms that the electric guitar sound (pure) can be a pleasant and attractive, that video of Rabs with Gilmore is successful in this regard (and by the way, Gilmore’s guitar was with P-90s, i.e. singles). Also, all this confirms that the electric guitar can sound much better than it is now with conventional magnetic pickups I cannot say, of course, how close to the acoustic guitar, but we all know how much different in sound humbucker guitars and single-coil. Spread and harmful influence of the magnetic field on the string vibrations in the single-coil guitars is less approximately twice than in humbucker guitars. And correspondingly the sound of the single-coil guitar is at once the other, noticeably brighter. Thus, we can expect that if to eliminate fully the problem of harmful effect of magnetics then electric guitar will sound much better, brighter, with many harmonics, i.e. with more natural vibrations of the strings and the sound will be also more natural and open. And the known difference in sound between the single-coil and humbucker guitars just well confirms these expectations. And guys, sorry, I'm a little slow, but now I'll try to answer your comments. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
capmaster Posted February 10, 2014 Share Posted February 10, 2014 ... Spread and harmful influence of the magnetic field on the string vibrations in the single-coil guitars is less approximately twice than in humbucker guitars. And correspondingly the sound of the single-coil guitar is at once the other, noticeably brighter. ... This is not the case in general. Single coils will build up a dual magnetic field per pickup, humbuckers usually just a single one. Some hot humbuckers with three magnets, however, will build up a triple magnetic field each. The magnet design plays a big role, too. All of my humbuckers have bar magnets which don't affect the string vibration that much. Many of my single coil pickups have rod magnets which show the most adverse string pull. All of my Fenders affect the string vibration much more than even my three-humbucker SG Supra does. The worst pickups I ever got to know in this respect are the Gibson EB 13 Bass DeCola humbuckers featuring fat, dual AlNiCo 5 rods per string. The E4th has an unbearable tone above the 8th fret, the A3rd above the 10th. The bass as such is really great, so I kept mine and replaced the stock pickups with EMG TB-HiZ humbuckers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
milod Posted February 10, 2014 Share Posted February 10, 2014 Interesting conversation but... CB - I did the on-stage mike thing with steel and nylon acoustics for maybe 10 years before I realized that it may be fine for backing up fiddlers and doing old-time material, or standing/sitting in one place - but not for a saloon country band. Too many variables. So I grabbed the first AEs I could find - an Ovation Legend steel and Ovation country artist nylon in the mid '70s. They worked fine through a couple of tube amps, too. To this day I won't claim they're "perfect" in sound, whatever that is, but all my "acoustics" are AE, including those old Ovations. They're to me far more practical for most of my purposes than a straight acoustic. Even a rancher/cowboy poet/cowboy singer songwriter friend keeps using his now-antique Gibson CF100e guitars with their mag pups - and he sounds just fine to me. Bottom line is that I read the fine print from you folks and conclude that either my concerns aren't for good tone, or that I'm more concerned with getting a decent sound to an audience than being concerned about the finer bits of sound - whether electric or AE. m Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Valeriy Posted February 10, 2014 Author Share Posted February 10, 2014 This is not the case in general. Single coils will build up a dual magnetic field per pickup, humbuckers usually just a single one. Some hot humbuckers with three magnets, however, will build up a triple magnetic field each. The magnet design plays a big role, too. All of my humbuckers have bar magnets which don't affect the string vibration that much. Many of my single coil pickups have rod magnets which show the most adverse string pull. All of my Fenders affect the string vibration much more than even my three-humbucker SG Supra does. The worst pickups I ever got to know in this respect are the Gibson EB 13 Bass DeCola humbuckers featuring fat, dual AlNiCo 5 rods per string. The E4th has an unbearable tone above the 8th fret, the A3rd above the 10th. The bass as such is really great, so I kept mine and replaced the stock pickups with EMG TB-HiZ humbuckers. Cap, here are important two reasons concerning magnetic pickups: magnetic force and the width of a pickup. When the magnets are forceful (as it is in usual passive pickups) the width even plays a leading role in deterioration of sound, i.e. the loss of treble and high frequencies in usual humbuckers. In passive mode (i.e. in conventional passive pickups) the said deterioration in sound is still not as noticeable as it is in case of an active mode if to make an active pickup based on a conventional pickup with conventional (relatively forceful) magnets