Backplate phenomenon

[luv]

what about the thought of pickup covers changing the tone of the pickups? i've heard that covers mellow out the sound of the pickups a bit.

i don't have a trem cover on my strat, but it has nothing to do with tone. i doubt that most guitarists could really distinguish the difference in tone with a cover on or a cover off....they might think they can. there probably are some very experienced guitarists that could tell the difference, but whose to say that those guys hearing isn't damaged from all the exposure to too many db's?

 

[beej]

Metal in the vicinity of a pickup (any coil) can cause "eddy currents". Effectively they increase the resistance of the coil, and hence affect the sound of a pickup. We've all heard of old pickups being brightened up by removing the covers- eliminating the eddy currents. The effect is frequency dependent and material dependent (nickel, silver or stainless steel have less of an effect than copper, brass or aluminum, etc).

So pickup covers can have a significant effect. So can a guitar's shielding- for example, whether the p/g has copper or aluminum, and the thickness. Ditto baseplates- this comes up discussing tele pickups all the time, what material the baseplate is made of can have a significant effect.

 

[Mpcoluv]

Lets be honest, virtually everything can make a slight difference.
If you are on the backplate away from perfect tone, then I say that you must sound pretty damn good with it still on the guitar.
As far as Eric Johnson, I once heard a tale about a recording engineer who worked with EJ and SRV. Eric was working on a solo part forever and the engineer got to the point where he was booked with SRV also. He set up footswitch controls to start and stop the tape for EJ and went to record SRVs "In Step" album. The engineer recorded the entire In Step record and came back to EJ and he was still working on the same solo.
The moral of the story? Don't sweat every small detail and just enjoy playing.

 

[whitestrat]

I seriously think Eric Johnson was bordering on the edge of driving himself crazy about his tone, and missed a huge amount of time in between albums when he was at the height of his career because of trying to be too perfect.

The odd thing I find is that all his distorted tones sound almost the same. Hahaha!!!

 

[Bluplirst]

The odd thing I find is that all his distorted tones sound almost the same. Hahaha!!!

Consistency can be a virtue.

As for EVH starting the unpainted cavity so it can breathe....wasn't that some of the propaganda that came out with the "EVH" brand guitar?