Which guitar to buy for recording purpose?

Discussion in 'Guitar Gear Talk Forum' started by abhinavjoshua, Aug 26, 2012.

  1. abhinavjoshua

    abhinavjoshua New Member

    Hi Guys,
    I am planning to buy a new guitar for under 20k. My genre is Rock. I don't have a guitar and use my friend's guitar (Schecter Omen) for recording my stuff. But, now I am planning to buy a new guitar for abovesaid budget. Kindly do suggest me something!

    I don't really care about the looks, but it should be the best sounding guitar under 20k. That's it!

    Thanks!
    DO REPLY!

    P.S. If you want to sell your guitar, PM me. Also interested in second hand!
     
  2. fena

    fena New Member

  3. abhinavjoshua

    abhinavjoshua New Member

  4. alpha1

    alpha1 I BLUES!

    What would be different in a "recording guitar"?
     
  5. rickkkyrich

    rickkkyrich Guest

    Again the subtleties
     
  6. wylder

    wylder Member

    Very low noise pickups and well shielded wiring/control cavity would be a good start...
     
  7. alpha1

    alpha1 I BLUES!

    And why would someone not pick that guitar up for live playing?
     
  8. wylder

    wylder Member

    Many reasons... For instance, because ultra low noise pickups are usually lower output (or maybe actives) and hence tougher to generate controlled feedback from the amp.
     
  9. rickkkyrich

    rickkkyrich Guest

    Low noise pickups are usually low output? That way single coils should be used for playing metal...
    Can you elaborate.. just for my understanding...
     
  10. wylder

    wylder Member

    In general for passive pick-ups, higher the output of the pickup, stronger the magnet used and higher the number of loops of wire wound around the pickup. But besides increasing the output current of the pickup, this will also increase the sensitivity of the pickup to external sources of electrical disturbance. This means your guitar will pick up noise from things like a fan running a couple of meters above you or a TV nearby, neon signs and some other lighting equipment etc.

    To overcome this, active pick-ups use a very low output pickup and hook it up to a internal pre-amp to pump the signal back to a high output. But then again it has its limitations...
     
  11. wylder

    wylder Member

    Oh by the way when I said low noise I meant it for people who are picky about the quiet hiss from pickups when recording that you won't notice when generally playing.

    Not the 60 cycle hum from cheap pickups.
     
  12. alpha1

    alpha1 I BLUES!

    Low noise or high noise is NOT determined by the magnetic field or the sensitivity of the pickups to vibrations ...
    Its got to do with the common mode rejection ration of the pick ups.
    Which means better shielding, better quality magnets, better windings etc. (perhaps some radically different design - like C shaped pickups and strings vibrating between the poles = ends of C)

    A low output pickup will NOT reduce the noise. Any low noise that you hear is only because the signal is weak. Once you plug it into a rack and bring it to line level it will sound the same as a high output pickup.


    Perhaps the "recording guitar" is nothing but another way to part your money to the marketing department ...
     
  13. wylder

    wylder Member

    Hey, here's a cool discussion on this topic that I got off Google...
    High Gain Noise

    Being a mechanical engineer working IT, its all Greek to me. But if you can make sense of it and enlighten us, I'll be greatly thankful...
     
  14. wylder

    wylder Member

    Maybe its a theoretical vs practical thing, just like how a tube amp running hot feels different to a solid state when you play on it...

    Or perhaps its just psychological, as you play with more expressions knowing its a tube amp or you get paranoid about noise when using hot passive HH pickups...
     
  15. alpha1

    alpha1 I BLUES!

    That thread has not spoken a word about hi-gain and lo-gain differences and how that can cause a higher Signal-noise ratio (SNR) in one case compared to the other.
    :-O

    A pickup being a transducer will simply pick signal as well as noise and generate electrical output.
    If the pickup is high output one then both get amplified.
    If pickup is low output one, then you will use an amp to raise the output and will come to the same situation as above.

