Help with scratches on the transducer's foil.

gerardo1000 · #1 07-29-2008, 09:54 AM

I bought a brand new Taylor NS 34 CE nylon equipped with a Fishman Pro UST, and I decided to replace the factory Tusq saddle with a new one in bone.
During the installation process, I had to slide the saddle several times on and off the bridge in order to find the saddle's right thickness and length. Unfortunately, I did not realize that while doing that, I caused a few scratches on the red foil that covers the transducer. I.E. there are some small spots where the red foil is gone.
I finally installed the saddle and tested the guitar plugged in, and I think it is working fine. However I would like to know from some expert or tech if these scratches on the red foil on the surface of the pick up could be a damage to the Prefix system and if I should replace the pick up.

Thanks!

rainsong · #2 07-29-2008, 10:10 AM

Well, I'm definitley no expert but if there isn't a hum than I would imagine the pickup is still grounded properly and is OK to use. Usually if the foil is torn than there will be quite a bad hum.

jyee · #3 07-29-2008, 10:49 AM

afaik, the foil isn't really for grounding, it's actually just shielding against EM interference. The general idea is that the transducer converts vibrations to electric impulses... a break in the shielding could potentially expose it to other EM waves and cause it to send different impulses... in short, it could potentially become an antenna and pickup up radio waves. But if you haven't noticed anything, I wouldn't worry about it.

guitaniac · #4 07-29-2008, 11:02 AM

If you do eventually have issues with the pickup and need to replace it, Elderly sells the raw pickup and lead.

Gary

southpaw pete · #5 08-02-2008, 10:51 PM

I've had the same happen with my Fishman Matrix pickup. The red foil was scratched, but it still sounded fine and worked like normal for quite a while in the various places I was playing. Then I ended up moving, and playing at a church in Calgary. Well, our church is located on a hill, surrounded by cell towers, radio towers... and my once quiet pickup, you guessed it... managed to broadcast a variety of radio stations , sometimes very subtle, but sometimes not so subtle. I tried "reshielding" it with some copper foil, to no avail. I know I could order a new pickup to re-attach to the existing preamp, but I ended up just buying a Baggs Ibeam.
So, you may be fine with the scratches on your shielding depending on where you are performing. It shouldn't affect your sound, but like others have stated, and like my own experience, if you are playing various locations, you may find yourself picking up some radio waves as well.
Hope this helps.