Job done.
The data that you lot gave agreed very well with tims own estimates, and as far as I can tell from that agreement and the fact that all the data sets big enough to exhibit such behaviour did indeed fit a gausian means all indicators point to the project being a success.
More data would be needed to absolutely confirm this though, or so the scientist in me says - the less thorough, more practical side of me says that we can be sure enough that its worked and theres enough to be getting on with.
The data gathered will be used in conjunction with Tims estimates (with an equal weighting of the data here and tims own values) to make the new sites EQ charts.
Give yourselves a pat on the back.
I'm going to compile a database of BK pickup EQs.
I am then going to average that data and see what the EQ, in bass/mid/treble comes out as.
The reasoning behind this stems from the phenomenon called 'wisdom of crowds', whereby if theres something observable or estimatable empirically by human senses and you get enough people to guess at it, the average of those guesses will be very close to the actual value, because the guesses are essentially randomised around the actual value with a certain distribution (standard deviation, that is) and all the guesses form a gausian, the mean of which is close to the thing being guessed at. The more guesses, the closer the mean is to the real value.
Obviously the tonal properties arent nearly as quantifiable as things this is normally used with, like weights and counting and what have you, and theres subjectivity and theres no definite answer to check this data against, but if enough people take part, and we get enough data then we can see if our cumulative experience of guitar sound and corresponding assessments of a pickups tone are sufficiently stochastic that all the other influences, like the guitars we've used the pickups in, the amps we've played them through, the strings we use, the rooms they've been played in, the players themeselves and so on and so forth will all be cancelled out and we may just end up with estimations of the pickups EQing that is accurate enough to be a useful guide.
So, if you own or have extensively played any BKs, please submit your EQ estimation for that pickup in Bass Mid Treble between 0 and 10.
The estimates do not have to be 'accurate': thats sort of the point, they just have to be what you think the pickup is; try and take into account everything else in your setup if you wish but theres no need - just tell me what your gut feel on it is. ANY honest and genuine answer is a correct one, there are no wrong ones, so please contribute if you can
----You can PM them to me if you want----
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Because its possible that our decisions and judgments might be swayed by the decisions and judgments of other participants, I'd appreciate it if you could provide your estimates without reading any other estimates. I cant make you not read them, obviously, but it works better for the methodology and results of this project if all results are totally independent, and that means not knowing what others have said.
So, again, if youre a little nervous about stating your estimates in the thread, feel free to PM them to me, I wont be offering any opinions one way or the other nor disclosing anything sent to me in a PM publically, and, this hasnt happened yet, but just in case:
The only restriction on discussion in this thread that I would appreciate it if people would observe is please do not comment on or criticise the estimates in the thread. Start another thread, I'm sure no one is offended by such discussions taking place in general (I know I'm not, and have participated in such 'discussions' :lol:), but we wouldnt want anyone to think that if they submit their estimates in here that they're going to get their heads bitten off or be pooh-poohed by anyone. That hasnt happened, and I ask that it doesnt (we're a nice bunch, so it shouldnt and I probably didnt have to ask; just making sure).
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Dont overcomplicate things, or the results will end up meaningless. I'll keep tabs of the data and build up a spreadsheet of it, and when I think theres enough for it to be statistically significant I'll send it off to Tim to see if he thinks it looks sensible.
I find this quite interesting precisely because its not what this method is normally used for - the sound of a pickup may or may not be subjective, they will have their own response spectra that is pretty deterministic, but not many people would be bothered to look at, or take the time to create a fourier transform of the output of the pickup in controlled conditions (which would be little like how they would behave in a guitar anyway); rather the 0 to 10 thing is subjective, and how you weigh it against your previous experience is subjective, and the idea is (and the interesting bit to me) is whether all these subjectivities also cancel each other out along with all the different effects on the sound you ascribe to the pickup because of the range of stuff youve they've been used with, and whether you end up with something thats not objective per se from all this subjective data, but how representative of these few specific variables the results we get are within the chaos of dozens of others in thousands of permutations as experienced by hundreds of people, and whether in fact having so much chaos and so many other variables with so many sources actually helps make a better assessment of the pickups sound.
How representative they are will be decided by Tim and co. They may think that the data is horribly wrong, and we'll learn that in this instance at least, this method of trying to get representivity out of lots of subjectivity is flawed. On the other hand, if the data is good and looks good to Tim et al, then we can use it for the sites tone charts.
Anyway, enough prattle, please join in the construction of, I believe, the first user-group generated tone charts in the big wide pickup world :D
