>What is a TBX tone control? What's the difference between that, and a
>normal one. Also, I want to build my own guitar. What difference would
>adding active electronics make?
>--
>Steve Nakhla
>nakhla at mail.bcpl.lib.md.us
I think that guitars require an active midrange control, not just treble and bass. It is unfair that "acoustic" guitars have equalization onboard, while "electric" guitars only have a primitive "tone" knob! Let's get serious! Electric guitars should have a low-noise 3-band equalizer, at least.
The Metal Zone distortion pedal has a nice approach to guitar equalization: essentially a 3-band graphic equalizer, plus control of the midrange centerpoint. This minimal, effective equalizer is a major reason why the Metal Zone is the best distortion box of its class. Note that this equalization happens *after* distortion, while guitar tone controls are placed *before* distortion.
Pickups are part of pre-distortion EQ. For pickup information, see Harmony Central: the pickup database and Other Topics: Guitar Wiring.
List of EQs, products for controlling EQ before distortion - includes Very-Tone information.
Date: Wed, 18 Nov 1998 16:48:06 -0500
From: Stephen Martin
Subject: Pickup Curves
Hi Michael,
>A pair of headphones are an easy device to take EQ curves of. You feed them a sine wave that you sweep from 20Hz to 20kHz. The output is taken by flat mikes placed flush with each of the headphone's tranducers.
>Obtaining an EQ curve of a guitar pickup is another matter. Measuring the output of a guitar pickup is no problem, because it is a direct electrical connection. However, the input stimulus is a real problem. A guitar pickup is a variable reluctance transducer, which means that its input is a moving piece of iron or steel. In this case, it would be steel guitar strings. I have no knowledge of any kind of flat frequency-response, variable-frequency string vibrating machine. What did you have in mind for the input?
-- Stephen Martin
Some sort of electromagnetic transducer, hopefully one that can be standardized or itself spec'd out in detail so that such transducers at other testing locations can be calibrated to get matching test results.
>Good idea, but what will you calibrate it with?
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