Faking a Humbucker Neck Pickup on a Strat

I think this should be possible on the Quad Cortex to a certain degree with for example a Fuzz, EQ, combination of both etc. I just haven found the magic settings until now. I have a Strat with a Bridge Humbucker so an alternative approach would be to make the Bridge Humbucker sound like a Neck Humbucker. I don’t know, but maybe someone here already did it?

there are captures on the Cloud of several devices (Re-Guitar, Keyztone, etc) designed to alter the tone of p’ups to mimic other p’ups, but the effects are … subtle. You could try some of those (I’ll link a few here) by searching “pickup” on the cloud app.

I don’t think any will specifically address making it sound like a different pickup POSITION, I think it’d be hard to make a bridge sound like a neck because by its nature a bridge pickup will be lacking the frequencies and response characteristics of a neck pickup, and its much easier to accentuate things that are there than to recreate what isn’t (frequency-wise anyway) Kinda like trying to make a mag p’up respond like a piezo for acoustic tones, it’s rarely satisfactory.

Looking forward to hearing if anyone has had success with ‘emulating’ pickups. Would be pretty cool if the QC could have a specific feature for this someday

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Thank you very much for your advice. I know that you did also a very nice Feedback Emulation, but let me just say in my opinion there are two things which would really be innovative in the amp modeling world. First a real bad ass Guitar Feedback Emulation, second a real great Pickup Emulation. Both things could already be found by the way on the Roland VG99 which I had a long time ago. I can’t remember how good those emulations were. I think they also didn’t nail it completely…

I have the original V-guitar unit, didn’t even have an expression pedal! The midi-tracking on the Roland pickup was pretty good, but the emulation themselves were “ok.” For the time, they were innovative and great! Open tunings on the fly, split bass and guitar on one instrument- really cool. I bet the VG99 must have been even better/more advanced

Unofficially there have been discussions on the forums with NDSP about pickup or guitar emulation or captures, so who knows, maybe one day!

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I also had (still have) the original Roland VG8. Pretty amazing tech for the time, but definitely a big regret in terms of my history of GAS purchases ! :slight_smile: So bad that I stayed analog all these years, until I got the QC. At least the QC has proven much more useful to me than the VG8 ever did.

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I’m also a big fan of controlled feedback (and Zappa!) and it’s why I got 2 guitars with Fernandes Sustainer pickups. I also dig my Boss Super Feedbacker (with all its artifacts).

I too was secretly expecting something like this in the QC: Fender Runaway Feedback Pedal Demo | Fender - YouTube

It may be too “niche”/specialized. On the other hands people still buy FreqOut pedals…

For @zappafrank curiosity, here is the patent from Softube: https://image-ppubs.uspto.gov/dirsearch-public/print/downloadPdf/7572972

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Some things in life are an endless journey. So is for example my obsession with Zappas Tones and Music. Faking Feedback is also one of those endless journeys. I tried some of the Quad Cortex Presets, I have the Freqout etc., I tried the Softtube and the Audicat Plugin etc. After a long period of hating and ignoring it I finally have come back to the Freqout… :sweat_smile:
What always completely annoyed me was the ugly sound of the Freqout when the effect stops, but then I found out that if you use moderate settings the effect is more or less dying in a less artificial way. So I would say that for example for Zoot Allures the Freqout is pretty usable, but I never nailed with the Freqout that magic sound of the intro of Satrianis Flying in a Blue Dream.

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You know, there’s a Pignose capture and also Trey Gunn (from King Crimson) did a capture of his Systech Overdrive and it’s really close of Frank’s tone 1973-75. Think Po-Jama People tone.

Trey’s: https://neuraldsp.com/cloud/p/2afefbcc-f083-4c17-8815-65e19f78e265

Pignose: https://neuraldsp.com/cloud/p/3adf1823-971a-45d9-ace7-76316b08793c

I did play Po-Jama People last year at the King Crimson Camp and I bought a SG and build a Systech Harmonic Energizer just to play the song. Adrian Belew signed my pedal. :slight_smile:

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Adrian Belew - that’s really cool! I will check those captures out. I was also on a very long tone hunt for Zappas 80s Clean Tone like for example in the song Any kind of pain. Then I found this preset “80s wide clean”:

It is really nice for that purpose. The only thing missing in the Quad Cortex is the Dynaflanger.

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Other Zappa Pedals which I would like to see in Quad Cortex would be the Mutron BiPhase (for Pink Napkins) and the Mutron Microtron (for Inca Roads and I guess it was used also in Son of Orange County…)
I am mainly using just a Factory Soldano Preset with a Cocked Wah (Bad Horsie) and a dynamic Wah (Cry Wah) to get close to Zappas 70s Tone and I think this already nails it pretty good, but okay something like the Systech Overdrive might be the icing on the cake.

In this video Dweezil breaks down the Dynaflanger. Interesting even if you are not an AxeFX user.

I have tried using Electric Impulses - 3 Sigma Audio in QC IR blocks to some success. But if I really need this flexibility I use a Line6 Variax JTV69S. These emulated tones aren’t that satisfying though, so I’ve stopped using them and just switch guitars. I find playing a different guitar also makes me play differently, and I like that too.

Now I remember that I bought those a while ago, but maybe I used them in a wrong way. Where do you place them? Are there any special settings which are important when using these IRs? Do you still have an amp in your preset when you use those IRs? Or can you use them as a kind of EQ Block?

I also built a Mutron…

  • Ms. Pinky is the Systech Harmonic Energizer
  • Fripp 73 is a Big Muff (Guild Foxey Lady version)
  • Bare enclosure is the Mutron. That one was crazy to build…

Here’s the Mutron before boxing :

Oh and if I wanna brag, I also have Frank’s MXR Delay System II… :sunglasses:

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Very nice, so which Pedals for recreating Zappas Music can not until now be replaced by the Quad Cortex in your opinion? My quick answer would be more than anything else the Dynaflanger and the BiPhase. Maybe the Mutron 3… First I didn’t like the Envelope Filter of the QC, but now I think it is not so bad. I think for Zappa Tones the Eventide H90 is a very nice addition to the QC. It can do among other things the Dynaflanger and also the famous Ship Ahoy Bubbling.

The Dynaflanger was a beast. There are many reasons why there is no clone of it. Check the crazyness of this: MicMix Dynaflanger Schematics and Circuit Description - Pro Audio Design Forum

I feel a little bit lost, because there are so many captures. I guess I need basically something to boost the Bass and Mid frequencies. Does anybody know a booster capture which really does this? I saw for example there are a lot of EP Booster captures, but it is pretty time consuming to test them all. This brings us to the point that in the future it should be possible to comment and rate captures. It is nice to have so many options, but sometimes it feels like searching the needle in a haystack.

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other than picking/strumming near the end of the neck and rolling the tone back a bit, I think the pickup emulation is going to be a LONG shot. The position of the pickup is mostly responsible for the difference in tone and response and EQ alone just isn’t enough to mimic it. I’m going to keep Googling to see if anyone has had any success, but so far no joy.

I hope the delays coming in the next update with Dynamic Controls can be used for other purposes. Dialing out the delay but keeping whatever dynamic sensing it allows could be really useful. Not sure that it’ll make a Dynaflange effect possible but may lead to some interesting results.

I just read that the Meris LVX has dynamic flange capability, like the Polymoon. I hadn’t really explored that effect on it yet, but will now! Maybe there’s some way to get close on the QC

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It doesnt have to be perfect just fatter

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