Two combined pickups

[HrMejlvang]

Hello my dear wisemen.

I’m Jonas from Denmark. And I have a big problem I need solved by your magnificent knowledge!! ;-)

I’ve got a Gibson J45 standard fitted with the L.R.Baggs Element. But! I so deeply want to install a L.R. Baggs M1 Soundhole passive pickup as well.

My dream is to install it with a electric guitar set-up with volume knobs and maybe even tone knobs and a 3 way switch. (A bit like the EJ-160)

I dream of having different sounds out of 1 guitar and make the guitar look super sweet and vintage.

Can this be done? Can I make this dream come true?

[J Patrick]

...yes Jonas it can be done and the results will likely be excellent...but you will need to use a stereo jack and cable and send the two signals to either a two channel preamp that can blend the signals or two separate channels on the mixing board..its actually pretty common to use dual source setups...

[HrMejlvang]

What if I wired it like this:
http://handmademusicclubhouse.com/m/...APhoto%3A13744

[vibrolucky]

I would strongly advise you not use switches, or pots in an acoustic guitar for two reasons.
1) you will ruin the value of it by drilling holes for the switches, pots, etc. and possibly sacrifice tone if you add them on the top.
2) its one more thing to fail (pots and switches fail often and become scratchy), additionally you will start getting more noise in your signal by adding additional wiring.

The setup you had a link to is more for a cigar box type guitar, not an acoustic. Wire them together using a stereo jack and use an external mixer or stereo pre-amp for better results.

[HrMejlvang]

Well.. I did read about the downsides of this very operation.

I just have two problems.

I play alot of gigs, and when I'm on stage i don't have the time to adjust due to the lack af soundcrew ;-)


next of, I would like to be able to shift between the to pickup while playing.

So what do I do?

[Marty C]

I agree, don’t do this on your guitar. I did something similar and ruined it my guitar. I hate it now and can’t even sell it.

Wire these pickups together. Get on the LR Baggs forum and put a request out. Baggs has a great tech named Caleb and he will tell you how Baggs would do this.

Once you have a stereo signal coming out of one jack, a stereo cable, a preamp to split the signal again... your possibilities are endless. From there you can control everything with your feet while you play with different effects pedals and be able to eq to your hearts desire.

[M Hayden]

Yes - get the two pickups wired to a stereo jack and run it into a stereo preamp, and have the preamp near you on stage so you can adjust volume between the two pickups as you need. There are lots of preamps that will work for this.