• Coffee House
  • So I came home with this guitar last night.......... (p.3)
2013/02/05 20:12:54
zungle
I almost forgot......

Cool guitar.......
2013/02/05 20:45:02
craigb
I've only had one guitar with EMG's (a Steinberger) and it DID sound great through a Sansamp PSA, but better through my '79 Mike Soldano-modded Marshall JMP!
2013/02/05 22:29:59
zungle
I've only had one guitar with EMG's (a Steinberger) and it DID sound great through a Sansamp PSA, but better through my '79 Mike Soldano-modded Marshall JMP!
 
 
 
Sweet................!!!!!
2013/02/08 10:12:00
Starise
digi2ns


Starise


The guitar is a Schecter Hellraiser C-1.

Mike(digi2ins), Thanks for the heads up on those parts.I'll check it out.  I  noticed some subtle things with the 81/85s. Maybe you can tell the differences. I recorded some tracks last night( I didn't rehearse so  the playing isn't all there or even close lol) anyways I am keeping the guitars a secret . I'll let the word out but wanted to see which sounds you thought were the best. This is purely subjective if you decide to participate.

If you care to try and see which one is the real Schecter C-1 using EMG 81/85 be my guest. I recorded all of them through an HD500 using the " Singing Lead" sound coming out of the HD into a Mackie with no EQ. sent to Sonar in 24/48 bit via line level at around -3db and exported to Mp3 128.

There are three guitars involved using both neck and bridge settings.One guitar is a Laguna HSS which is similar to a Fender strat HSS. A JTV69 Variax using a 1958 Les Paul standard setting on both neck and bridge and the Schecter C-1 Hellraiser.

Here are some tracks I played using the different guitars on a rather clean song. 

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/30861263/trk1.mp3

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/30861263/trk2.mp3

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/30861263/trk3.mp3

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/30861263/trk4.mp3

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/30861263/trk5.mp3

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/30861263/trk6.mp3

Some tracks of power chords with the guitars set on the bridge positions.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/30861263/trk7.mp3 Laguna Neck

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/30861263/trk8.mp3    Schecter Bridge 

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/30861263/trk9.mp3  Variax Neck 

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/30861263/trk10.mp3  Laguna Bridge

Well I was right on my thoughts of what is was.

Havent actually listened much to Lagunas
So heres my guess on the Power Chords
Like to try later on the others LOL



 Hey Mike, Thanks for listening to some of the takes here and for your guesses. 

 The Laguna isn't really much different than a fender type HSS setup. They use a heavy body,swamp ash I think. For the money it is a nice guitar. I can get the strat quack on the neck and mid pick up exactly like a strat or rock on the bucker in the bridge.. The nice thing about both the Laguna and the Schecter is that they both have coil taps so you can make them sound so clean you would never know they have some kahunas know what I mean? FWIW I did not use coil taps in these examples.

 I would be interested in which sounds people prefer over others too. I will post which is what here soon. I am thinking that some might prefer a sound that they would never have guessed that it came from what it did. 


 The blind test is where it's at because all you can go on is how it sounds.


 Hey Zungle, thanks man! I'll double check those pickups and look more into that other gear. To me the neck pickup is the most clear compared to the bridge pickup which  comes across as more muddy and less defined. Maybe playing it through a tube amp would make a difference.  I probably should have tried drop D because I think this is maybe where this guitar would shine. I would be interested in a comparison between drop D on the Schecter and the drop D setting on the Variax. One big difference being that on the variax you still have the string tension. I appreciate your thoughts. I was hoping someone would talk me out of this but I'm not sure its possible lol.


 Bapu- Yeah it says " Hellraiser" on it..that's ok though I might raise hell in church with it. Why should the devil have all the good crap?


 Het Craig, I love those steinbergers too kind of a novelty like the Parker but in a different way. The one thing I don't like about those is that you need special strings.
 



2013/02/08 10:45:34
zungle
Starise,

Which pickups are tapped?

The neck is a copper logo so that should be the 89 .....split coil.

The bridge should be an 81, but those are impossible to get muddy. 

Looking at your pic it almost looks like the bridge is a Gold logo 85

And that could get a soft on the bottom , depending on the scenario.


Unlike passives EMG's work best raised up as high as possible.
Literally as close the string as you can get.

Also if you device or amp allows increase the input gain to borderline clipping.


Also change your battery .


See if any of that helps.





2013/02/08 11:11:21
Starise
Hmmmm...I'm gonna need to check that out. I thought I had the typical 81/85 layout. I am practicing on  pick hammer on techniques(and I need a LOT of practice) and so I had the guy at GC lower my strings as close as possible. I guess you mean raising the pickup toward the strings.

 I would describe the bridge pickup as more mushy not as defined. Depending on how you hit the strings I think it is still very usable on some material. Unfortunately I sold my tube amp and so I have been using a small Behringer amp which actually isn't bad, has a bugera speaker in it and isn't too loud. I can get some harmonics/feedback going off of it but I'm sure tubes would be better.The Behringer has amp emulation built into it so I can get close.
2013/02/08 11:15:42
Danny Danzi
Hi Starise,

I'll give you my opinion for what it's worth. With higher gain in your sound, you're not going to notice much difference in guitars, pick-ups or the tone. Gain has a way of hiding those elements.

For example, I can play 5 different guitars in my rig right now and post the results....a few *may* hear a slight difference, the majority will hear no difference unless I use a strat or a tele. Anything with humbucks is going to be close unless you use something with a super distortion or Fernandes sustainer or something.

The same with changing pups....you'll notice differences in presence, maybe some will have more mids...less mids, 4k boost...but there will be nothing mind blowing.

