New BKP pickup EQ charts confusing?

[Philly Q]

So the Emeralds I have coming in the next few days have the same EQ curve as a Riff Raff.  But as they're hotter, there's a reduction in treble which also has a compensated reduction in mids and bass to balance it.

So by the sound of it, Emeralds are Riff Raffs with a bit more beef and bit less spike.

That is, unless I've done a dave_mc and completely over-analysed it  :lol:

You have TOTALLY over-analysed it, to death!  :P

(Uncharacteristically so, I must say)

But I think your final analysis makes sense!

[dave_mc]

Ok, so we're getting somewhere  :lol:

So the Emeralds I have coming in the next few days have the same EQ curve as a Riff Raff.  But as they're hotter, there's a reduction in treble which also has a compensated reduction in mids and bass to balance it.

So by the sound of it, Emeralds are Riff Raffs with a bit more beef and bit less spike.

That is, unless I've done a dave_mc and completely over-analysed it  :lol:

:lol:

i haven't tried the riff-raffs or emeralds. But assuming what we're both saying is right, then that sounds about right, yeah.

[MDV]

Hmmm

Its not an unfair point. I had noticed this, and had noticed that the vast majority of the estimates were over 5, and it seemed that if some part of the spectrum was suppressed to someones ears then they were reluctant to give an estimate for it less than 4.

On the other hand, it seems that the readings *should* fall round 5, that being assumed a 'neutral' value, no more or less than what one expects from years of playing hundreds of different guitars and pickups, but the tendency was toward 'MOAR'; choosing higher numbers as a 'hype' sort of a thing.

I considered, briefly, normalising all the data round 5: i.e. taking the average of the EQs, fixing that at 5 for every pickup, and then reducing (as would be the case for all of the data I got) the values so that they sat around that line. In that case, where you have pickups that have, say 5,6,7 and 6,7,8 they would be the same (4,5,6)

I didnt because I couldnt really; that wouldnt have been an honest thing to do with the data, based on the premise of the data gathering and the method by which the final readings are compiled, which depended entirely on lots of subjective, knee jerk responses giving something thats representative of the performance of the pickup that *most* people can expect.

Also, if its the natural inclination of the user group to give higher values then I couldnt distort the expectations of BK neophytes by artificially dropping the values, even keeping the same differences between them.

I think in those cases some odd and ephemaral psychoacoustic phenomena may have come into play of the pickup has a similar balance but sounds less aggressive, smoother, not so compressed, more compressed, whatever. Or it could easily just be that there wasnt enough data to iron that sort of oddness out of the final sets.

I wouldnt try to think about them as 100% objective numbers. Its not like anything was measured for it.

As far as specific user experiences disagreeing with the data goes....sucks for you :lol: I kid; its simply that the values you see are 'democratic', for the most part; there was quite a bit of variation between estimates in the final groups (eric, you dont agree? Tough; your values are in the data that was used for the charts on the site! As are mine, but I didnt give anyone a stronger weigthing in the stats) and the values you see are an average of lots of users; thats sort of the point.

It all hinges round how the data was gathered.

Except single coils and any necks that theres achart for - I beileve a similar sort of thing was done @BK, after Tim and I went through tims own subjective estimates and my(/your) data and they were in excellent agreement, Tim was happy that estimates done with fewer people in-house for the pickups that no data was available for would be consistent with the estimates done by us users.

[Twinfan]

That doesn't help me one bit MDV  :lol:

So basically, the charts are specific to each pickup and can't be compared?  In which case they're of no use for comparisons?

[MDV]

Well, ish, and no - the charts were made by, in part, an average of the estimates given by all users that chose to give the estimates for them (so since no one has all the pickups except tim and maybe philking, who didnt choose to take part) there is isolation between the pickups because they depended on what any given person heard and submitted.

The other part was a small adjustment from tims own estimates, which were all very close to the statistical ones. The final values were an average of the data from the survey and of tims.

On the whole for interpretation of them, the difference between the bass mid treble for each pickup is much, much more usefull than the actual value (which is meaningless in an absolute sense anyway; what the hell is "7" of "Bass")

[Twinfan]

OK, so the curve of B-M-T is fine and a representation of the product.  I get that.

But back to my core question, how does the EQ chart for a Riff Raff and an Emerald give any info as to the difference between them?

Sorry to keep harping on about this but if the information is there to help people choose which pickup suits them best, they need to know how to interpret the data.  The clips are useful, but we don't know what guitar or amp was used.  Or what the volume/tone control settings were.  Or what (if any) post production was done etc.

[MDV]

As I understand it there was no post production.

Bear in mind that the actual response of any pickup is far more complex than 'bass mid treble'. Its a really clumsy way of doing it; its just familiar and comprehensible to most people. There are differences in voicing, both in EQ if you use greater resolution than just 3 bands, and espacially the envelope of a note/chord that a pickup will create (in interaction with a given guitar or player) that cant be represented like that. The BMT values are 'about right', but they arent enough, imo; I'd like to see fourier transforms of the responses, but thats probably just me :lol:

Same as, say, a dual rec and an uberschall with the eq all set to 5 have a similar sort of balance between lows mids and highs, but they sound totally different.

[Twinfan]

The B-M-T definitions seem to work OK for DiMarzio and Seymour Duncan though, and you kinda know what you're getting?

