Completely Different Sound compared to Cab Demos.

I've never messed with pickup heights before. Pretty simple process.

Just for the record, measuring from the bottom of the pickup (flat bit) to the top of the string, the bridge pickup was 4mm away. I've lowered it to 5mm and it seems to have opened things up a little. Lost a bit of gain and now have some more bass.

Gonna record some new DIs with it now. Do let me know if I'm doing something criminally wrong here.
 
If you have more bass it seems your strings now have more vibrations so it's a good sign, maybe your pickups were interacting with your strings too much
 
First impression: The DI signal is a lot calmer now and nowhere near clipping. Before on the big peaks, it would get awful close to clipping. I'd say it was something probably worth doing regardless.
 


Trip Report: Lowering the pickups has opened things up a fair bit. I DID lower them from 4mm to 6mm at first and that made them a bit gutless, so I bought it up to 5mm and here was the end result.

I did notice my guitar going out of tune. I don't THINK these strings are particularly old, but we've had some batshit insane weather in Australia recently. I'll swap 'em out for new ones just for the sake of argument anyway. Then I'll post up the DI track.
 
near clipping is not always a bad idea for a pickup... here is what i mean by that:

note that i dont use that technique myself, but your pickup could've been made to be near clipping...
 
Now the tuning seems to be quite different from Misha's and i have experienced sometimes large sound differences from a drop-tuning to a classic tuning...
 
vondano said:
near clipping is not always a bad idea for a pickup... here is what i mean by that:

note that i dont use that technique myself, but your pickup could've been made to be near clipping...
Click to expand...


Cheers for the info, but I think I've had an improvement with the lower pickups.

Here's a Reamp with new strings and lower pickup height.



Here's the DI for people to play with. If you manage to get an awful close replica of the original tone but with a completely different setup using this DI, go nuts! Let me know how you got it.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/m4yqjx6akcb113v/MishaTest AFX LWRPKP DI.wav?dl=0

Side Note: This summer has clearly been awful to my guitars. The intonation on my Explorer is a bit off so tuning is going to be a bit eh in general.
 
You still miss a lot of high end and clarity comparing to Misha's video....
But what firmware was he using on the video ??
 
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Tuning issues aside that sounds way more balanced and open, new strings will make it sound even better! As far as pickup heights I've always just done it by ear myself. Orthodox? Probably not, effective? For me yes :)
Edit: the publish date on the video is July so it predates quantum. Most likely fw19 I suppose
 
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AlGrenadine said:
You still miss a lot of high end and clarity comparing to Misha's video....
But what firmware was he using on the video ??
Click to expand...

I'm glad somebody else has been hearing these things.

In terms of my "Guitar land", I live on an island of one. All of my mates and relatives aren't into guitar stuff as much as I am and would struggle to tell the difference between a JCM800 and a screaming Randall. Heaps of people have been telling me that there's "no difference" :p

Makes it hard to figure out what does kick ass and what doesn't I can tell you that!
 
For shits and giggles, I reamped it using Cab 07, the original one in the video. Edit: Definitely the wrong cab. Refer to previous sample

I think what we had going with Cab 1 was better, but it doesn't hurt to have a point of reference:
 
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AlGrenadine said:
Yes Mix #01 is the cab used at 1:08 sorry
Click to expand...

Yeah, I'm not surprised. We were definitely getting better results with that cab.

Still, I'd be surprised to find there was that much difference between his guitar and mine. Obviously we're never going to get identical, but as you said, there's a fair bit of clarity and high end missing.
 
Maybe we can try a tonematch now we're pretty close, but tonematch is good at removing thing not adding... so we still need to get more high end and clarity ^^
 
By the way: Apologies if I hadn't been clear, but I've been enjoying this process too and been appreciating everybody's help so far :)

Really been happy with lowering the pickup height. If nothing else, that was definitely a good move.
 
Pwrmac7600 said:
Do we know what gauge strings he is using as well? Between tuning and string gauge, that could also have alot to do with the sound.
Click to expand...

Fair cop. I'm using a (literally brand new) set of Rotosound 10-52s.

...To be blunt, if somebody asks me to change strings, that's not going to happen :p. I love my Rotos.
 
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