Pickup location vs equalizer

#21
I got a chance to hear a live demo of the Variax guitar and bass. It's not bad for what it is.

That said, I think the less familiar you are with the actual basses it's modeling, the more convincing it sounds.

Simulating the sound of various Fender basses is a safe bet for modeling since the real ones will exhibit a fairly good range of tonal variation among different examples anyway. However, with some of the more iconic bass sounds like a Höfner or a Ric, it's not even close. More like a caricature than anything else. At least to my ears.

I've got nothing against a Variax. It's an interesting experiment. But I don't think it's quite there yet.
 
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#22
Billy Gibbons has these programmable Digitech EQ's that allow him to make all his guitars, no matter how different they are made, sound pretty much like Pearly Gates, his favorite guitar. So yeah, there's a lot to be said for EQ vs pickup swaps and relocations. I don't think they sound identical but they do sound pretty close.
 
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#23
No real scientific data to back up my thoughts but here are my thought...
I play active instruments with eq on board into primarily two preamps with parametric eq, there is no amount of dialing that I can do to make my 3 basses sound really that similar.
That's said, they all have different bartolini preamps. One has a pair of humbuckers at the bridge, one has a bridge and neck humbuckers and one has single cool jazz pickups. Two have bartolini pickups and one has mfd's. The unplugged and plugged in timbre of all three are drastically different.

That said, could you get something close enough that someone couldn't tell the difference in a mix, I would say probably, especially if you used a compressor with the eq to change the attack and sustain up a little as well.
 
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#27
All equalization does is make certain frequency bands louder or quieter. You can't get anywhere close to the change in timbre that comes from changing pickup positions. That's like trying to equalize a piano to sound like a violin. The character of the sound is different (due to harmonics and other such things), regardless of the relative volume of each frequency band.
 
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#28
line6man said:
All equalization does is make certain frequency bands louder or quieter. You can't get anywhere close to the change in timbre that comes from changing pickup positions. That's like trying to equalize a piano to sound like a violin. The character of the sound is different (due to harmonics and other such things), regardless of the relative volume of each frequency band.
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I think this is a legit point. Like when I was talking about Billy using an EQ to make all his guitars sound like Pearly...I'm sure he's starting out with the pickups in similar positions to his favorite on Pearly and not doing something like the neck and middle pickup on a Strat together to sound like the bridge humbucker on Pearly. I think it's more a situation of finding like settings to start with then tweaking them.
 
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#30
8-12 bands? Might be a bit of a crapshoot.

But, basically, the answer to your question is yes, in the same sense that you can produce virtually any industrial machine on a lathe, solve any FP problem using a Turing complete system, etc.

As someone earier intimated, you just need a set of functions mapping the harmonic content of one signal onto that of another. This is essentially what an Axe FX unit does.
 
#32
Ampslut said:
Pretty boat anchor. Has anyone ever owned or played one of these?
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I've played one a few times. It was pretty interesting for its time; you just turned the knob to get P bass, DB, Hofner, etc. The synth wasn't bad and the bass itself was decent, about current MIM Fender quality. As I remember the umbilical cord was a 5 pin DIN cable. There was also a 5 string version.

I think it was discontinued before the Variax guitars, because the latter were more useful on solo gigs.
 
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#33
Doner Designs said:
Say you have a bass with three or four pickups. I'm curious how close you can get to emulating all the possible sounds using good multiband equalizer. In other words, can you make a P bass sound like a J bass or a Stingray by fussing with an 8 to 12 band equalizer?

I think the answer is that for all practical purposes you can. Of course that doesn't stop me from building basses with three or four pickups.

Thoughts?
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yes and no ...

When you have more than 1 pickup in a bass you have to wire them series or parallel ... the wiring effects the tone ... the type of pickups effect the tone ... the ohms rating on the pots effect tone ... the tone cap effects the tone ... body and neck wood and finish effects the tone ... the type of strings effects the tone ... etc

it is easier to add a preamp or use a bass eq pedal
 
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#34
Sort of, but not really. Especially if you like basses with more than one string. For each pickup location, each string will have a characteristic low end roll off and set of nulls. That whole curve scales with string tuning, so a single EQ circuit can't treat multiple strings in a consistent fashion, at least relative to these features. Then there could be additional features if the pickup is a spaced humbucker.

