AminorZmajor
Experienced
Nice. Thanks. Recovering from a gig last night. The JP Trinity....... rating. LOL......
Unless you have a robot to play guitar I think it will be really hard to make the playing consistent enough for a fair comparison.Anyone's up for a blind test? It could be funny.
Scientific mind at play!
Unless you have a robot to play guitar I think it will be really hard to make the playing consistent enough for a fair comparison.
A person will most likely play differently depending on size, shape, feel and response of the pick.
I'm really just talking about having no deviation in the playing.Then we could say that pick shape also has an impact on tone. We will be evaluating the material+shape complex. As long as we keep the player invariant we will be actually studying the pick.
Get your point, though. Too much noise maybe. Still, if people prefer a pick over another, we should be able to find a measurable difference... Even if not constant among players.
A long strange trip, indeed... many years ago, I was expressing frustration with the flatwounds on my jazz box, and someone handed me a Dunlop 208: Wow, that was just the ticket: Smoothed the attack characteristic just right without going dull, and getting all the richness of the sustain. Great for flat picking electric bass too. Tortex gets the call more often for roundwounds and solid bodies. By now I've got probably 50 types of pick, from leather and felt to carved jade and a fossilized trilobite. Never boring.
I'm really just talking about having no deviation in the playing.
That's why good amp and modeler blind tests use a DI signal. Because then it's the exact same "performance".
Except for a robot I can't think of a way to "DI" picking
Shape definitely affects tone. For years, after switching back to standard sized Star Picks plectrums, I used the orange thin-medium thickness and the shoulder of the pick to get more meat and stiffness. Very easy to find on most surfaces when dropped.Then we could say that pick shape also has an impact on tone.
However, my point is that deviations in playing happen in the "real life" outside of the test as well. So for pick choice to actually matter in real life, we should still be able to hear a difference past playing deviations. If not, wouldn't that effectively mean that pick influence in tone is much smaller than ordinary picking deviations, and as such negligible under real playing conditions?
My posts are specifically referring to a blind test scenario...Anyways, I'd say if you need a robot to hear the differences it won't matter. And different picks will make you pick differently anyway.