So Im sitting there thinking, in the nHiFi world decoupling your gear from unwanted resonances is a good thing, then my attention turned to my guitars, shouldn't that be the same? What goes in should be exactly the same as what comes out? So , a dead sounding electric guitar when played acoustically should be the purest sounding guitar when played through an amp, anything else is just coloured by resonances produced by anything but the strings vibrating and picked up by the pickups? So, pickup characteristics cannot be determined by anything other than an acoustically dead guitar? Does that make sense?
A Deuce , a Tele and a cup of tea.
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The most obvious one is that unlike HiFi, we’re actively encouraging distortion even when set for ‘clean’ operation. Plug your guitar into a modern bass amplifier to hear what cleans sound like with only 0.1%thd!
Rift Amplification
Brackley, Northamptonshire
www.riftamps.co.uk
A good example of pickups which aren’t are EMGs... which are very ‘pure’, but many people also find ‘sterile’.
What I’ve always found a bit strange is that despite being essentially the same thing tuned an octave apart, a very clean bass sound is thought to be desirable - even to the point of DI’ing the instrument straight to the desk/PA - whereas a guitar amplified that cleanly is thought to sound terrible.
I may be a bit unusual (or just a bass player ) in that I actually like a DI’d electric guitar sound, for some things.
Hi-fi is a very different thing again, and it’s not much of an exaggeration that what’s best for hi-fi is worst for guitar, and vice versa.
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String resonances can be damped, if desired. Unusual resonances are my reason/excuse for owning a Fender Jaguar. It’s riddled with them.
Find it where you can, folks.
On the acoustically dead guitar thing... I think that does come into play somewhat with the classic heavy as a ten ton heavy thing Les Paul Custom. I don't like dead-weight, no-resonance guitars to pick up and play but it doesn't mean that, plugged in, they can't sound amazing.
and ditto similar thoughts on an LP Custom and thinking of the likes of Z Wylde Saturated gain - EMG's etc so a 'lifeless' body will have 'less' impact on the overall voice - This is just a hunch and not a scientific fact
Personally my first test on any guitar, any make, any price, is unplugged and then take it from there