and conventional coils. I.e. in this case, in active mode, that deterioration will be so noticeable (large) that it will be necessary to take additional measures, in particular, to use additional filters (EQs) into that guitar otherwise the sound will be just disgusting(with a large excess of the low). That in general certainly is bad. That is why the company EMG uses usually weak magnets and coils with a smaller number of windings. An acceptable balance between the low and the treble more or less remains in this case in the active mode without using filters, EQs etc. and with the same wide humbucker (standard about 18 mm between centers of the coils). Although here appears another disadvantage for EMGs, not brisk sound (plastic) because of smaller number of windings and weak magnets. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Valeriy Posted February 10, 2014 Author Share Posted February 10, 2014 And, yep, the standard width of a humbucker is also important to preserve about 18 mm to keep the familiar and unique humbucker sound, because the vibration are picked up in the two points with the distance 18 mm on a string in this case. Ie here are two opposing conditions, two contradictions. On the one hand, it is necessary to keep the standard width of the humbucker, on the other, its magnetic field also extends to the same value of 18 mm (even more) along the string and, thus, this field distorts and kills all the harmonics of vibrations since wavelength 18 mm and less. For the 6th string (E), for example, this corresponds to losses and distortions since 2800 Hz and above, i.e. very bright part in the audio range. In these contradictions the main problem of magnetic pickups lies, mainly for noiseless humbucker. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
capmaster Posted February 11, 2014 Share Posted February 11, 2014 The treble loss and comb filtering at discrete frequencies for each string due to width, i. e. through the aperture effect, is one thing, the LC resonance another. When using parallel coil options which will cause the resonance frequency rising about - not exactly since the effective coil capacitances change, too - one octave. Despite of growing just about a seventh, single coil tones seem to have more highs although they just have a denser spectrum, based on the smaller aperture. When evaluating the piezo tones from my solidbodies, those with - passive! - humbuckers cause next to no sound deterioration. When stringing up a hollowbody without any magnets using same brand and gauge strings, the impurities of the E6th above the 15th fret, or the A5th above the 19th fret will be about the same. Solidbodies featuring cutaways are easily playable there, so it might hurt a bit more. In contrary, Strat or Tele single coils pull the strings rather strong in small areas. This affects the tone of the magnetic pickups significantly but is also just slightly audible through the piezos when playing E6th or A5th at the highest frets. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Valeriy Posted February 11, 2014 Author Share Posted February 11, 2014 The treble loss and comb filtering at discrete frequencies for each string due to width, i. e. through the aperture effect, is one thing, the LC resonance another... I fully agree here that these are different things, different reasons. It is because of this a large number of various pickups exists in the market with various combinations of diverse magnets and coils. I.e. good conditions for manufacturers . It is possible easily to produce various models of pickups with various sound. I remember that Rabs was confused a little, which pickups are needed to buy for his home-made guitars, apparent overproduction. But weak or forceful magnet, its harmful effect still remains and the sound of electric guitar differ from the acoustic guitar too much, i.e. often loses in frequency balance, although wins in the volume. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jimi Mac Posted February 11, 2014 Share Posted February 11, 2014 Jimi-Mac not sure if that a question or rhetorical comment. the cobalt strings "do their thing" because the alnico magnets are also made from cobalt.. so there is a but of "handshaking" going on with cobalt strings that doesn't quite occur with nickel strings. this attributes to the "more output" or punch from the strings, and some of the other subtitles people notice with them. I was using them for a while, but I went back to nickel for now.. I am not 100% pleased with the feel (however I still have them on one of my les pauls) I do like how they respond tho, and they seem to last for a while. It was an open question, I really didn't know for certain... Thanx for the response! What you say makes sense, I didn't realize that alnico magnets are made from cobalt, I honestly didn't know what magnetic material they were produced from... I think all this in-depth scientific dissection of guitar pickup magnetic field is useful knowlege to posses as a pickup maker/winder, especially for those with the proclivity for inventiveness looking to come of with the next latest greatest thing, but I think tone in/from dual humbucker