Pickups....

[Jimmytwotimes]

I know that most of you out there are already much aware of this, but want to share an experience with maybe some newbies that might not feel that that are getting the tones they want out of the AXE FX.

A few days ago I took all 3 of my guitars to the luthier for their annual check up ( set up, etc - it gets mighty damp here in the NW and I typically find I need a good setup around once a year). All my main guitars include a Strat, a LP traditional, and a PRS custom 22. So since all my "children" have gone off to camp, I'm left with the odd ball to practice with ( which by no means is a slouch - but clearly quality is not on par with the others), a PRS SE custom 24 which is about 8 or 9 years old at this point I think.- with all original electronics. So I start playing with the SE - I immediately find the tone sounds really .... not good. I mess around with the volume, tone controls, pickup selection etc, to no avail. My other guitars sound amazing though all the same patches.
My point here is - if you think you aren't getting the tone you think the AXE FX is capable of- take a look at the guitar and especially the pick ups - as hundreds of others here have said - it really does make a HUGE difference to have a quality instrument and pickups.

 

[Desmo808]

Yep, that's to be expected. But TBH, it's not just with the Axe, pickups make a difference with ANY gear (well, unless maybe it's MyFirstAmp from Walmart, in which case they may all sound the same ). In my Axe FX rig, I have separate banks of patches dedicated to different guitar guitars/pickups--just the same as with my old tube rig. In either rig, the guitars with mediocre pickups need different settings to coax a nice sound out of them. Even with good pickups, it makes a difference to tailor a patch to that particular pickup's character.

 

[jesussaddle]

I really want a pickup profiling software that can be used as a plugin, get from one pickup coloration snapshot to another. Surely such an animal exists in DAW audio plugin-land.

Although, maybe I am ignorant here. I am not really sure how it could work; sort of like its maybe Boolean logic. You want to work backwards from the pickup coloration, to the actual raw sound of the strings maybe - and you don't really have the sound of the strings unless you have some perfectly flat microphone and flat digital audio converter. You would hit the strings louder and softer. Then you would be able to compare the two and get a snapshot, one for each pickup you have at each of a few loudnesses.

Of course, then you could isolate the tone variations from the wood & other hardware also by installing the same pickups in another guitar and beaming the whole thing through a porthole into the Alpha Centurion dimension.

Wait, this is a little strange. I'm not sure I understand. .