Finally the Schecter Startgazer is closer to Rick specs

[Boneless]

The response is a product of the electronics (easy to simulate in LYSoice) and the time delays inherent in a wave travelling aling the string - you use transmission lines to model that. For a 2 pickup system, you get an FIR filter with 2 positive coefficients (the wave traveling towards the bridge), and two negative ones (the wave returning from the bridge). Every string has a different response, as a higher tuned string has a greater propagation velocity.

If you understand the Physics and electronics involved, it’s relatively straightforward. If not, it’s voodoo.

I am familiar with transmission lines, but I have never done anything with them. Still, I don't understand how the response is different if the proportions are the same. Is that due to the time difference (longer in a long-er scale)? Shouldn't that be accounted for when "shifting" pickup positions?

 

[micguy]

I am familiar with transmission lines, but I have never done anything with them. Still, I don't understand how the response is different if the proportions are the same. Is that due to the time difference (longer in a long-er scale)? Shouldn't that be accounted for when "shifting" pickup positions?

Different pickup locations, scales, and turnings all affect what is going on, but a string tuned to 40 Hz and a string tuned to 80 Hz have waves that travel at different velocities - the one tuned to 80 Hz has twice the velocity - the wave has to travel from one end of the string to the other and back in 1/40th of a second for it to resonate at 40Hz for the lower tuned string, the higher tuned string does it in 1/80th of a second. Thus, with the same pickup spacing, the response of the system in terms of what the pickups see when summed is different - the freq response curves have exactly the same shape, but the peaks and dips for the higher tuned string are moved out one octave. This is why you can't eq a P to sound like a J - the curve is complex, but also different on every string - you can only "correct" one string to the target response, the others won't come close.

If you want two strings tuned an octave apart to have the same response, you need to have their pickups in different locations.

And yes, changing the scale length (if you keep the pickups the same distance from the bridge) changes the response. If you rationalize the pickup locations (the bridge pickups are both 1/8th of the scale length from the bridge, for example) you can make them sound the same.