Starting to hate emg's/active pups

[reneisgod]

Chips or Tits?

 

[bryan_kilco]

My guitar has EMG 81's in it, and I definitely dig the tone.....But, with a TS in front of my Mark IV, it's almost too much mid-city. I really like the way it cuts compared to our other guitarists Dual Recto, but lately I've been wondering if I'm overdoing it with the TS/mids.......

 

[JeffTD]

Okay. Now please explain sag and bloom.

Sag and bloom are the same thing; a slight delay between transient and the body of the note itself. You pick, there's a slight delay or a large movement in the low end that causes it to sound like there's a delay, and then the note is heard. Almost like a super short (talking a couple ms) envelope filter applied immediately after the transient.

I can't tell if you're purposefully being a dick about this and just trying to see if you can 'catch someone up' on spewing nonsense, but these are legitimate terms for legitimate qualities a tone can/does have and I'd be quite surprised if you've made it this far as a musician/producer without understanding them.

 

[drew_drummer]

Sag and bloom are the same thing; a slight delay between transient and the body of the note itself. You pick, there's a slight delay or a large movement in the low end that causes it to sound like there's a delay, and then the note is heard. Almost like a super short (talking a couple ms) envelope filter applied immediately after the transient.

I can't tell if you're purposefully being a dick about this and just trying to see if you can 'catch someone up' on spewing nonsense, but these are legitimate terms for legitimate qualities a tone can/does have and I'd be quite surprised if you've made it this far as a musician/producer without understanding them.

Sag and bloom are not the same thing. Sag and bloom are polar opposites. In power amp terms, sag describes the way the current fluctuates negatively, and bloom describes the way the current fluctuates positively. I would assume it's the same for guitar pickups.

Sag and bloom can not be described in terms of delay times. Because they're frequency dependent and there is interpolation to deal with. You're confusing frequency response with amplitude response.

Due to the increased power supply and the higher impedance, it is true that active pickups have a faster response at lower frequencies. This doesn't necessarily equate to "tightness" however, because if the pickup has slower response at higher frequencies, that would serve to mush up the high-end of the pickup, resulting in any benefits of the faster low-end response being lost.

IE: Tightness in one area of the frequency domain doesn't necessarily equate to tightness as a whole.

Now, I could be wrong. I'm no expert, but that's my take on it. I just wish that people would define their terms when discussing this stuff. A: it makes it more interesting to read, and B: it serves to prevent misunderstanding.

And if this response makes you think I'm a dick, well, sorry!

 

[sevchenko]

If you're in a metal forum talking about the tightness of a guitar sound then it always refers to the low end. The chunk. I don't know how this could be a mystery. Maybe if you're in a general music forum I could see some confusion when using the term. But not in a forum dedicated to metal.

 

[Keregioz]

The best way I would describe the difference between tight and muddy (or loose or whatever) is to compare it to the difference of a high gain guitar tone with and without an overdrive boost before the amp.

 

[MarcusGHedwig]

If you're in a metal forum talking about the tightness of a guitar sound then it always refers to the low end. The chunk. I don't know how this could be a mystery. Maybe if you're in a general music forum I could see some confusion when using the term. But not in a forum dedicated to metal.

Gotta agree - in this case, it really is just a case of "you know what we mean," rather than being a stickler about definitions

The best way I would describe the difference between tight and muddy (or loose or whatever) is to compare it to the difference of a high gain guitar tone with and without an overdrive boost before the amp.

Another good one

 

[drew_drummer]

Gotta agree - in this case, it really is just a case of "you know what we mean," rather than being a stickler about definitions

Well yah, if you want to be all insular about it! But it's no wonder metal is so sucky today when everyone all shares the same notions about what makes a good tone.

Kinda funny really. There's a thread decrying the corksniffery over tubescreamers (which I agree with) and loads of threads all the time decrying over-reliance on IR's and presets and Sturgis samples. But have even the vaguest notion of wanting to pin down a definition, and all of a sudden I'm a dick and a stickler. Am I to assume I'm also a stickler for dick?

