Info on old Fishman UST system?

tadol · #1 02-23-2018, 04:21 PM

So I recently picked up a guitar that's got an older (1990) UST system - it has a black plastic box inside the body with a 9v battery, and 2 knobs coming thru the side of the guitar. One knob is a volume control, the other knob is stepped, and the upper part seems to be a treble control, bottom part a bass control. I've been told its probably an old Fishman system, but I cannot find anything to identify it, and am interested in knowing more about it. It seems to be basically working, but I'm missing a lot of mids, and I'm going to try a new saddle first but would also be interested in any tech info on the system.

Does this ring any bells for anyone?

jseth · #2 02-23-2018, 04:32 PM

I had Fishman UST pickups in both my 6 and 12 string guitars back around that time frame... mine was battery powered, but no vol or eq control; I did any adjusting on the mixing board, although, curiously, those pickups rarely needed any tweaking at all to sound really good!

I used to run an SM-57 mic along with them, just for string noise and a bit of "breath" from the guitar's natural compression and resonance.

I had MANY people, players and listeners, tell me that my sound was superb...

Mine said "Acoustic Matrix Natural" on the little pre-amp inside the guitar... but I'm guessing that Fishman could help you a lot with the details... why not give them a call?

Br1ck · #3 02-26-2018, 02:52 PM

Oh boy, here goes.... I can't think of one area of live sound amplification that has improved more over that time frame than acoustic guitar amplification. I had an undersaddle Fishman from that era and...quack, quack, quack. If you want a nice solo tone, there are some nice soundboard transducers, rock out in a band and you've got some nice magnetics.

Or, buy a tonedexter that will transform the tone you have.

tadol · #4 02-26-2018, 03:03 PM

Already got the Tonedexter!

Only asking because I was getting some pretty poor tone from the guitar - but it also had very low action (too low for me) so I pulled the saddle and found a sliver of wood under it to raise it slightly, but was not attached and probably killing the signal. I've thrown another little piece in to confirm that I can get the action where I want it, and now the signal is gone -

So - new, one piece saddle to get better contact with the UST, and then I'll figure out the preamp - Just hadn't seen one like this, so I though maybe someone knew -

Side Man · #5 02-27-2018, 07:28 AM

You've got an old Fishman AGP-2 preamp with a piezo pickup.

Most likely, the pickup is now shot (perhaps a broken solder connection at the pickup?) if you're no longer getting a signal from it.

Note that Mi-Si makes a replacement preamp system called Align, that would be an easy retrofit, should you decide you don't want two holes on the side of your guitar.

tadol · #6 02-27-2018, 10:32 AM

Thats it! I knew the dual knob w/ stacked knob arrangement would be obvious once I saw it. Thanks very much for that help! I like reading the manuals and understanding what I can about things with knobs, rather than just twisting them back and forth and guessing -

Its not a problem of broken parts - the installation was done very well, and I was getting decent signal from it, just somewhat uneven. I pulled the saddle out, and there was a slightly irregular wooden shim between the saddle and the transducer, which I’m convinced is most of my problem. I need to raise the action a bit more, so I slipped a little more shim in there to test, and now the action is really good, but with 2 shims I’ve killed almost all signal from the transducer.

Next step - get a new saddle made and installed, put on a fresh set of 12 strings, (spend the day tuning), then plug her in!! Will report back once thats done -