guitar pickup sim?

[Frantiac]

Does anybody know of a vst plugin that simulates guitar pickups, in the same way that Antares Mic Modeler did with microphones?

I use a Tele for recording and it would be useful to be able to select for example a PAF humbucker or a P90 ...

Just a thought

[BertKoor]

Line6 has done this with the Variax, but that's no vst plugin...

[Lunch Money]

I think it's a cool idea.

[A3ntar]

Hey, that is not bad of an idea. Although implementing it would be a $$ process. You would have to have most of the pickups sampled to convert them to other pickups.

[Funkybot's Evil Twin]

Guitar pickups don't stop at EQ changes though. The sim would also need to factor in things like gain, compression, etc. For instance an EQ curve from a Les Paul on a Strat still wouldn't make it sound anything like a Les Paul. I think Line 6 was wise with the Variax in the sense that they at least no variables with their pic-ups, so all they need to do is match their one pick-up to others, thus cutting the number of variables down a lot, and allowing them to come a lot closer than I think anyone else not doing this would be able to. Someone prove me wrong though. I've got an Epi Les Paul, a Fender Tele Deluxe and a Strat; two out of those three are in desperate need of some work and don't get used. It would be nice not to ever have to use them.

[Lunch Money]

Weeeelllll.... sort of. You're right that gain in real-world application is a huge part of it. But once the signal is into your DAW, it's irrelevant. A high-output humbucker and the weakest of single-coils have their levels set before hitting your sequencer, and both could have the same RMS on the final recorded waveform. Harmonic content will be different, though. No straight-up EQ will do the job by itself.

[Funkybot's Evil Twin]

Well gain also works in relation to how much the pickup compresses. For instance humbuckers aren't quite as dynamic as single coils, so to go backwards from a humbucker to a single coil would involve more than just EQ and even gain adjustments, it might also require some expansion.

[Lunch Money]

Not exactly. Humbuckers don't feature compression. They just tend to drive tube amps harder, which results in compression.

Every single magnetic pickup in the world is nothing more than magnets and a coil, which turn the vibrating metal strings' energy into voltage, which can then be amplified as an audible signal. Despite pickup companies' marketing ("this one is a distortion pickup!" which actually made me think in the 80s that it had some sort of onboard distortion) terminology, there is no actual compression happening.

Greg

[Funkybot's Evil Twin]

Not exactly. Humbuckers don't feature compression. They just tend to drive tube amps harder, which results in compression.

Every single magnetic pickup in the world is nothing more than magnets and a coil, which turn the vibrating metal strings' energy into voltage, which can then be amplified as an audible signal. Despite pickup companies' marketing ("this one is a distortion pickup!" which actually made me think in the 80s that it had some sort of onboard distortion) terminology, there is no actual compression happening.

Greg

Well, I'll argue that point with you a bit on a non-scientific level anyway. If the "sustain" of a note is being amplified on say a humbucker vs. a single coil, then doesn't that mean that the attack vs. a single a coil isn't getting reduced to some degree to make up for the sustain (i.e. compression)? Both my mexi-Strat and my Tele-Deluxe seem a lot more dynamic than my Epi Les Paul, and to some extend I think it's that the former two have less gain built into their pick-ups making them more dynamic, and thus seeming less compressed. I'm not saying humbuckers by default have compression somehow built into them, but to increase sustain they way they do, there is going to be some kind of trade off, which has to mean a loss of dynamics, effectively making them less dynamic. If anyone with a lot more info on pick-up design wants to chime in, please feel free to do so, right now I'm piss drunk and this is the best I can do to defend my argument.

[luka2807]

well, youre both right, humbukers do have stronger signal thus making your amp tubes driven harder but it is also true that humbuckers reduce attack and also higher freq due to the stronger magnetic fields that are "dampening" string vibration. generally, it is is easier to "transform" single coils into humbuckers than vice verse. strat/tele sound is very hard to achieve with any sort of humbucker and pile of processing gear, otoh strat with some slow attack and compression and highs roll off sound "something" like humbucker. also hum reduction is also possible with todays noise reduction software

[Lunch Money]

Noise reduction software is always a trade-off, but I find the Line 6 algorithm to be really useful.

I disagree that humbuckers have more sustain. Indeed, single-coil guitars often have more natural sustain, but not necessarily. Sustain is entirely a function of the materials used to build the guitar, plus as luka mentioned, the magnetic field damping the string's vibration. The sustain you're probably experiencing is due to higher output, which drives an amp harder, creating compression, which in turn creates the illusion of sustain.

Since this is an interaction between guitar and amp, it becomes a whole different game when recording the signal "dry" for use with amp sims and suchlike.

As for the difficulty, I actually tend to agree-- it should be easier to take a single-coil (a one-node signal) and emulate a humbucker. A humbucker, as a 2-node signal, would be trickier to shift into single-coil zone. But more difficult doesn't = impossible, and I think that given the sophisticated DSP we are capable of these days, it would still be a worthwhile exercise trying to get such an effect up and running.

Greg

[Frantiac]

I take it this idea never got off the ground?

[MitchK1989]

I find I can get plenty of beef from normal single coils with the proper use of multiband compression, multiband distortion, and EQ.

[ew]

Sustain is entirely a function of the materials used to build the guitar, plus as luka mentioned, the magnetic field damping the string's vibration. The sustain you're probably experiencing is due to higher output, which drives an amp harder, creating compression, which in turn creates the illusion of sustain.

In the case of a Strat, what you're experiencing is more than likely string pull issues. Stock Strat single coils have very powerful magnets; setting them close to the strings will result in a loss of sustain because of string pull. If you set the pickup low enough to offset the string pull, you've lost volume because of the distance from the strings.

The solution? Use replacement pickups designed to minimize string pull. There's a lot of them out there these days...

ew

[tommy_d]

Does anybody know of a vst plugin that simulates guitar pickups, in the same way that Antares Mic Modeler did with microphones?

Sounds like a damn good idea to me. TBH I'm surprised that no-one seems to have tried it before. I've got a BOSS multi-fx (that I don't use any more) that had something similar; it wasn't perfect, but it could be pretty convincing sometimes.

In the absence of a dedicated plug, might it be possible to achieve the same thing using convolution? If you could capture a pickup's sonic "fingerprint" using some kind of impulse, surely you could apply it using something like keFIR, SIR etc...?