Is it the pickups or the guitar?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Newbie-Doo
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ggunn said:
That of course will yield better data than any advice you will get in here. ;^)

True, true......but then we'd be stuck talking about the bird flu or who should be the next supreme court justice and nobody wants that! :eek:
 
It's both.


The pickups have more to do with the frequency response of a guitar (though the guitar will have a large effect as well), but the guitar's design and the woods used have a larger effect on the guitars "envelope," which is to say, the shape of what synthisists would call the ADSR (Attack-Decay-Sustain-Release). Bolt-on necks will tend to seem to have a stronger attack (which is actually a function of the quick decay on a bolt-on neck - kind of like using a compressor to increases the attack on a snare drum by using a slow attack), while the attack on a set neck will seem weaker, with a neck through seeming even weaker (because there is a slower decay). But of course, the sustain on a neck through is much longer on a bolt on. And of course, the pickup also has some effect on the envelope as well.

But yeah, just basically, it is the whole package.


Light

"Cowards can never be moral."
M.K. Gandhi
 
i wish i understood guitars better. i own about 9 of them but i still feel clueless as to why each one sounds the way it does. actually, only since i've gotten seriously into recording have i begun to hear their differences.
 
treymonfauntre said:
i wish i understood guitars better. i own about 9 of them but i still feel clueless as to why each one sounds the way it does. actually, only since i've gotten seriously into recording have i begun to hear their differences.

And as far as recording something and making it "just right", how important are those subtle or not so subtle differences? Would Vertigo have been as big for U2 if the Edge had used a Les Paul or ES335 instead of a Tele?

When I saw them on their Hall of Fame induction show and he switched to the Tele for that song, I thought to myself "would anyone have liked the song less if he had played it on his gold-top les paul?"
 
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