Soft vs hard USTs

[steveyam]

I'm considering putting a pickup 'system' into my new McIlroy that comprises the softer, tubular, coaxial style of UST transducer (I happen to have a high quality one already). In my mind, there's a tad of nagging doubt that putting a saddle on to a 'soft' UST will affect the acoustic sound more so than installing a hard strip UST. And let's face it, that's a logical, obvious and somewhat easy thought to have. But I question everything. Is that tad of doubt really valid? Do coaxial piezos affect the acoustic sound more than hard ones? Once the coaxial UST is compressed, there may be every reason for it to behave - for all intents and purposes - in a very similar acoustic fashion to a hard one.

What are people's views on this? I'm not interested, nor need advice on brands, models etc etc, I'm just interested in receiving your, EXPERIENCED, view on the question I raise; the basic coaxial UST vs hard UST acoustic tone. And if you have already looked into the subject and have some 'real' data, knowledge or information, all the better.

As a point of side interest, note that although I say "acoustic tone", lets not forget that if the acoustic tone is changed, then so too is the electric tone to some degree, as the UST follows the vibrational pattern within the bridge in which it sits, and the bridge is very near to the heart of the acoustic tone - there has to be some correlation.

[Ben-Had]

Deleted due to opinion.

[dberch]

Greetings, Steveyam. The DTAR Wavelength is a 'soft' woven metal strip UST. I tried it several years ago in my Collings D1A with pretty fair results. It's is a very good UST with no quack, and better dynamics, more headroom than most. The tone is good, if not very representatinve of your guitar. In other words, your guitar will sound like any other DTAR Wavelength equipped guitar.

the downsides:
1. works best with light guage strings. Switch to mediums and quack comes back. Try a hybrid set (medium 1st 2nd 6th strings, light 3rd 4th 5th strings) and string balance goes all to hell.
2. It did affect the tone. Subtle but there. Notes tend to sound 'round' as apposed to sharp and clear. I thought I could tell, but when I swapped the DTAR out for a K&K Pure Mini, I could really hear the difference unplugged. And the plugged in tone was FAR more representitive of the guitrar than the Wavelength. I've been using K&K mini's on all my guitars ever since. With K&K each guitar sounds different. Dread sound like a dread. OM sound like an OM. Mahogany sounds woody. Rosewood sound like rosewood. Like they should. You won't get that with any UST.

Can't speak for Highlander or other soft USTs.

Hope this helps,
David

[jalbert]

Having been through this journey, the only thing I can add is that when you say "new McIlroy" do you mean that you have not yet played it? Because if you have and are used to the sound without a UST (soft or hard) then most likely you are going to be disappointed with either choice. On the other hand, if the guitar has not yet been delivered, have the good pickup installed and you will never know the difference.

If Rick Turner (who knows a thing or two about the subject) were to chime in here, I would venture to guess that he's say something like any UST is going to compromise the acoustic sound to some extent. You can't have a pristine acoustic sound AND a perfect amplified sound--only some degree of compromise between the two. That's why Rick (designer of the Highlander, Timbre-Line, Wave-Length pickups) designed a guitar around the pickup: his Renaissance Amplicoustic line. I owned two, and can say that the plugged in sound was awesome. (They were of course unusable as acoustics.)

I can second the experience about the Wave-Length being picky about string gauge. Also note that not all hard USTs are the same. I've adopted PUTW pickups in my guitars which have a thinner element than the Fishmans I am familiar with. I think that helps the tone out as well.