[MDV]

Yeah, thats the idea; to give you more of an idea what to expect. Its not a set in stone measurement, including for dimarzio and duncan. Its a rough indicator, but its to be taken with the products description and specs as well.

[djpatb]

I wish the EQ's were listed as Bass, Low Mid, High Mid, High.

[Twinfan]

djpatb - that would be helpful

MDV - SD and DiMarzio use numbers to help compare pups though...

[darkbluemurder]

Its a rough indicator, but its to be taken with the products description and specs as well.

That's basically how I see it as well. The EQ curve is helpful if I have a particular BKP model in one guitar and need something more/less in a particular area, then I have a reference point to find something better suited for a particular application.

[PhilKing]

Well, ish, and no - the charts were made by, in part, an average of the estimates given by all users that chose to give the estimates for them (so since no one has all the pickups except tim and maybe philking, who didnt choose to take part)

I didn't take part because I can take a pickup and put it in several different guitars and get a different response, so to compare one pickup with another, you'd have to have all humbuckers in the the same guitar, all strats in the same, etc.

Even then, to do it properly, you'd have to play the same piece with the same attack, for each pickup and record it to allow your ears to remember the sound.

A great example of how playing affects the sound is Tim.  If you have ever heard Tim play, he gets some amazing sounds out of the pickups.  However he still sounds like Tim, and his overall tone still sounds like Tim.  The sounds that I am looking for in a pickup revolve around blues and classic rock.  I can get those sounds out of a Miracle Man and Warpig (all be it heavier sounding), or a Stormy Monday or Mule.   The amp I am using can also make a big difference, as does the setting.  Irish Tours and Riff Raffs can sound very bright through the wrong amp settings at a lower volume, but put them in a band situation and they are great.

One other thing that I don't think is on the new site even, is the different magnets.  I have Stormy Mondays with AII & AIV magnets, and Mules with AII, AIII, AIV & AV.  This makes a big difference to the tone.  Also, and this might be Dave's point, how do you express drive in these charts?  By playing harder, and using 11-50 strings, I can get a Stormy Monday to drive my amp into feedback.  I can get this same drive from an Emerald or Abraxas without playing as hard, but there isn't anything that show's that.  DC resistance isn't what matters, it is the output of the pickup into your amp.  Heavy gauge strings hit hard give more output than light gauge strings just being tickled.

So all things being equal, the sound examples will probably give you the best idea of the tone.  The EQ charts are at best just a subjective indication of what the pickup will sound like.

[MDV]

Well, ish, and no - the charts were made by, in part, an average of the estimates given by all users that chose to give the estimates for them (so since no one has all the pickups except tim and maybe philking, who didnt choose to take part)

I didn't take part because I can take a pickup and put it in several different guitars and get a different response, so to compare one pickup with another, you'd have to have all humbuckers in the the same guitar, all strats in the same, etc.

Even then, to do it properly, you'd have to play the same piece with the same attack, for each pickup and record it to allow your ears to remember the sound.

A great example of how playing affects the sound is Tim.  If you have ever heard Tim play, he gets some amazing sounds out of the pickups.  However he still sounds like Tim, and his overall tone still sounds like Tim.  The sounds that I am looking for in a pickup revolve around blues and classic rock.  I can get those sounds out of a Miracle Man and Warpig (all be it heavier sounding), or a Stormy Monday or Mule.   The amp I am using can also make a big difference, as does the setting.  Irish Tours and Riff Raffs can sound very bright through the wrong amp settings at a lower volume, but put them in a band situation and they are great.

One other thing that I don't think is on the new site even, is the different magnets.  I have Stormy Mondays with AII & AIV magnets, and Mules with AII, AIII, AIV & AV.  This makes a big difference to the tone.  Also, and this might be Dave's point, how do you express drive in these charts?  By playing harder, and using 11-50 strings, I can get a Stormy Monday to drive my amp into feedback.  I can get this same drive from an Emerald or Abraxas without playing as hard, but there isn't anything that show's that.  DC resistance isn't what matters, it is the output of the pickup into your amp.  Heavy gauge strings hit hard give more output than light gauge strings just being tickled.

So all things being equal, the sound examples will probably give you the best idea of the tone.  The EQ charts are at best just a subjective indication of what the pickup will sound like.

Then you sorta missed the point of how I did it mate - the entire idea was to USE the fact that every pickup will sound different in lots of guitar and with different players and through different amps and so on and so forth, get as many estimates from as many people, and therefore guitars and setups as possible, and take an average of all of them to get the most representative guess, or most usefull one for any given prospective user, at how the pickup alone is infuencing the sound, because all those differences would elimiate - there would be as many people using them in bright guitars as dark, for example, and the estimates would fall on a gausian distribution (and they did fall on a gausian), showing that these variations are stochastic and would cancel.

Myself and tim are both aware of the difficulties in subjective, or isolated estimates that you mention - the entire thing was designed precisely to use them in a fashion that in the final analysis would circumvent them.

[MDV]

djpatb - that would be helpful

MDV - SD and DiMarzio use numbers to help compare pups though...

They will have been made by a couple of people, however, and the values chosen to be different, They probably ran into the same sort of thing and intentionally made the values vary between pickups more, whereas our method had far more people involved that werent (in theory: it would have ruined it anyway) choosing values based on the other values they'd chosen. Its just a consequence of the methodology.