clad guitars like a '59 Burst is sublime and I wouldn't change a thing! True enough, having said that, I've found in my own personal research that I prefer the honk of the time wound original T-Tops (post PAFs) and the 490R/498T Gibson PAF style humbucker pickups to be the most attractive sounding pickups to my ear... But I cannot discount that I find Burst-Buckers and sometimes Mini-Humbuckers just as piquant given a specific dynamic of variables. I also find P90 Soap-Bar single coils as attractive tonally but in a somehow different way; something traditional you just cannot get from humbuckers... I think it all boils down to what each and every one of us likes to hear, and at any given moment it could be completely different even from the same individual... I think all the myriad of choices is exactly what a population of human beings all with different/unique/personal individual discriminating tastes needs... I think we got it covered pretty well and I certainly cannot argue with the things that Lester Polsfuss perfected or pioneered and others have either invented or perfected too, such as Seth Lover, among many many others... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pippy Posted February 11, 2014 Share Posted February 11, 2014 ...the cobalt strings "do their thing" because the alnico magnets are also made from cobalt...so there is a but of "handshaking" going on with cobalt strings that doesn't quite occur with nickel strings.... I don't mean to state the obvious, KB, and I'll say right now that I don't know the answer to this question but as alnico magnets are also made from Nickel shouldn't there be the same "handshaking" going on there, too? ...I didn't realize that alnico magnets are made from cobalt, I honestly didn't know what magnetic material they were produced from... The main metals are Aluminium, Nickel and Cobalt. Al + Ni + Co = Alnico. The ratios vary in the different types of Alnico (II, III and V, for example) and there are sometimes a couple of other elements in some mixes as well. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alnico P. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pauloon Posted February 11, 2014 Share Posted February 11, 2014 Is that not why LP himself preferred LZ pickups?...from what I've read even as the first LP models were conceived ....he wanted a ''pure'' sound of an electric guitar. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zigzag Posted February 11, 2014 Share Posted February 11, 2014 I have no idea what the hell y'all are talking about. Apparently I don't understand the OP, but what it means to me is how good a clean, saturated, punchy tone sounds coming out of an electric guitar amp. Add a little reverb, contour, and even a slight touch of delay, and it is even prettier. I can't get that out of an acoustic guitar. And it doesn't seem to matter what electric guitar or amp you use, those pretty notes are in there somewhere. Gets in your gut... visceral... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
capmaster Posted February 11, 2014 Share Posted February 11, 2014 I fully agree here that these are different things, different reasons. It is because of this a large number of various pickups exists in the market with various combinations of diverse magnets and coils. I.e. good conditions for manufacturers . It is possible easily to produce various models of pickups with various sound. I remember that Rabs was confused a little, which pickups are needed to buy for his home-made guitars, apparent overproduction. But weak or forceful magnet, its harmful effect still remains and the sound of electric guitar differ from the acoustic guitar too much, i.e. often loses in frequency balance, although wins in the volume. The latter is the most intrinsing effect. In case I play an E4 on the E1st open, B2nd 5th fret, plain G3rd 9th fret, wound D4th 14th fret, A5th 19th fret, and E6th 24th fret, while selecting the attack point in order to hit each string at the same fraction of its vibrating length by moving my right hand towards the bridge, the piezo tone changes very gradually while the magnetic tone will always depend strongly on the selected pickup, regardless of attack position. Is that not why LP himself preferred LZ pickups?...from what I've read even as the first LP models were conceived ....he wanted a ''pure'' sound of an electric guitar. Yes, this seems to be the reason for that. I guess his idea didn't succeed to a larger extent since hollowbodies don't radiate higher frequencies - these are contributed by the strings itself, like when playing a solidbody guitar acoustically. I have no idea what the hell y'all are talking about. Apparently I don't understand the OP, but what it means to me is how good a clean, saturated, punchy tone sounds coming out of an electric guitar amp. Add a little reverb, contour, and even a slight touch of delay, and it is even prettier. I can't get that out of an acoustic guitar. And it doesn't seem to matter what electric guitar or amp you use, those pretty notes are in there somewhere. Gets in your gut... visceral... This is true. Magnetic pickups were initially designed as a makeshift since microphones were - and still are - heavily prone to acoustic feedback and transduction of body noise. This makeshift has established as an essential part of music since decades. Now that there are great magnetic and piezo pickups, I dig out the best of them either. It is definitely exciting and inspiring. There are lots of awesome tones, and I love them all! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
