acoustic guitar pick up

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seavote

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Joined
May 31, 2006
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1,085
Location
Long Beach,New York
i'm looking into the possibility of making an acoustic guitar pickup/and internal mic system for my guitar. i thought a linkwitz modded panasonic capsule for the mic.(maybe even an external mic mounted on the guitar, placed somewhere high on the neck,with some type of mini gooseneck). i'd like to start this experiment with a piezo pickup and go from there. i dont know what specs i should be looking for when purchasing a piezo element. can someone make some suggestions? any ideas and comments are welcome. thanks
 
Do yourself a favour and buy K&K Sound's Pure Western Mini kit ..
http://www.kksound.com/purewestern.html

Kind of under the saddle pickup system though the pickups are superglued directly to the bridgeboard.
 
I am going to say it, piezos suck.

Whats their name, the flashy old guy guitars...Taylor has this little soundboard transducer setup that sounds pretty fantastic. All they are is a small coil of wire on a small plastic bobbin with a couple drops of ferro fluid in a reservoir on the coil. Its pretty slick, and easy to make and experiment with. $20 of ferro fluid and a small spool of #42 magnet wire will give enough materials to make a few dozen of these things at least. I bet Taylor has a strongly enforced patent on these things that can give alot more information.

As for mics, I have yet to find a really good way to mount them in a guitar. Lots of so so ways. Goosenecks or a piece of heavy copper wire works if you only have to travel a short distance from the mounting place, but even then guitars get lugged about alot and just walking with the guitar in the case generated enough force to slowly move that mic out of position. I am curious as to what ideas people have on this.

adam
 
past monday, i have been buildind a piezo mic for 2€ an 2 soldered points. a lo-fi one, mind...

take a buzzer microphone (like in the device that wakes you up at morning, i don't remember the english name :oops: ) or a phone speaker (not the microphone, coz it won't work in most cases) and then solder it to a 2 points cable, and the other side of the cable to a jack connector (wether male or femal, depends on what you want).

the only thing to take care is to connect ground to ground and buzzer hot point to jack hot point. but if you did it wrong, it won't work but can't damage your amp.
 
I'll second the KK Pure Western suggestion. A player I work with has them in both his 6 and 12 string Martin's for live gigs, and they are by far the most natural sounding pickups I have heard. They don't have any of that "plastic quack" that so many other pickups seem to have.
 
i know about k and k and they would be my choice if i was purchasing an acoustic amplifier. i'd like to DIY. yes i remember using piezos 25 years ago,they suck. but.. i was thinking if i used a combination of different transducers even a lowly piezo may have something to add to the total sound. how is the k and k pickup system put together? what type of mics are they using? i'm off to google to do some research. any ideas for DIY acoustic guitar amplifying?
 
DIY acoustic guitar amplifying?

Those TI power opamps that everyone used for those gain clones do a good job on acoustic guitar.
 
There was a similar thread at diyaudio.com:
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=7805

I believe K&K use regular but small piezos but they just sound different because they are not under the pressure like piezos used in UST's. Like Steve Dallman suggested in above thread some EQ (using a single cap) might be a key to good balance.
 
I have a K&K system on my upright bass that looks like they use the same transducers as what was posted earlier.

http://www.kksound.com/bassmaster.html

I spent about $300 for it. It's absolute garbage. While it doesn't quack, it's the most boingy, plastic, unnatural sound I can think of. Mounting a PBass pickup at the end of my fingerboard is on my short to-do list.

Piezo's suck.

-Chris
 
[quote author="safe as milk"]i second the rare earth, my ye olde gibson lg loves it,
plus if you get the chance, try one of these preamps
http://www.award-session.com/ap10.html
[/quote]
me too
this style of pick-up is the only thing that I've had any sort of success with

I haven't used the above pre-amp but does look typical of what is out there

some active electronics in the guitar is a good thing
I generaly like to use two 9 volt batteries instead of one
yeah
I think the voltage head room is worth it
(JLM DI mounted in the guitar ???)

this may change the choice of floor mounted pre-amp, EQ, tone toy you chose
 
[quote author="adamasd"]I am going to say it, piezos suck.

Whats their name, the flashy old guy guitars...Taylor has this little soundboard transducer setup that sounds pretty fantastic. All they are is a small coil of wire on a small plastic bobbin with a couple drops of ferro fluid in a reservoir on the coil. Its pretty slick, and easy to make and experiment with. $20 of ferro fluid and a small spool of #42 magnet wire will give enough materials to make a few dozen of these things at least. I bet Taylor has a strongly enforced patent on these things that can give alot more information.

As for mics, I have yet to find a really good way to mount them in a guitar. Lots of so so ways. Goosenecks or a piece of heavy copper wire works if you only have to travel a short distance from the mounting place, but even then guitars get lugged about alot and just walking with the guitar in the case generated enough force to slowly move that mic out of position. I am curious as to what ideas people have on this.

adam[/quote]

The old Tandy (Radio Shack) tie clip mic does a good job. I simply clip it to the sound hole and away I go - for recording anyway. Of course for live work feedback will be a problem.
 
The old Tandy (Radio Shack) tie clip mic does a good job. I simply clip it to the sound hole and away I go - for recording anyway. Of course for live work feedback will be a problem.

yeah, this is what I have and it works well. sorta low output though. Also, I am starting to not play accustic for my gigs so a little bit of a mute point in my case.
 

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