Gen16 tone shapes and pickups

[scarvalhojr]

Are tone shapes designed with direct source pickups expected to sound more or less the same when acoustic pickups are used, and vice-versa? Or do the specific nature of the pickups fundamentally change how the sounds must be shaped?

I've upgraded my Gen16 module to the latest firmware and noticed that all presets are now "BB" (which I'm assuming they were designed for bronze cymbals with DSPs) and they sound terribly thin with my nickel plated cymbals and acoustic pickups.

[scthom]

First off, I don't have the Gen16 cymbals, but I have read about them a good bit. Others can confirm or clarify.

Both versions rely on the acoustic sound generated by the cymbal. The nickel generates a different tone than the bronze. The presets in the module are supposed to be different for each type (I thought the module had 1-10 as nickel and 11-20 as bronze but that might not be right). However, I don't think it makes too much difference whether you are using the old style microphone pickup or the direct source pickup.

In summary, if you use the bronze presets with the nickel cymbals they are likely to not sound correct because they will be shaping the wrong base tone. I don't think the pickup makes that much difference in sound quality (but DS is much better on feedback and ambient noise).

[fulrmr(Daniel)]

I don't think the pickup makes that much difference in sound quality (but DS is much better on feedback and ambient noise).

I have the Nickel series.
Feedback is definitely an issue with the acoustic pickups while it is not with the DS and neither is any ambient bleed. Also the DS pickup presets were specifically tailored for the DS pickups and will not sound good using the original acoustic pickups. However the BB presets and the NP presets for the DS pickups can be used interchangeably as their characteristic are more subtle.