btoth76 Posted February 11, 2014 Share Posted February 11, 2014 Is that not why LP himself preferred LZ pickups?...from what I've read even as the first LP models were conceived ....he wanted a ''pure'' sound of an electric guitar. Hello! That`s why I use the Recording clean mostly. The P-90s Studio 50s Tribute and the Classic Custom (57 Classics), I prefer with Tube Screamer and a bit of reverb. The L6S (490R/498T) and the Tele (Hot AlNiCo pickups), I play through high-gain distortion pedal(s). That's what fits them the best, in my opinion. Cheers... Bence Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
milod Posted February 11, 2014 Share Posted February 11, 2014 I just made a comment on the Acoustic side of the forum where there's a bit of a howl that Gibsons and other acoustics are horridly given various under saddle pups at the factory and that kills the purity of a "real" guitar sound. Interesting, ain't it, how various pickups were invented for live performances because mikes weren't making it - but even as I heard "way back then," there remain those seeking a holy grail of tone that no audience will hear regardless. m Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
capmaster Posted February 11, 2014 Share Posted February 11, 2014 I just made a comment on the Acoustic side of the forum where there's a bit of a howl that Gibsons and other acoustics are horridly given various under saddle pups at the factory and that kills the purity of a "real" guitar sound. Interesting, ain't it, how various pickups were invented for live performances because mikes weren't making it - but even as I heard "way back then," there remain those seeking a holy grail of tone that no audience will hear regardless. m In my opinion, the desperate seek for a holy grail of acoustic guitar tone somehow depends on how the musician hears one's own instrument during playing. Playing in Spanish position, it will be very different from what the listener or any microphone at a reasonable positioning will hear. There is a big gap between these perceptions, like that when listening to one's own voice while performing acoustically, through whatever monitoring system, or on a recorded track. Since my personal mindset is more that of a composer, arranger or producer than that of a player and singer, I care much more for the radiated sound than for the musician's perception, including mine. This "mental adjustment" rules me when practicing, rehearsing, recording, mixing, mastering, and playing on stage. Playing a solidbody through piezos is something very natural for me, very close to a hollowbody guitar's recorded tone, even when recorded using a microphone. A piezo'd solidbody is closer to a hollowbody recording than what the musician will ever hear playing a hollowbody as is, in the Spanish position and without any electric gear. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
milod Posted February 11, 2014 Share Posted February 11, 2014 Cap... You're coming at the same conclusion from a different direction - but I agree. m Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
charlie brown Posted February 11, 2014 Share Posted February 11, 2014 Interesting conversation but... CB - I did the on-stage mike thing with steel and nylon acoustics for maybe 10 years before I realized that it may be fine for backing up fiddlers and doing old-time material, or standing/sitting in one place - but not for a saloon country band. Too many variables. So I grabbed the first AEs I could find - an Ovation Legend steel and Ovation country artist nylon in the mid '70s. They worked fine through a couple of tube amps, too. To this day I won't claim they're "perfect" in sound, whatever that is, but all my "acoustics" are AE, including those old Ovations. They're to me far more practical for most of my purposes than a straight acoustic. Even a rancher/cowboy poet/cowboy singer songwriter friend keeps using his now-antique Gibson CF100e guitars with their mag pups - and he sounds just fine to me. Bottom line is that I read the fine print from you folks and conclude that either my concerns aren't for good tone, or that I'm more concerned with getting a decent sound to an audience than being concerned about the finer bits of sound - whether electric or AE. m Well, on-board electronics, on Acoustic guitars, are more convenient! There's no argument there. I just meant "tone accuracy wise," I (still) prefer a mic'd Acoustic, over that of the on-board systems, as good as they are. But, yeah...if you're going to be moving around a lot, then there's precious little choice. But again, that's just my preference, and opinion. To each his or her own. CB Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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