New Pickup Clip Site

[Thrash]

Well now that I got your attention......Does anyone have the ability to start a site dedicated to sample clips?

Or we could start a thread and attempt to funnel clips into it. It always hard to find clips when you want to. Any ideas?

[losgatosrg350dx]

the sounds soo hard, since theres a huge difference in wood, finish, pots, strings....it wold be awesome to get a alder body with maple/ebony neck, and same pots and record like a billion different pups i say!

[Thrash]

Originally Posted by losgatosrg350dx

the sounds soo hard, since theres a huge difference in wood, finish, pots, strings....it wold be awesome to get a alder body with maple/ebony neck, and same pots and record like a billion different pups i say!

Your right, when you record something there are so many variables. We have a couple songs recorded with three different guitars in various parts on two different amps. Honestly, it's hard to tell one from another after it's mixed with protools.

[Vim Fuego]

You know I was thinking about doing this. If enough people recorded clean clips and distorted clips and detailed the body material, neck/fingerboard type and recording equipment/amp etc. Then I think we could have a pretty good library. You could even take the clean clips and process them through a virtual amp to get the distorted versions! If enough people contribute then I'd be happy to host the files and create a simple web page for it.
Jim

[TMatt142]

That would be cool. As long as it stayed very discriptive. Otherwise you could record your pickup samples direct.??

[toneboy]

If only it were that simple.

There is no way to truly judge how a pickup will sound unless you can play a guitar (like the one you want to put it in) yourself through your rig. There are so many factors that contribute to the live sound let alone the recorded sound. Even if you know exactly all the gear and all the settings someone used, you still couldn't be sure about the pickup unless you played it yourself.

Consider all the factors that could contribute to the sound when recording a pickup audio clip:
- guitar body wood
- fingerboard wood
- neck attachment type
- fret size
- bridge type
- string gauge
- string age
- action height
- pickup/polepiece height
- pickup angle (e.g. bass side different than treble side)
- volume pot value
- tone pot or lack thereof
- guitar cable length
- pick thickness and material
- pick attack
- amp/preamp
- amp/preamp settings
- effects (if any are used, particularly external EQ)
- mic (if not recorded direct)
- mic position and distance (if not recorded direct)
- post-eq (if not done, not an issue)
- bit rate (it standardized, not an issue).

And last but not least, the player's touch.

There are a lot guitarists who I think have a cool sound but if I tried their gear, I would not like how it "felt" and it would no longer sound good.It's not so much how the pickup sound it's how it feels to the player themselves.

Please understand that I'm not saying trying to do this would be worthless but it won't be nearly as useful as one might hope. Good luck.

[Laionel]

I completely agree on the last, I'm always amazed to notice how different my friends sound from me (and each others) when they use my guitar.

And I alsoagree with the fact such a site could be usefull, but samples have not to be random,maybe something like sample on the duncan website with just more paterns like:
Always the differents positions
predefine everybody play the same thing (so it has to be accessible)
Clean:
one note at a time lick )
Strumming
funky lick
Bluesy lick
a dynamic test (varying the strenght of the pick attack)

Crunch:
one note licks
riffs
dynamics test
how pick clean up using volume

Distortion
idem

I guess some will come with better/more revelant patterns but it's just to give an idea of what it could look like.