Now, if you go to a clean sound or a very light gain, this is where you start to hear the true tonality within the guitar. Active pups are going to really shine here and stick out more in a good way. Passive pups will have less presence and be less expressive to touch/execution.

I remember during my "pup trial" days where I went to a music store and bought every pup they had to try out. It was amazing how close they all sounded when higher gain was used. But back that gain down, or use a clean sound and then you could hear the differences. You WILL hear differences in the higher gain, but it won't be night and day unless you are comparing say Gibson Dirty Fingers to a Seymour Duncan Custom. No comparisson....the Duncan Custom will obliterate the Gibson in the tone area whether you're using high gain, light gain or a clean sound.

Your best bet when buying guitars where you will be using them for higher gain, is to buy them for feel and playability over looking for a mind-blowing tone difference. The gain will always mask a majority of the tone. You'll hear subtle things, you'll get a little more sustain at times or hear certain frequencies accentuated, but it's never going to be a "wow" factor in my opinion and experience. Most humbuckers that come stock with any kind of rock guitar are going to have a similar output and tone with the differences being so subtle, they may not be worth talking about.

Be careful if you decide to raise the pups up super high like Zungle mentioned. Sometimes if you raise them too high, you can literally get dual tones when trying to tune as the string does something funny when too close to the pup. You can really hear the effects of this as strings get old and tuning can become a nightmare.

My rule of thumb is to chug some chords with higher gain. I raise the bass part of the pup until the notes I chug start to sound like a run on sentence without any percussive attack. When I hear that, I back the pup down until that goes away. For the high end of the pup, I fret the highest note on the neck and adjust the higher end of the pup until it gives me a nice sustain/hold without any weird artifacts. You can get away with raising this side a bit higher. By the time I get done, sometimes my high side is a little higher than my bass side. It depends on the guitar as well as how much output the pups give me in a particular area. Hope some of this helps....good luck and I love the look of that guitar! :)

-Danny
2013/02/08 11:37:59
Starise
 Thanks Danny,

  Thanks for chimeing in here.So I'm not deaf or going bonkers...or if I am this doesn't figure into it. I am hearing exactly what you describe. Subtle differences but nothing to really make me step back and say  wow! This is radical! 

  The only other option I can get close with is the Variax but having said that I like the way this guitar feels in my hands. You can tell it is better made. The way it looks now if my electronic stuff takes a dump I can always lean on the real deal here. The vari has a standard HSS setup in it in addition to the electronics but It doesn't really do what this does....I guess this is why we need more than one guitar.

 The neck pickup in the Schecter has a nice creamy thing going on that is just different and nice on cleaner material. When I go to distorted material though it really doesn't stick out above anything else to any extreme. I am glad you confirmed that for me here.

 When I play with my pups I'll keep your advice in mind. Thanks again for giving some much needed input here. At least I know that what I'm hearing is pretty common.
2013/02/08 11:41:54
zungle
Be careful if you decide to raise the pups up super high like Zungle mentioned. Sometimes if you raise them too high, you can literally get dual tones when trying to tune as the string does something funny when too close to the pup. You can really hear the effects of this as strings get old and tuning can become a nightmare.

 
Yes, been there..............
 
But EMG's are designed to be as close to the string as possible...............with touching it of course............
2013/02/08 11:54:25
The Maillard Reaction


Gain is an actual description of change in voltage: Voltage out - Voltage in = gain.

I think sometimes, heck often times, guitarists use the words "high gain" when they mean "square wave".

A square wave has 3dB more RMS voltage than a sine wave with the same peak... and that's all it's ever gonna have.

Most preamps have 50dB to 80dB gain.

You can squash a sinusoidal signal into a square wave with very little gain... and indeed that is what all modern distortion circuits are doing. That's how you get the controlled mayhem sound... by tone shaping with minimum gain.

Square waves are square waves... they don't have a lot of potential for character... but a circuit can have some sort of personality with regard to how quickly it alters a sinusoidal wave and turns it into a square wave. You can appreciate all sorts of cool sounds on the front end of a signal being squashed into a square wave.  In so called "high gain" guitar amp designs that is all going on in the circuit and not in between the guitar and the input so the pickup's contribution to tonality is marginalized.

In older amp designs the squaring happens right at the first stage with the tube... it's exciting to hear a PAF make a Fender Champ scream. It never get's totally squared... there's always some rounding at the corners... and that gives it character as you push the corners flat with your pick attack.




You'll know when you are really in the presence of actual high gain... it will cause the trans-conductance happening in the power amp to drive the speaker cones straight out of the front of the cabinet.

Don't ask me how I know. :-)



With cleaner signals that aren't forced into well formed squares you can easily hear how pickups react to the impedance and reactance of a good guitar amp. You can hear how the frequency response alters with amplitude.

All those details get masked when the signal is squared up by a gain circuit optimized to sculpt square waves with as little gain as possible.





 Tube amps remain popular because players can sense a dynamic relationship between the reactance at the  first  preamp stage with the pickups. There's quite literally a spring of "tension" that speaks back to the pickup and the whole becomes a system from string vibration through to the speaker cone... it's a great big spring.

It's a lot of fun.

If you plug your passive pickup into something solid state instead of a tube the spring analogy breaks down and it's like you put a big resistive dampener on the spring. It's still fun... but you aren't going to sense the dynamic springiness with the same drama. Most folks using active pickups and other solid state tone shapers are actually looking for a square wave they like the sound of so they don't miss the reduced reactance very much.





I love guitars and amps... they let you make temporary sculpture with air molecules. :-)


best regards,
mike
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