My "discovery"

Joined: 29 Nov 2003 Posts: 393 Location: Lake Mary, Florida

I've always liked the tone of the Duncan JB, '59, and Alnico II pickups. In general, I like a tone that is well balanced -- a good mix of bass, mids, and treble, and these pickups seemed, to me at least, to best cover this. If you haven't listened to Seymore Duncan's pickup soundbites, here's a link:
http://www.seymourduncan.com/website/SDToneWizard/hummer.htm#1

Then I saw a tonechart SD puts out on their pickups, and I was curious as to how these 3 pups were EQed. They are very similar, but I was surprised when I saw their mids were very low in proportion to their bass and treble. So I thought to myself, "well, maybe I prefer scooped mids rather than all-balanced." Here's the link to SD's tonechart:
http://www.seymourduncan.com/website/tonechart.shtml#hum

But then I learned about the Fletcher Munson effect that BobtheNuke alluded to in the "low wattage amp" thread, where low and high frequencies require a higher dB level to give the perception of the same loudness as middle frequencies, especially at lower volumes. Now I'm thinking this is why the JB, '59, and Alnico II sound well-balanced to me -- a pickup that emphasizes bass and treble and scoops the mids will probably sound more balanced.

Those SD links are awesome -- check them out if you haven't already.

Guest

Nah, you like scooped mids. To my ears, the 59 and JB aren't balanced; they have more highs and lows than mids. The Pearly Gates sound fairly balanced to me with a little more highs than mids and lows and the Custom Custom has more mids than highs and lows. The Custom Custom rocks.

Guest

DiMarzio has the same charts and sound bytes available to listen to in their site.

Posted: Tue Dec 16, 2003 8:36 pm

trapper189-2 wrote:

Nah, you like scooped mids. To my ears, the 59 and JB aren't balanced; they have more highs and lows than mids. The Pearly Gates sound fairly balanced to me with a little more highs than mids and lows and the Custom Custom has more mids than highs and lows. The Custom Custom rocks.

True Dat! Vote 1 Custom Custom!!!

Joined: 29 Nov 2003 Posts: 5799

I have no idea what any of you are talking about. One of these days I'm gonna have to sit down with someone who understand all that junk and have them give me a demonstration. Until then I'll just continue to plug in, turn on, and turn up!

Joined: 30 Nov 2003 Posts: 52 Location: Delawhere

what Lon said!

Posted: Wed Dec 17, 2003 8:26 am

I checked out the Fletcher Munson effect as well..... Thanks again Bob for enlightening us! LOL!

I prefer a scooped sound as well.... I tailor it via an EQ to make up the shortcomings of the pups in certain cases.