Acoustic guitar pre-amp DIY an suggestions

[ToobieSnack]

hey peeps
I have an acoustic guitar that i bought at a pawn shop, the thing plays and sounds great.
I have stripped it down and refinished it with some artwork on the front and now I just love the guitar. (It needed stripping becuase some metal head painted it with about 50 layers of crackel black paint!!.... YUK!)
the only thing is I need electronics to play live and also to suppliment mics when recording.
My three options i have been considering are:
1- I had a thought that maybe I could do something like the old "hot dots"
by using a radio shack tweeter ( the little flat one that look like a small coin) I now they are used as MIDI drum triggers with great success.
I know it's no very high fidelity but it would be a start.
2-I have also considered using an Audio Technica headset mic installed inside the guitar body. (should be cheap enough on evilbay)
3- Martin has a model that has an installed mic.
I wonder what they are using and if maybe I could just buy that unit from Martin?
anyway ...all help and suggestion appreciated
thanks
Toobie Snack

 

[pstamler]

I have had remarkably good results from a Radio Shack miniature tie-clip mic mounted inside the guitar. Mine is stuck to the brace under the fingerboard, with the end of the microphone directly under the high E string, pointing at the low E. (Move it half an inch and it sounds dreadful.) It's attached using a wad of 3M Strip-Calk. I put a piece of Velcro on the inside back wall of the guitar, right under the soundhole, and that holds the battery compartment, which has a piece of complementary Velcro on it. I have an endpin jack, wired to a 1/8" jack, which the mic plugs into.

The mic I used has been discontinued for several years, but current models will work with varying degrees of success. If there are two models in the store you check, get the cheaper one; they tend to have flatter frequency response.

Outside the endpin jack, I have a 1/4" to XLR-M cable, with the tip of the 1/4" wired to pin 2 of the XLR, the sleeve wired to pin 3, and the cable shield connected only at the XLR end, to pin 1. This means the metal plug is connected to phantom power if the mixer has it, so you don't really want to touch it at the same time as you're touching ground. One of these days I'll put heat-shrink over it.

This setup is not as feedback-proof as a pickup, but it sounds better than any pickup system I've tried. Oh, I should give credit where credit's due: it was Martin Carthy who originated this setup. We play similar guitars (small-bodied Martins) so I copied his rig and have been very pleased.

Peace,
Paul

 

[Analogique]

Thanx for that info and the credit :thumb:

Made my day !

 

[Test Point]

Are you looking for a preamp or a pickup? They are different animals. A pickup is usually some sort of electro-mechanical device physically attached (usually) to the guitar where a preamp converts electrical signals (usually a signal boost or impedance matching, or both) to something an amplifier or recording device can use.
Test Point

 

[ToobieSnack]

thanks for the input

I am lookink for any combination of mic/preamp pickup/preamp or just a mic or just a pickup
anything except an under the bridge solution as I don't want to mess with my action/intonation. (It's near perfect)

what is the battery/electronics for the radio snack mic?

I went to the Southeastern music conference and attended a seminar where this exact same mic was mentioned.
Seems a lot of jazz drummers will come into the studio and don't want to cut a hole in the front head of the kick drum so...
they would drop one of these rad snack mics into one of the tom tom mountiong holes.
In a pinch I have also used one of those old Audio Technica headset mics as a hi hat mic and it worked pretty nicely.
anyway thanks for the advice...keeep it coming
I am interested to hear how to implement the RS mic with the battery/electronics.
thanks
Toobie Snack

 

[pstamler]

[quote author="ToobieSnack"]what is the battery/electronics for the radio snack mic?[/quote]

The battery in most of their mini models is a 357A, a button cell available at most drugstores. The electronics are minimal, a FET and probably that's it for active devices. You probably could build better, quieter electronics, but for playing live the stock circuit works fine for me.

I am interested to hear how to implement the RS mic with the battery/electronics.

Doesn't take much doing -- I wired a 1/8" jack to the inside of my endpin jack, and plugged in the Shack mic after rolling up the cord into a compact mass and tying it with a cable tie. The battery pack, I put a piece of Velcro on and mounted it under the soundhole, so I can reach in and turn it on and off, or pull it off the piece of Velcro that's on the guitar and pull it out of the guitar to replace the battery. The mic capsule is hardwired to the battery pack.

Peace,
Paul