Fishman Rare Earth Humbucker issue?

[Slothead56]

I have one of these mounted in the soundhole of my Taylor GA3 12 string. The bottom E strings are significantly quieter than the other 10 string….measurably so to my ears.

The action on the guitar is low and the distance from strings to pick-up are about the same across all strings.

Questions:

• Normal or a problem?
• How high can I/should I shim the bass side to get the E sting set equalized?
• If I do shim the bass side do I then risk over amplifying the A and D pairs which are currently balanced?

For the record I’ve run this guitar thru my Bose pole, my Fishman Mini and thru a mixer. Same issue.

Strings are coated D’Addario PB lights.

[Slothead56]

Going to bump this up….surprised I haven’t gotten a response from this highly qualified (and often opinionated) membership!

[darkwave]

Just a guess here - but is it possible that the low-volume E pair is just outside the magnetic zone (wider string spread than typical 6-strings are )? If so, rather than shim the pickup up on that end, try rotating it counter-clockwise in the sound hole a little bit so the magnetic zone shifts slightly toward the bass side.

Unfortunately, this simultaneously narrows the usable width of the pickup, so I'd experiment a bit and go slowly.

Let me know if that helps at all - I'm curious.

[fazool]

I had a fishman rare earth blend with mic and humbucker in my Taylor GA3-12 and did not have that problem at all - I had remarkably even output on all strings.

That doesnt help with your problem but its one more data point when considering your situation

[Jinder]

This is unfortunately a side effect of the lack of adjustable polepieces on the Rare Earth pickups. They are very guitar specific in terms of string balance-I’ve had a RE which sounded perfect in one guitar (1990 Hummingbird) and totally unbalanced in another (2012 Recording King RP06).

They work best in guitars with a relatively steep neck angle so the strings don’t sit too close to the pickup-that gives the pickup a more airy, acoustic tone and also helps balance out hot strings that are caught in the pull of the pickup’s magnetic field. Whilst a Rare Earth is not quite the ferrite brick that the likes of my beloved Sunrises are, the Neodymium magnet still has a fair old tug, especially on the plain strings.

If your issues persist and you don’t have any joy shimming/rotating the pickup as has been suggested by other posters, I’d suggest looking at changing the pickup for something with adjustable polepieces. The Baggs M1A is a similar pickup to the RE but will enable you to tune the string balance to as close to perfection as you can get.