Humbuckers for alder?

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  • SassafrasSassafras Frets: 30273
    carlos said:
    dindude said:
    Um, instead of all the above twaddle, use your ears? It's pretty obvious then.
    Sorry but using a spectrometer is the truth, our ears are the twaddle. Psychoacoustics.

    What are your guitars made of?
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  • carloscarlos Frets: 3426
    Sorry @carlos but if wood makes no difference to the overall tonal character then why use wood at all ? - then save cutting down trees and utiilse carbon composites and/or plastics etc - some have tried such options and generally they are toneless, lifeless and certainly have not sold - I'm not prejudice to the point that if someone can capture the tonal character of wood in a composite format then I'm in - But certainly so far on a commercial basis no one has successfully achieved the desired results
    To build a guitar you need a material that's hard enough to hold the tension of conventional tuning and string gauges. You also need a material that's relatively cheap or at least easily accessible and easy to cut into shapes. Wood fits all those requirements, plus it translates into a product that's traditionally made of wood so it will be an easy purchase.
    The failure of non-wood materials used in guitar building can be put down to traditionalists hearing with their eyes instead of their ears. A good example of this is the old received wisdom of "a rosewood fretboard will give a darker sound than a maple fretboard". Why? Because it looks darker?
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  • dindudedindude Frets: 8534
    carlos said:
    dindude said:
    Um, instead of all the above twaddle, use your ears? It's pretty obvious then.
    Sorry but using a spectrometer is the truth, our ears are the twaddle. Psychoacoustics.
    Last time I checked music, guitar playing etc, in the end was all about using your ears.

    Yes you can make something sound like an electric guitar by strapping a pickup to it, but to say it doesn't have an effect is just plain wrong.

    I had one of those plastic moulded Trev Wilkonson guitars (forget what they were called) some years ago, with a beefy bridge humbucker and gobs of gain it was pretty convincing, even had its own thing going on which was likeable, but it didn't sound like a chunk of mahogany, and clean it sounded like a bag of spanners.

    Anyway, I'm out, I don't mind debating something that's worth debating, but this......
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  • carloscarlos Frets: 3426
    Guitar made of a £5 chopping board - 
    Some very clean jazzy bits at around 21:00
    BTW, the wood in your guitar is also dead, so let's give up the arguments of something sounding lifeless.

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  • DefaultM said:
    Oh and the amp is an axe fx 2 so I can do whatever to the sound really.
    I can't seem to dial out the high end fizz, whereas all my other guitars are fine.

    Yeah I use an Axe FX 2 as well.  What tuning?  I'm in drop B or C# standard, so fairly low.  I only ask because you mentioned tightness and there's pretty much nothing tighter than an EMG 81.  Most actives have less deep low end in them than passives though (the frequencies below the note when you palm mute).

    I hate too much high end fizz in my own guitar tones, some guitars are worse for it than others.  I personally found certain actives to work for me if the guitar is too fizzy and bright with gain.

    This is possibly an extreme example, because the Nazgul is supposed to pretty bright (I think it's generally ballpark of the Distortion but a bit less mid spike though I've not tried one), but listen to the difference between the EMG 81 and the Nazgul here.



    The only snag for some people is that the feel is different.  Not everyone likes it.  I've found the Duncan Blackouts have a subjectively better feel than EMGs but they're also less tight (though I've not tried the EMTYs). The high end is preferable though to a comparable passive IMO.  Just listen to the difference between the distortion and the blackout in the isolated guitars here.  Time codes for all pickups are in the description, but distortion starts at 14:34 and blackout starts at 16:23



    YMMV but that's my experience
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  • FelineGuitarsFelineGuitars Frets: 11496
    tFB Trader
    Everything counts in varying amounts.
    So a pickguard will have a minor effect on the guitars resonance pattern, but its effect may be much smaller than other factors.
    The materials used in the bridge can have a big effect 
    I swapped the cheap pot metal block on my Jap strat for a cold rolled steel one and the changes were remarkable for that guitar...moreso than later experimenting with the saddle material (which made a tiny change but negligible compared to the sustain block)


    How we perceive a guitars sound is down to the timbers subtracting from the overall frequency spectrum, frequencies lost to resonating the wood.
    It was found that a carbon fibre guitar like the old Steinbergers etc didn't sound the same, and it had it resonant frequency higher than the frequencies that make up what we perceive as the main core tone of an electric guitar.

    Also, we perceive how an instrument reacts to quick transients before settling down to the main waveform and some pieces of wood are quicker than others in how they handle those, and I mean on an individual piece by piece.
    Wood is far from uniform, so one piece of alder will be a bit different from another, so whilst reacting in a certain way in broad terms won't be the whole story.

    Many guitars have a re-sale value. Some you'll never want to sell.
    Stockist of: Earvana & Graphtech nuts, Faber Tonepros & Gotoh hardware, Fatcat bridges. Highwood Saddles.

    Pickups from BKP, Oil City & Monty's pickups.

      Expert guitar repairs and upgrades - fretwork our speciality! www.felineguitars.com.  Facebook too!

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  • RoxRox Frets: 2147
    I think I preferred the nuttiness in the flat earth thread.
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  • richardhomerrichardhomer Frets: 24793
    edited April 2017
    I've told this story on numerous occasions before - but now seems an appropriate time to retell it.

    A few years ago, I had two almost identical 2005 Les Paul Standards at my house, at the same time. One was mine - the other belonged to a friend of a friend - I was setting it up for him.

    I set them both up pretty much indentically - relief, action, pick-up height, etc. Both had the same brand and gauge of (new) strings).

    The unavoidable fact, was that they sounded significantly different from each other, when played through my (clean) amp. One was significantly more 'open' and bright. This chacteristic was evident regardless of which pick-up was used - including the middle position.

