The Acoustic Guitar Forum

Go Back   The Acoustic Guitar Forum > General Acoustic Guitar and Amplification Discussion > Acoustic Amplification

Reply
 
Thread Tools
  #16  
Old 05-28-2017, 09:28 AM
guitaniac guitaniac is offline
Registered User
 
Join Date: Jan 2004
Posts: 6,709
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by drjgs200 View Post
Also, I just called my guitar repair guy, Greg. I explained the problem and he says he will change out the ribbon for the element. He promised to 'make it right'.

Jim
Its been my experience that the passive Element pickup requires an unusually high input impedance to sound good. If it doesn't happen to sound rich and full with the ribbon preamp, an impedance mismatch will be the reason why.

I'm hoping that your Element for Ribbon swap will be successful, but I've personally had problems with trying to preamp a passive Element transducer which I salvaged from a broken DTAR Wavelength system. (DTAR gets the Element transducer from Baggs to use in their Wavelength system.) Rick Turner of DTAR told me that the pickup requires an input impedance "in the neighborhood of 100 Mohms" to function well.

This all happened some years ago, so its possible that the Element transducer has been updated to work with a lower input impedance since then. Let's hope so.
Reply With Quote
  #17  
Old 05-28-2017, 09:46 AM
SpruceTop SpruceTop is offline
Charter Member
 
Join Date: Jan 2006
Location: Rochester, New York
Posts: 12,337
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by drjgs200 View Post
I have been experimenting with acoustic amplification for only about 6 months now. With a good dose of Eq and a couple of efx foot pedals (Boss), I have been able to get some nice sound from Taylor ES system as well as from a Fishman Rare Earth Humbuckler and an M1. As an aside, I actually prefer the Fishman - it sounds more balanced and generates less extraneous sounds (with my agressive strumming).

The magnetic pickups sounded pretty good but I thought I would try to add a second non-mag source to really fill-in the sound. I was thinking of combining the Fishman with a K&K mini. For starters, I thought I would try this combo on my relatively inexpensive (but nice-sounding) Blueridge BR180. I took the guitar to a highly recommended acoustic repair shop on Music Row in Nashville. I explained what I wanted to do, but the proprietor, Greg, told me that the best pick-up would be a LR Baggs 'Dual Source'. He said he installs lots of them and that his clients love them. He sounded very confident and I was intrigued. I looked at a few reviews on the web and I found nothing very negative about the system. I found the usual positive comments, so I decided to take a chance and trust Greg's judgement and experience. I am now regretting my decision.

The 'Dual Source' system consits of an internal mic and an undersaddle ribbon transducer. The sound (with a little eq) sounds fairly acoustic. In this respect it is better than the magnetic pickups that I tried. However, even when I do some light fingerpicking, the initial string attack generates a very pronounced 'thump'. The only way to get rid of this 'thump' was to really cut the bass. However, I had to cut the bass so much, that it started sounding thin and scratchy. I even tried 'notching' the bass - no luck. In case you were wondering, the 'thump' has very little to do with my right hand position (hand sits on the saddle/bridge). I still get the 'thump' when the hand is off the bridge.

Has anyone else tried this pickup system? Can you suggest some adjustments that I might try? Would it be appropriate to ask Greg to take it out and get at least a partial refund?

I am thinking about trying something much less ambitious such as combining the Fishman Humbuckler with a simple PUTW sound-board transducer ribbon. Any thoughts?

thanks for your help,

James

Ps: my signal chain: blueridge acoustic (LR baggs DS)--> Boss pedal(slight chorus)--> Boss pedal (slight reverb)-->DTAR Equinox EQ -->Highlander Pro Acoustic Mix DI(more eq) --> Bose L1 (personal PA)
You could install the single-source Trance Audio Amulet M Dual Mono Acoustic Guitar System and be done with it. It sounds very mic-like without using a mic.

Trance Audio Amulet M Dual Mono Acoustic Guitar System

__________________
Martin HD-28 Sunburst/Trance M-VT Phantom
Martin D-18/UltraTonic
Adamas I 2087GT-8
Ovation Custom Legend LX
Guild F-212XL STD
Huss & Dalton TD-R
Taylor 717e
Taylor 618e
Taylor 614ce
Larrivee D-50M/HiFi
Larrivee D-40R Blue Grass Special/HiFi
Larrivee D-40R Sunburst
Larrivee C-03R TE/Trance M-VT Phantom
RainSong BI-DR1000N2
Emerald X20
Yamaha FGX5
Republic Duolian/Schatten NR-2
Reply With Quote
  #18  
Old 05-31-2017, 08:51 PM
dannyg1 dannyg1 is offline
Guest
 
Join Date: Apr 2010
Posts: 1,387
Default

Almost certainly a mic placement problem. I had to move the mic around, to tune my Install, multiple times. I ended up installing it pointing diagonally at the bass side of the bridge, stuck on an angle up from where its mounted, on the kerfed lining of the back.
Reply With Quote
  #19  
Old 05-31-2017, 10:31 PM
midwinter midwinter is offline
Registered User
 
Join Date: Feb 2014
Location: Utah
Posts: 1,483
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by guitaniac View Post
This all happened some years ago,
This whole discussion happened some years ago.
Reply With Quote
  #20  
Old 06-01-2017, 06:22 AM
guitaniac guitaniac is offline
Registered User
 
Join Date: Jan 2004
Posts: 6,709
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by midwinter View Post
This whole discussion happened some years ago.
Not the whole discussion, but certainly the part which I responded to. Thanks for the heads-up.
Reply With Quote
Reply

  The Acoustic Guitar Forum > General Acoustic Guitar and Amplification Discussion > Acoustic Amplification

Thread Tools





All times are GMT -6. The time now is 04:38 AM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.11
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions Inc.
Copyright ©2000 - 2022, The Acoustic Guitar Forum
vB Ad Management by =RedTyger=