    Common mode rejection design is like a humbucker that rejects the common mode noise, or like a balanced XLR line.
    This improves the SNR, as does shielding etc


    *** Don't worry about the electrical engg bit, even I am not one.
     
  16. wylder

    wylder Member

    This is what I have understood...

    The problem is that as the output of the pickup increases, more wire is wound into the pickup thus increasing the impedance of the pickup.
    High impedance (Hi-Z) devices tend to pickup ambient radiation noise easier than Lo-Z (This is why guitar signals pick up lot of noise when transmitted through a long cable unlike mic signals).

    Hence, high output pickups tend to pick up more noise.

    The alternate to this is what active pickups do - use a low output pickup and boost the signal using a pre-amp built into the guitar itself. Now you have a signal which has the same net output as a hi-output pickup but coming off a Lo-Z source. So this signal picks up less noise from surroundings and also is now less prone to picking up noise during transmission over long cables.
     
  17. alpha1

    alpha1 I BLUES!

    1. And it also picks up more signal than a low impedance device.
    2. This is exactly what I said in my earlier post. You will reach the same levels of signal and noise by using a preamp.

    So how is the signal to noise ratio better in low impedance coils?
     
  18. wylder

    wylder Member

    The huge number of coils in the high output pups act as an antenna and pickup electromagnetic noise from other objects. It has to do with sensitivity of the pickup to EM noise and not string vibration alone.
     
  19. alpha1

    alpha1 I BLUES!

    These same huge number of coils also pick up the string vibrations much better than the lower number of coils.

    Which means the ratio of string vibration signal to extraneous noise remains the same.

    ***
    Pole Magnet causes a magnetic flux. Magnetic flux is disturbed by the vibrating strings as well as external factors that cause the noise.
    The changing magnetic field gives rise to the electric field in the conductor (coil).
    Electric field in conductor causes EMF which is measured in volts.

    This Voltage depends on number of turns of such conductor and the rate of change of magnetic flux. So when you increase the no of turns you have increased the voltage induced.

    However, note that change of no of turns has nothing to do with the actual magnetic flux present, or the rate of change of it.
    Now, as I mentioned, the magnetic flux (and its changes) are caused by pole magnet, presence of ferromagnetic material (like strings) and environmental electro-magnetic disturbances (lightning, sparking, earth, AC mains, radio waves, ...)

    How is it that suddenly I get a more "isolated" and "clean" magnetic flux by using a higher no of turns in the pickup coil?

    To use the numbers.
    Say magnetic field = 10 Tesla. 9 is because of pole magnet, and 1 is because of noisy environment.
    The flux through a 1 cm2 loop-area coil will be = 10 * 1/10000 Tesla/m2 = 0.001 Weber

    This 1 Weber of magnetic flux changes 1000 times per second (due to string vibration), hence rate of change = .001*1000 Weber/s = 1 Weber/second.
    1 Weber/second = 1 Volt

    Please note that out of this 1 volt, .9 volt is because of string vibration and .1 is because of external noise.


    Now lets see, if I have 100 turns of coil:
    Flux rate = 1 Weber/sec x 100 = 100 Volts.

    Well, out of this 100 volts: 90 volts is because of string vibration and 10 volt is because of noise.

    As it turns out .9/.1 = 90/10 = 9
    the ratio always remains same.


    The only way to improve this ratio (= lower the noise) is to reduce the magnetic flux through the coil due to noise compared to the magnetic flux due to vibrating string.
    So how do you do that?

    1. Shielding.
    2. Different pole design
     
  20. wylder

    wylder Member

    Maybe besides the magnetic pickup function, the wire used in the winding also acts as an antenna which picks up radio waves in the air.

    We know that min antenna length = wavelength/2

    As length of the antenna increases above the minimum length, strength of signal improves as well as spectrum of signal received increases. This will add to the noise on top of frequencies picked up by the magnetic pickup.
     

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