*sigh* I'll bow out now. Like others have said, these threads can become very Mac Vs PC - and none of us truly want that. Suffice to say; not too keen on EMG's. I went off my Bareknuckles too in the end, once I switched to V30's. JB in the bridge and SH2 in the neck is doing me just fine right now.

 

[~BURNY~]

You've always been a dick.

 

[JeffTD]

Sag and bloom are not the same thing. Sag and bloom are polar opposites. In power amp terms, sag describes the way the current fluctuates negatively, and bloom describes the way the current fluctuates positively. I would assume it's the same for guitar pickups.

Sag and bloom can not be described in terms of delay times. Because they're frequency dependent and there is interpolation to deal with. You're confusing frequency response with amplitude response.

Due to the increased power supply and the higher impedance, it is true that active pickups have a faster response at lower frequencies. This doesn't necessarily equate to "tightness" however, because if the pickup has slower response at higher frequencies, that would serve to mush up the high-end of the pickup, resulting in any benefits of the faster low-end response being lost.

IE: Tightness in one area of the frequency domain doesn't necessarily equate to tightness as a whole.

Now, I could be wrong. I'm no expert, but that's my take on it. I just wish that people would define their terms when discussing this stuff. A: it makes it more interesting to read, and B: it serves to prevent misunderstanding.

And if this response makes you think I'm a dick, well, sorry!

That response doesn't make you a dick; the fact that you already knew all of that (and more) but still asked about it (and more) makes you a dick.

When speaking about guitar tone, sag and bloom aren't exactly the same thing but go hand in hand. It's response to a pick attack. Sag is the dump before the return, and the bloom is the note coming out of the sag. I don't care how the current fluctuates, we're talking about describing guitar tones. It has nothing to do with the internal workings of the amp or pickup.

Tightness is frequency dependent when speaking about guitar tones. Nobody is going to say a pickup or amp with a tight bottom end but a loose top end is loose - they'll say the top end is messy, mushy, undefined, smeared, etc.

My ultimate problem with you being a stickler about terms in this discussion is that nobody expressed any confusion until you did, and you weren't confused at all. It's not quite like when Dickolas Scott refers to raw tracks as stems and everyone on the forum from then on doesn't give a shit about proper terminology.

*edit*

You've always been a dick.

This is also true.

 

[amarshism]

Am I on ss.org now?

 

[Jaymz]

 

[Uros]

Dickolass

 

[MarcusGHedwig]

That response doesn't make you a dick; the fact that you already knew all of that (and more) but still asked about it (and more) makes you a dick.

When speaking about guitar tone, sag and bloom aren't exactly the same thing but go hand in hand. It's response to a pick attack. Sag is the dump before the return, and the bloom is the note coming out of the sag. I don't care how the current fluctuates, we're talking about describing guitar tones. It has nothing to do with the internal workings of the amp or pickup.

Tightness is frequency dependent when speaking about guitar tones. Nobody is going to say a pickup or amp with a tight bottom end but a loose top end is loose - they'll say the top end is messy, mushy, undefined, smeared, etc.

My ultimate problem with you being a stickler about terms in this discussion is that nobody expressed any confusion until you did, and you weren't confused at all. It's not quite like when Dickolas Scott refers to raw tracks as stems and everyone on the forum from then on doesn't give a shit about proper terminology.

Drew, I like you dude (you've always been a dick, but you're our dick...wait), but I'm 100% with Jeff on this one

 

[drew_drummer]

I'm not gonna get into this, because it's just a waste of time, and it's clear that Jeff isn't going to back down or listen to reason. Bottom line is, terminology isn't universal - it just isn't. One mans tightness is another mans lack of beef. One mans mud is another mans crunch.

And it's confusing to me when someone says a pickup is tight, and then someone else says it isn't.