Pickup tone match

Singtall

Experienced
Vendor
I got a new Charvel with EMG 81/85 combo, and it's killer. so killer that i gutted my favorite guitar and put my old humbuckers back in just to get back in that same tonal neighborhood. the old humbuckers are just as big sounding, but more up front mids and no high end sparkle that the EMG's have. so the old pickups are better for lead work, but the EMG is a crunch monster.

i was thinking about Billy Gibbons who has a programmable eq setup before his rig so that every guitar has the same tone as his favorite one. so i thought "why not use tonematch to get that big EMG tone?"

well, i have to report that tonematch works extremely well cloning pickups. i saved the block and called it "EMG". it simply converts my old humbuckers to EMG sound-a-likes.

to take it a step further, i tonematched my old pickups and now i can change my EMG's on the fly for lead work.

i'm now making a library of my favorite pickups.
 
I got a new Charvel with EMG 81/85 combo, and it's killer. so killer that i gutted my favorite guitar and put my old humbuckers back in just to get back in that same tonal neighborhood. the old humbuckers are just as big sounding, but more up front mids and no high end sparkle that the EMG's have. so the old pickups are better for lead work, but the EMG is a crunch monster.

i was thinking about Billy Gibbons who has a programmable eq setup before his rig so that every guitar has the same tone as his favorite one. so i thought "why not use tonematch to get that big EMG tone?"

well, i have to report that tonematch works extremely well cloning pickups. i saved the block and called it "EMG". it simply converts my old humbuckers to EMG sound-a-likes.

to take it a step further, i tonematched my old pickups and now i can change my EMG's on the fly for lead work.

i'm now making a library of my favorite pickups.

Great thinking!
 
Great idea. Could be very useful for me considering my 26.5" scale Jackson 7-string with EMG 707s sounds absolutely nothing like my 24.5" scale PRS guitars with passive pickups.

So, I'm assuming you're just doing a TM on the signal before it hits any blocks?
 
yes, put the tonematch block first.

i had another idea last night that kept me from sleeping: guitar tone exchange! imagine sharing our pickup tonematches. with the tonematch, you not only get the sound of the pickup, but the entire guitar....wood, pick and all. if someone had a nice 59 les paul with sweet pickups, we could all use that tone.

some ideas i had for a guitar match exchange:

1) send in your guitar tone and receive a link to the vault where all other guitar matches can be downloaded. you have to share to get anything. why? anybody that donates his tone had to buy the guitar and spend some time to tonematch it....that has to be worth at least some respect. too many people sit back and enjoy the free stuff and never contribute anything....at least this way they would have to at least contribute the tone of their guitar. even cheap guitars and can give up some awesome tone, so all would be welcome.

2) name your tonematch according to model/type. for example: my EMG tonematch is titled "EMG 81". could use simple stuff like "Epiphone stock", "Daisy Rock" lol.

3) I'm going to make a youtube video outlining the process to make a tonematch, and how to use the tonematch from someone else.

4) i will start a dropbox folder with the tonematches and give out the link to everybody that donates their guitar(s) match. i have 5 different guitar matches already.

i think this idea will really open up some possibilities. imagine that i have a six string guitar and i need to do a seven string part; i could borrow the tone of Der JD's EMG 707's to make sure that my guitar sounds like it should when tuned down.

some basics:
the tonematch block needs to be the first block in order to catch the guitar tone properly.
you must play a bunch of chords and strings to gather all of your tone.
the tonematch block can be saved, named and recalled in any preset you desire to use tonematch in.
 
Sounds like a killer idea Singtall. I'll TM my guitars as soon as I can, probably this weekend.

I've done TMs before with recorded material coming via USB from my laptop but this is a little different. Let me see if I've got this right. Basically, set up the TM block to be first in the grid and play your guitar for the reference signal, correct? Is that it? Save it as a preset with just a TM block? So, then others could just load my preset, copy/paste the TM block, and match to their guitar?

I'm also wondering how this will sound when using presets that have cabs that are just exported TMs. I export my TMs to cabs frequently because I like to use room level in the cab block for headphone use. If it sounds good it could open up some convenient possiblities. For example, say I want to use my preset that's based on a Megadeth-Rust in Peace TM (TM exported to a user cab). Usually, I make sure I play the actual guitar that I first created the TM with (in this case, a PRS Akesson with a JB bridge PU). If this works, maybe I could play a different guitar and load up the TM of my PRS 1st in the grid so the tone stays the same.

