narad
Progressive metal and politics
Until you can prove it, the thread must march on!
Pickups don't matter?
- Thread starter Guitarjon
- Start date
Until you can prove it, the thread must march on!
Naxxpipe
Well-Known Member
Are we really laying the burden of evidence on the people not making an outrageous claim?
narad
Progressive metal and politics
Are we really laying the burden of evidence on the people not making an outrageous claim?
There's a burden of proof is to prove it's an outrageous claim in the first place.
odibrom
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Whatever link in the chain matters as much as one wants it to matter, unless we're talking EMG or Fishman pickups, then, everything else gets nullified... 😁
Here you go.
Physics of the Electric guitar
Pickups matter, bridge matters, frets matter, nut matters.
Pickups ‘hear’ metal moving by detecting changes in a magnetic field. They fundamentally hear differently than human ears, which detect changes in air pressure.
Bridge, nut, and frets are all dampers that reduce the vibrations in the string. They impact tone because absorb energy, some frequencies lose more energy to different hardware than others. Any energy transferred into the hardware and wood is energy that has been lost by the strings.
Tone wood doesn’t matter.
Acoustic sound of an electric guitar doesn’t matter.
ExMachina
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You forgot to quantify the degree to which each component affects the spectrum and whether a typical human could sense such a change in the signal.
Yeah, that’s probably more important.
I don’t remember off the top of my head the ‘how much’, just the ‘whats’.
Do you remember?
Neon_Knight_
Well-Known Member
What the nut / bridge is mounted to would influence the transfer of energy from the strings into the nut / bridge, as it would impact on how the nut / bridge vibrates. The more freely energy can pass from the nut / bridge into the guitar wood, the more freely energy can pass from the strings into the nut / bridge.
A poorly secured nut or bridge will effect the tone and sustain. Inserting padding between the nut / bridge and the guitar neck / body will effect the tone and sustain. The way structural properties of the material that the nut / bridge is mounted to will effect the tone and sustain.
To think of the physics in a different context:
If I punch a pillow that's resting against a wall, any kinetic energy absorbed by the wall will already have left my hand via the pillow (like the energy has already left the strings via the nut, before entering the wood). If only the composition of the pillow matters, not the composition of the wall, why would:
A solid stone wall hurt my hand more than a plasterboard wall?
A solid stone wall result in a different sounding impact, than a plasterboard wall?
A solid stone wall result in a different amount of compression of the pillow...and therefore a difference in the distance than my hand & arm moved (or a difference in the oscillation of strings), than a plasterboard wall?
"X doesn't matter"
"Prove your claim!"
"You prove that it does matter"
{proves it does matter}
"Well, pfft, I don't care! Prove how much it matters!"
-SS.O, evidently
"Prove your claim!"
"You prove that it does matter"
{proves it does matter}
"Well, pfft, I don't care! Prove how much it matters!"
-SS.O, evidently
Neon_Knight_
Well-Known Member
How much something matters is very subjective though, not purely objective and measurable, so that can't be proved as such. We all have different ears, different preferences and different levels of tolerance for things that are suboptimal.
The same goes for latency. Some people find a certain degree of latency intolerable, when others don't even notice it, and others notice it but don't care.
The tone of a guitar, which all parts / specs contribute to (to varying degrees), will be far more important to someone who wants to use the same amp settings for multiple guitars than for someone who's happy spending time re-EQing their amp every time they swap their guitar over.
This is really the point. At the end of the day it's opinion, but Glen's thing is test it yourself and see.
I did and I found it makes no difference in a mix and a mix is what I care about. I CAN hear differences when just playing alone but the differences aren't so drastic that it ruins things. For me it's about finding a pickup that works for what I do and then that's it. It has the response and EQ curve I find to be desirable so that's what I use.
spudmunkey
Well-Known Member
What really matters in regards to tone are the friends we make along the way. And also, the tone was inside you all along.
Neon_Knight_
Well-Known Member
Shut up, Meg.
Well said.
There's probably a tendency to read "I don't care" in this thread and interpret it as "I don't care, and neither should you," when that's not likely the case. But there's also a vocal group saying "I don't care, therefore it doesn't matter," which leaves open ended whether they mean "therefore it doesn't matter to me, " or in general. Honestly, a fair number of youtube videos demonstrating how X doesn't change the tone only serve to demonstrate how my ears are different from the person's who created the video.
I'm not even very picky about tone- I know what I like and anything that's kind of in or around my batting zone will work. I think you kind of have to be this way, because if you fall in love with the tone of some weirdass boutique pickup made of samarium magnets through some weirdass boutique amplifier that uses whacky tubes with weirdass boutique speakers with cones made of yeti fur, you're going to be up a creek when all of that stuff inevitably becomes unavailable.
odibrom
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... so in conclusion.... black lives matter... all lives matter... nothing else maters 