    The more open sounding one was a fair bit lighter than the other - if I'm honest, there seemed LESS difference acoustically, than when played through the amp.

    The only variable was different pieces of wood - the pick-ups and electronics were indentical in each. Had I owned both guitars, I would have swapped the pick-ups and electronics between them, to see if the brightness stayed with the same guitar.

    So not a completely 'scientific' experiment - but sufficient to convince me that wood does affect the amplified tone of a solid guitar. 
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  • impmannimpmann Frets: 12646
    If wood mattered not, then we'd all be playing cheap planks and nobody would spend large sums on guitars made of 'tonewoods'. Yes you can make a guitar out of *anything* and some will sound pretty good. However, the string's vibration is changed by the effect of different wood's density and how much it absorbs the energy, and how much that energy is fed back into the string. Different species of wood have certain characteristics - some more overt than others - and as said above, as it is a naturally occuring substance it is by no means an exact science. Yes, concrete has been tried - Les Paul himself used a railway rail in his experiments and this apparently got him closer to his idea of perfection than anything else... sadly it wasn't practical.

    Back to the OP's question - I've not had issues with Alder bodied guitars before, personally. However, if its the top end that's an issue (and you use a fair amount of gain) it may be worth considering a chat with Ash or Marc at Mojo to see what they suggest - it could just be as simple as a particular type of magnet or a wind that's needed to get you to the sound you are searching for.


    Never Ever Bloody Anything Ever.

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  • RoxRox Frets: 2147
    impmann said:
    If wood mattered not, then we'd all be playing cheap planks and nobody would spend large sums on guitars made of 'tonewoods'. Yes you can make a guitar out of *anything* and some will sound pretty good. However, the string's vibration is changed by the effect of different wood's density and how much it absorbs the energy, and how much that energy is fed back into the string. Different species of wood have certain characteristics - some more overt than others - and as said above, as it is a naturally occuring substance it is by no means an exact science. Yes, concrete has been tried - Les Paul himself used a railway rail in his experiments and this apparently got him closer to his idea of perfection than anything else... sadly it wasn't practical.


    Indeed.
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  • DefaultMDefaultM Frets: 7271
    DefaultM said:
    Oh and the amp is an axe fx 2 so I can do whatever to the sound really.
    I can't seem to dial out the high end fizz, whereas all my other guitars are fine.

    Yeah I use an Axe FX 2 as well.  What tuning?  I'm in drop B or C# standard, so fairly low.  I only ask because you mentioned tightness and there's pretty much nothing tighter than an EMG 81.  Most actives have less deep low end in them than passives though (the frequencies below the note when you palm mute).

    I hate too much high end fizz in my own guitar tones, some guitars are worse for it than others.  I personally found certain actives to work for me if the guitar is too fizzy and bright with gain.

    This is possibly an extreme example, because the Nazgul is supposed to pretty bright (I think it's generally ballpark of the Distortion but a bit less mid spike though I've not tried one), but listen to the difference between the EMG 81 and the Nazgul here.



    The only snag for some people is that the feel is different.  Not everyone likes it.  I've found the Duncan Blackouts have a subjectively better feel than EMGs but they're also less tight (though I've not tried the EMTYs). The high end is preferable though to a comparable passive IMO.  Just listen to the difference between the distortion and the blackout in the isolated guitars here.  Time codes for all pickups are in the description, but distortion starts at 14:34 and blackout starts at 16:23



    YMMV but that's my experience
    I do actually have a set of EMGs that I just took out of another guitar. I might see about fitting them this weekend if I can figure out how to get the battery in and everything.
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  • It's a bit of a pain to fit the quick connect stuff in a double cut PRS but it will fit.
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  • drwiddlydrwiddly Frets: 911
    I bought a really beaten up CE24 last year as a project guitar. It has a two piece alder body and I fitted a pair of Oil City Scrapyard Dog + p/u's and it sounds superb. Top end is clear with no fizz and there's plenty of beef in the low end.

    I play in a classic rock band doing mainly 80's rock and metal (Maiden, Dio, Y&T, etc.) and also use an Axe FX. I'm really happy with this guitar.
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  • DefaultMDefaultM Frets: 7271
    Hmm I'm not sure if the cavity is going to be deep enough to fit the battery and I don't want to route the guitar. 
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  • DefaultMDefaultM Frets: 7271
    Ugh I had a set of scrapyard dogs and I sold them because I wanted ones with gold covers instead =\
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  • ColsCols Frets: 6953
    Maple neck and alder?  I'd recommend a Wilde Pickups XL500 in the bridge with a Seymour Duncan 59 in the neck.  The XL500 in particular is stonkingly good and not at all expensive.
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  • DefaultM said:
    Hmm I'm not sure if the cavity is going to be deep enough to fit the battery and I don't want to route the guitar. 
    It does all fit including a 9v battery, unless the CE24 cavity is smaller than the one on the CU22.  I was always under the impression they were the same size

    If you like I can take a photo of my control cavity later
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  • grungebobgrungebob Frets: 3299
    I'll avoid the wood debate and suggest Duncan sentient and nazgul, really tight huge sounding pickups that work well split or partially tapped. 

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  • AlegreeAlegree Frets: 665
    tFB Trader
    I'd suggest trying 250k pots first to roll off some treble, then I'd recommend an alnico 4 or 2 pickup. Maybe something middle of the road in 43 awg at around 14-15k DCR.
    Alegree pickups & guitar supplies - www.alegree.co.uk
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  • DefaultMDefaultM Frets: 7271
    I've got some alnico 2 night fighters actually that were supposed to go in my Parker Nitefly but I couldn't figure out how to wire them in. Might give them a go as well.
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