Do you guys flat EQ?

[TimmyPage]

Or am I just missing something? People say that the C5 and 59 have no mids.. but cant you just remedy that by eq-ing your amp?

[Lewguitar]

Those who say that about the 59B are wrong and don't know what they're talking about. Clapton used a similar pickup in his SG with Cream, Larry Carlton and Eric Johnson have similar pickups in Gibson ES-335's and thier tone has plenty of mids. However, you can't make a 59B sound and respond like a Custom Custom, Custom or 78 by boosting the mids on your amp. Just won't sound the same or do the same thing to the tone. The 59B has enough mids....but there are pickups with more mids. Lew

[Aceman]

Do you mean flat eq the amp? That's actually tough to do...takes either a really good ear or a pink noise generatro/spec analyzer.

The whole relative frequency perception thing is pretty variable.

And I'll throw this in: The tone first comes from the guitar - wood, construction etc. If a guitar doesn't have the tone in the first place, pups and eq can't fix it. An LP is a mid rich guitar, usually, and often not a bright guitar. Adding a mid heavy pup and boosting the amps eq can bring out all the mids that are there to hear. And you can get a seriously mid scooped pup and dial down the mid on the amp and get rid of them.

But - getting a highs boosted pup and turning up the treble on a really dark paul will just sound like crap. You are simply amplifiying the sound of nothing.

10 x 10 x 0 = 0. You'll just be making it obvious in a very loud way that there are few highs in the axe. Or mids, or bass, or whatever.

As for mids - never trust me on that - I hear PG/59/Custom as having something of scoop (although not a death metal 20db scoop!) That's a scoop in my ear mostly....

[TimmyPage]

Well I mean flat eq by like.. 5/5/5 or 7/7/7 or something along those lines..

[Lewguitar]

I set my amp so it sounds good to me with the guitar I'm using at the moment and in the room I'm playing in at the moment...not by the numbers.

Lew

[Aceman]

And the numbers all equal is usually not "flat" soundwise.

[Lewguitar]

And the numbers all equal is usually not "flat" soundwise.

Nope. It's impossible to get a flat EQ with most tube guitar amps. The tone controls just do not work that way. It's not like a stereo or hi fi where you can set everything at half and have a flat EQ...guitar amps are differant. Lew

[gripweed]

Those who say that about the 59B are wrong and don't know what they're talking about. Clapton used a similar pickup in his SG with Cream, Larry Carlton and Eric Johnson have similar pickups in Gibson ES-335's and thier tone has plenty of mids. However, you can't make a 59B sound and respond like a Custom Custom, Custom or 78 by boosting the mids on your amp. Just won't sound the same or do the same thing to the tone. The 59B has enough mids....but there are pickups with more mids. Lew

I agree. The '59 has great mids! I haven't tried the c5, so I can't comment on that.

[Aceman]

Lew - Thanks for the agreement, but get off the forum and sell me some pups!

[Lewguitar]

Done Aceman!