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Viii. Pickup Height on ActivesEMG recommends you to put them as close as possible. I followed this advice when I had these pickups and never noticed any problems with doing so. For the Blackouts, this is where things get a little interesting. The pickups seem to have some kind of buffer, so they will not output above a certain level. So it's like a limiter effect. If you raise them close, you will actually reduce the dynamics to your attack. I prefer to keep a medium distance on these pickups. They work pretty well at a distance. I actually have them as low as possible on my custom Jem (which actually isn’t THAT low). Even with some distance, they still have a higher-than-normal output. But if you go too low, you’ll notice you can’t get good artificial harmonics or softer notes to sound good. Top of Guitar Setup
Ix. Pickup Suggestions Petrucci uses the Dimarzio Crunchlab and Liquifire combo. You can't deny his tone. I switched to these on an earlier model of his EBMM signature, and I like the tone better - it's very mid-focused but modern and thick. The earlier Steve's Special/Air Norton are also great pickups - slightly more chunk and bite to the tone. Vai uses Dimarzio Breed and Evolution pickups (EDIT: and now the acclaimed Gravity Storm pickups) - also a guy with great tone. I've played a stock Jem before and was surprised how easily you could get a great metal tone from it - I figured they would come off a little fatter and fuzzier. I've heard that EMG's __X line of pickups have improved on the short-comings of their earlier models, but I am skeptical that they'd sound better than high-quality passives. I really, really like the Dimarzio D-Activators - very aggressive pickups. And while they cost a bit more, I hear that BareKnuckle Pickups are basically the best in the industry, although I've never used any in person - I personally think they're too expensive, but if money is no obstacle... In general, Seymour Duncan, Dimarzio, Lungren, Lace, EMG, and BareKnuckle are all popular brands, and you can find pickups suggestions all over the web. Top of Guitar Setup G. Bridge I can't tell you much about how this type of bridge material will affect your tone, but I do know that a fixed bridge will best maximize your frequency response and sustain. If you have a floating bridge, you may lose a little brightness (or some thickness) - something to keep in mind for pickup selection and tone editing. You can use a Tremel-no or put a block of wood under the bridge to keep it from floating. I recommend the Tremel-no – it allows you to switch on the fly by turning a thumb-screw. Also, if you have a Strat type bridge (whammy dives only) or floating bridge, I recommend stuffing the bear claw cavity in the back of the guitar with Kleenex or cotton balls or gauze. This will keep the springs from making any noise, so that they do not ring after you play a note. This is essential for hard rock and metal, where you use lots of compression/distortion and have to play punchy rhythm or lead sections that require you to quickly mute all the strings. This is a common technique, not some ill-thought-out hack. Similarly, mute the strings between the nut and tuner to prevent them from ringing. I like to use sticky-tack (earthquake putty), but you can also use foam or a wristband. Top of Guitar Setup
H. Nut The nut is an often overlooked area of the guitar. It needs to be positioned properly for the guitar to intonate correctly. It has a strong effect on the action. An improperly filed nut can cause tuning and sustain issues or cause buzzing/ringing on open strings. I recommend having a professional adjust your nut. To file it correctly it is best done with specialized filing tools, which are too costly to justify a one-time use. I like my nut to be like the 0th fret - providing a similar clearance over the 1st fret for open strings as they have over the 2nd fret when fretting the 1st fret. Any lower and they'll buzz. Any higher and intonation is off and action is unnecessarily high. The strings should make firm contact with the nut right where they leave the nut and travel over the fret board. The grooves should point directly towards the tuning pegs. They should be wide enough to fit the string in easily and so that it doesn't pinch when tuning or bending. It also has to be smooth so the string slides easily over it and doesn't break. But it can't be so wide as to allow the string to rattle in the groove. They have to be deep enough so the strings don't pop out, but shallow enough so the strings can easily fit into and out of the nut.
Top of Guitar Setup I. Body/Fret board/Tuners/Neck-through/etc. Some people claim all the "tone" is in other parts of the guitar. I've had people tell me I gotta get such-and-such tuners, or this kind of fret board, or a neck-through design, or a body made of this kind of wood, or this kind of paint job, etc. etc. While all these things certainly will affect the tone, I don't think they have nearly as much impact as the things I mentioned above. Very popular artists that have all achieved highly desirable tones throughout the ages have used a very wide variety of such things. Most fret boards are rosewood, but EVH played a maple one mostly. Jimmy Page used a 10+ lb. Les Paul, yet Steve Vai's Jem's are like 4 lbs. Get tuners that help best tune your guitar. Set the guitar up properly. Worry about body weight and your bridge setting for sustain rather than tone. Paint the guitar the color you want. If any of these things really adversely affect the tone, you can generally use pickups that help counter these affects. For example, if they make your tone bright and thin, use pickups that are a bit darker. If your tone is dull, get bright pickups. Yes, you may lose a bit of potential tone; theoretically, you should maximize the richness of the tone towards your desired tone for every component. But you're not a rocket scientist, nor are you likely going to be able to build your guitar component by component. Of course, this has limitations. If you're thinking about buying a guitar that sounds really dull, you won't achieve great results by getting really bright pickups. You can't EQ in frequencies that never existed to begin with. My main point here is don't sweat the small stuff. You'll likely get relatively larger tonal improvements by properly setting up your guitar and using good pickups than by spending a fortune building a 100% custom guitar. And your guitar will only get you so far. Even a great guitar still sounds like crap going straight to the board. You need the compression, EQ, and distortion that only post-guitar processing/amplifiers can give you. Still with me?! Good, let's move on to...USING THE POD... IV. Pod Setup
This page covers how to physically connect the Pod to your gear and how to setup common settings as well as understand how they work. There are basically two operating modes for the Pod: "direct" or "live". "Direct" means you're connecting to a DAW, PA/mixing board, home stereo, or headphones, and you want the Pod to simulate a mic'ed guitar cabinet. "Live" means you intend to use an actual guitar cabinet/speaker. Note, if you are connecting to a DAW and using an external IR to simulate a mic'ed guitar cabinet, I treat that as a "live" setup, although all the physical connections are the same as a "direct" setup. Unlike full-range speakers, guitar speakers are designed to generally have a unique (not flat) response that rolls off the low-end and high-end frequencies, typically around 120 HZ and 5 kHZ. See this graph of a typical Celestion speaker designed for guitar cabinets:
Additionally, they have certain features such as phase inaccuracy that contribute to a unique tone. They are often driven to distortion as well. Guitar cabinets are often driven to the point where the reverberations inside the cabinet and degree of air compression change the way the speaker(s) behave(s). In contrast, most PA systems, headphones, monitors, home stereo speakers, etc. are designed to produce a relatively flat response with little distortion. Sending a guitar amp (or model) signal directly into such speakers is going to sound very harsh and buzzy. Even if you apply extreme EQ to roll-off the highs and lows, as well as accent the presence like a guitar speaker, you don't get a guitar speaker or cabinet's unique nuances. Unfortunately, this breakdown isn't so simple. There are a wide range of products out there, from speakers to amps that enter a middle-ground - many look like traditional amps but are designed for use with modelers. This can introduce further confusion as to how to hook up your Pod. Depending on the product, you should follow its instructions as to how it should be treated. If it doesn't specify, you likely want to set it up as "direct", same as running to a PA or monitors; but I'd try it both ways and see which way you prefer. The Pod HD can also get kind of confusing as far as output modes, which I touch upon below. Date: 2016-01-03; view: 895
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