Different but related thing I'm considering: re-orienting the pickup in my avatar Wishbass so that the pickup to bridge spacing starts at about 1.25" for the E string and angling the pickup so that the spacing increases to about 3" for the G string. That would keep the roll off and set of nulls nearly the same on each string and allow a single pickup and single EQ setting to properly compensate all four strings together.

As it is now, I have to compromise on the low end boost, leaving the E string sounding a bit thick and the G string sounding a bit thin. Problem is, even so, it already sounds awesome. So it's not clear it's worth the trouble.

Ottto
 
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#35
Doner Designs said:
Say you have a bass with three or four pickups. I'm curious how close you can get to emulating all the possible sounds using good multiband equalizer. In other words, can you make a P bass sound like a J bass or a Stingray by fussing with an 8 to 12 band equalizer?

I think the answer is that for all practical purposes you can. Of course that doesn't stop me from building basses with three or four pickups.

Thoughts?
Click to expand...

Unless you are using a filter based EQ like Wal or Alembic, no you absolutely can't; even then, making a P bass sound exactly like MusicMan is still essentially impossible due to the dramatically different timbres and note attack of the input signals due to both variance in pickup type and location.
 
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#36
DigitalMan said:
All the EQ in the world won't make Mariah Carey sound like Barry White.
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Yes don't need any EQ. Just the background recording of Barry for her to lip sync to. And I was a early Mariah fan and her first 2 albums were some of the first songs I learned.

I had thought awhile back of maybe taking a beater bass and carving out for slide rails and one or more sliding pickups. They would be slotted so they could even be slanted a bit one way or the other. Make pickup brackets to put whatever combo of pickups you wanted in it. Get the tone just the way you wanted, right on the sweet spots. Then I saw something posted shortly ago, looked like an early bass with the same idea.

Or maybe do it up like a Hammond organ. Have pickups at a bunch of harmonic points on the string that are always on, and have a level control for each one. Fun to brainstorm.
 
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#37
I think it's pickup placement and EQ. Depends on how close we want to get, and what sounds we're really after. Two people might have very different ideas what makes a P sound. Arguably most pickups in the mid position can sound like a P. But I think it also has a lot to do with player's technique - it seems that with a lighter touch, differences are easier to mask.

But in the end, I think the characteristic sounds of different models (P, Ray, Ric, Bird...) are often overrated, because they can all do musical things (mostly). Eg, If your not obsessed with getting that 'Ric grind' you can make the P grind just as well... so practically speaking, it's imo about whether the bass you have is limiting you musically or not. Getting a bridge J pickup to sound like EBO, or vice versa, that's pointless...
 
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#38
Absolutely not...moving the pickup is not like an EQ at all. An EQ affects all frequencies within the band. The pickup position affects which string harmonics are picked up and varies by note. It is true that the closer to the bridge, the brighter the sound but that is also true if you vary where you pluck the string. That's not the same thing as dialing in a boost at 800hZ.

Here's an example: I once played a SCPB that had been modded to use a single EMG J pickup. The pickup had been inadvertently mounted in a position such that the 7th fret harmonic on all four strings was inaudible...the poles were located right under a null point in the string vibrations. As you know, those harmonics are also available at the 5th fret of the string below and those harmonics rang clearly. You couldn't tune the bass by matching the two harmonics which is how I noticed it in the first place. An EQ would be unable to correct that problem.
 
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#39
I like all of this talk.

The Enfield lionheart is a great example of the modern Swiss army knife of basses.

I own the T40 which can certainly serve up a few approximated tones (I like its unique ones better).

If you folks are looking at sliding pickups the original Gibson grabber has them (Not the G3). I really like where the T40 bridge pickup is at. If anything I'd change where the neck pickup is.
 
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#40
Voicing comes from pickup placement.......If you slide any pickup from bridge to neck and pluck a note, you will hear a parametric-like sweep in voicing, from nasal to bass-y....This is the basic essence behind the Variax: emulating pickup positioning and type by Parametric for positioning and type with other EQ factors. I had one -- it got great sounds although only a few emulated what it said it was emulating
 
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