Separating guitar pickups for stereo

  • Thread starter Thread starter thebigcheese
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Milnoque said:
I've never known what the players actually did with the stereo feature on the old ES-355s. I do know that whenever I ran across one in the past it had been disabled or they had made a stereo/mono cable.
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FWIW I never gave a damn about 'stereo, but ran four front end channels (a 'clean/dirty each) out a single 12.
..and yes I have to carry a trs-to tr cable now. Which reminds me, it's time to make up a new one. :p
 
WhiteStrat said:
I think that's understood--doubling tracks is widely accepted around here as a great recording technique--in fact the standard approach for most. I think the discussion of the "stereo" split guitars pertains more being curious about what the application is.

I can't speak for others, but for me that application is likely to be live (that's the only time I split a guitar two ways). In the studio, I always play it and track it multiple times to get a thicker, richer sound.
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I remember reading in one of the Reaper guides something about fattening up a guitar track by splitting the frequency information and panning the low end leftish and the high end rightish. I'm probably oversimplifying, but I imagine that having both pickups on separate tracks could accomplish something similar. Actually, I could see how that would be useful. You could really dial in the exact proportions of each pickup that way. I don't always like to have things doubled, I just need them to be bigger, so that would be nice. Having to figure out how to amp and record both signals, though, would be not so nice.
 
I was once told that Ric basses had stereo, in which the 1st and 3rd strings were on one channel, the 2nd and 4th on the other. Dunno if it is true, I never played such a Ric- but if that were doable with a 6-string, it might have a cool sound.
 
In the mid to later 80's, there was an Eddie Van Halen endorsed Kramer model with six pan pots on the face of the guitar. One for each string. No idea what model number or make, but it obviously didn't go over too well.
 
this is stupid. It'd be like if I gripped four 57's for my unique vocal sound. Each mic would have a "different perspective".

It's one more product for dummies to buy. Nothing more.
 
stevieb said:
I was once told that Ric basses had stereo, in which the 1st and 3rd strings were on one channel, the 2nd and 4th on the other. Dunno if it is true, I never played such a Ric- but if that were doable with a 6-string, it might have a cool sound.
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I believe you are convolving two different "stereo" features. Rickenbacker's Rick-O-Sound wasn't/isn't individual strings (you can't split strings on mag pickups that go across the strings), it's the neck pickup on one channel and the bridge pickup on the other. Some Ovation acoustic guitars had a separate piezo pickup on each string and sent the odd strings to one side of a stereo split and the even to the other.
 
ez_willis said:
Often times one amp will compliment another to make for an awesome tone. I just don't see the point of splitting a single source in two.
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And where this just shows lack of imagination and openness to options.
 
mixsit said:
And where this just shows lack of imagination and openness to options.
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yeah, you're probably right, but just so I know for sure why don't you post some of that imaginative options you're speaking of.
 
ez_willis said:
this is stupid. It'd be like if I gripped four 57's for my unique vocal sound. Each mic would have a "different perspective".

It's one more product for dummies to buy. Nothing more.
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Well, it's not really anything for anyone to buy... you'd spend like $3 on a TRS jack, I guess, but that's really it.

Gibson has or is coming out with a guitar where you can do different effects on the different strings. I remember wanting to be able to do that with my guitar once, but I don't remember why.
 
thebigcheese said:
Well, it's not really anything for anyone to buy... you'd spend like $3 on a TRS jack, I guess, but that's really it.
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Dedicated instruments serving this purpose had been mentioned. I was referring to them. Still, this mod seems pointless TO ME but mixsit should be by shortly to give me examples of why I am wrong.
 
ez_willis said:
Dedicated instruments serving this purpose had been mentioned. I was referring to them. Still, this mod seems pointless TO ME but mixsit should be by shortly to give me examples of why I am wrong.
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It's a utility. You don't get it, nor need it. That's pretty much the upshot here.
 
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