I think it will be important for those that contribute to mention what the guitar, pickup, woods, etc. were on the TM and for you to disclose that info. on the link in the vault. Just saying "Dimarzio Crunch Lab", for example, isn't going to cut it. The same pickup can sound vastly different in different guitars.
 
yeah, i see what you mean. i was gonna make a folder for each user, with all of their guitar matches in that folder. maybe each person could make a txt file with a guitar description?

even if we end up with 5 crunchlab tonematches, it isn't that hard to go through each one and try them out....but 30 or more of the same would be silly to go through.

i can also see a use for the guitar match when someone downloads one of my presets (for example) he will also get the tone of my guitar - which drastically effects the sound of the preset.

the tonematch block i made was saved using axe edit...now i just have to find where it saved it. otherwise, i will just export a preset with the tonematch included and the end user can save the block on their end.
 
I'll be interested how single coil can be tonematched for humbuckers and vice-versa. Maybe someone already experimented on this and how good the sound is.
 
here is an idea of how the process will work:

copy the tonematch block file into your fractal folder. mine is in documents/fractal audio/axe edit/blocks/tonematch. you may have to search to find yours.

from there;
1) add a tonematch block to the front of one of your presets.
2) right-click and chose Library/recall/tonematch/EMG (for example)
3) press the local tonematch button and play your guitar for a few seconds (play a bunch of chords all over the neck)
4) while last chord is still ringing out, press the local button again to stop the capture of your pickup tone.
5) press the match button and start jamming with my EMG guitar tone. once you are happy with the tonematch, go to next step.
6) right-click tonematch block and save the EMG block so it will remember your guitar tone (local) instead of one of mine.

now, any time you add the tonematch block to a preset, the tonematch to change your guitar into my EMG equipped Charvel will already be configured to go and you won't have to learn your pickup again.
 
while trying to record a video of the procedure, i ran into problems with tonematch. it seems to have lost the reference. i can play back what i made yesterday, but i can't change the local guitar tonematch. when i try it, it makes my guitar sound like a single coil strat.

i will try a few things and see where the problem is.
 
the problem is that when you load up my tonematch, the reference is not there. there has to be a way to load the reference file without having the guitar in hand to play again. Cliff? help?
 
i'm trying to work out the bugs right now. it appears that as soon as you turn off the axe-fx it dumps your reference file. i posted on the forum about it and i'm hoping that Cliff can help asap. when you save the tonematch block on your pc, it only saves the final match, not the reference guitar tone.

the only work around right now is to email the reference guitar sound as a wave file, then you play it back as a reference on your axe-fx. it will work, but it's another step to complete.
 
Apologies if this is dumb, but wouldn't it be easier to just tab out a standardised reference piece (mixture of chords/single loud/soft etc) which people can then record direct on their guitar and upload?

Then you just download whatever guitar you want and use that as the reference for tonematching. Seems less hassle than asking Cliff to modify the mechanics of the engine...
 
that's part of the solution i came up with also. i recorded a little ditty with all of my guitars; simple 100bpm chording of E,D,A,G, and rest on E. i now have a folder full of wav files recorded at 48khz 24bit. simply select which reference guitar you want and tonematch it.

i did a video of the process, which is uploading to youtube right now.

it would be nice to be able to save the reference files on the axe-fx though. wouldn't it be simply criminal to walk into a boutique guitar store and riff around on your axe-fx using a $10,000 guitar and save that tone? what we have is the ability to play our favorite old beater and have it sound like ANY guitar on the planet.
 
here is the video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KDls3s2z12I

the basics are all there....but it didn't record the sound of the reference file. you can still get the idea though.

let's get the vault loaded. email me for the link: rossjjohnson at gmail dot com. don't forget to include a clip of your guitar(s) to add to the vault.

so far, i'm liking the sound of my Singtall custom humbucker with a 50% mix of the Charvel EMG 81. i can't wait to hear the possibilities....
 
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Wondering if exporting the TM to a user cab would work. Then, we'd just send you the user cab, which would be loaded as the first thing in presets instead of a TM block. Ot, just a DI track wav file like mentioned previously would work as well, but would add an extra step in the process.

Just an FYI- there's a thread on sevenstring.org that has a lot of DI tracks of various pickups here: The Pickup DI Track Thread - SevenString.org
 
so far, the easiest thing to do is just make a small clip of you playing the guitar and email it. just the raw guitar with no amps or effects. works great!
 
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