Lyric battery condition?

[Br1ck]

I have a Baggs Lyric in a guitar, and have in the past been given a heads up in a venue by a helpful guitar player in the audience that he was hearing distortion and it was time to change the battery. Is there anything I could do to either wire in an LED or use my multimeter at the endpin jack to test battery condition?

[jseth]

Well, I think there is a unit that "plugs in" to the jack on the end pin and tells you how much battery life you have left... I have no idea how accurate the thing is...

You DO KNOW that the battery is only "on" when you have the guitar cord plugged in to the guitar, right? This is an assumption, based upon the fact that I have the Anthem SL system in two guitars, and they both work that way...

Now, I don't know how long the battery lasts in a Lyric, but my Anthems get upwards of 100 hours on a 9v battery... the location of the battery in the guitar is difficult enough to change that I just go ahead and do it whenever I change strings... seems a small price to pay for the certainty that the pickup will work as designed. I do use Elixir strings and get between 6 months and a year from them, and I'm not playing out all that much of late, so the batteries never go out on me.

Either you leave your guitar plugged in a LOT, or else you're working a whole bunch! If the latter, use some of your hard-earned $$$ to get some batteries at Costco at a good price...

[RGtheMusicGuy]

Originally Posted by jseth

Well, I think there is a unit that "plugs in" to the jack on the end pin and tells you how much battery life you have left... I have no idea how accurate the thing is....

http://www.amazon.com/Batt-O-Meter-G.../dp/B002Q0PPS4

I don't know how accurate it is either, but might at least give you an idea.

[midwinter]

That won't tell you how much battery life you have left by plugging it in, unfortunately. It's great on the 9v itself, though. I use it all the time.

[Br1ck]

I've been doing the change out battery when changing strings thing, and it is not the economic cost driving the question, more like curiosity.

Yes, I know to unplug when not in use.

I usually put the 9 volt in a stomp box after it's taken out of the guitar. Call me cheap or environmental.

I like Taylor's led on the preamp method.

[janmulder]

My hunch is that it is not the lyric battery (unless of course the distortion dissapears after you change the battery!) but possibly something further down the signal chain ... maybe something as simple as wrong gain stage between two devices.

I think the Lyric and Anthem SL both use very little current (and probably not too voltage sensitive which can be important with not so full batteries) and in my experience batteries last a very long time.

I put a very depleted battery in my Lyric powered guitar to try it out and although the battery was too weak for many devices (like headphone amp and reverb pedal) it powered the Lyric fine.

[dberkowitz]

Originally Posted by RGtheMusicGuy

http://www.amazon.com/Batt-O-Meter-G.../dp/B002Q0PPS4

According to some of the reviews on Amazon, this thing won't work on stuff with active electronics, and someone specifically mentioned their Martin (which probably has the Fishman Matrix), and their Aura, neither of which the unit could read the battery. Another mentioned their Taylors.

Great idea for some things, but apparently not for most acoustic guitars.

[Mobilemike]

Originally Posted by RGtheMusicGuy

http://www.amazon.com/Batt-O-Meter-G.../dp/B002Q0PPS4

I don't know how accurate it is either, but might at least give you an idea.

This actually does work on the Lyric and other active pickups, its just a bit finicky.

For some reason (I assume there's a reason, I just don't know what it is), the 1/4" connector on the end of this unit is a stereo plug, rather than the mono jack used by the majority of the pickup manufacturers. That means that when its fully inserted into a mono jack in a guitar, it often doesn't contact the right parts of the jack to read the battery.

You can get around this by only inserting the plug part of the way into the output jack of the guitar - you will feel one click rather than two. This allows the plug to properly make contact and to read the battery just fine. You may have to adjust or wiggle a bit so that it makes contact, but I tried it on a Lyric equipped guitar last night and it worked fine.

I'm planning on picking up a 1/4" stereo to mono adapter and seeing if that helps at all, but it is usable as is.

-Mike

[midwinter]

Well I'll be! I just checked it on my Lyric-equipped guitar and sure enough it works! Hallelujah!

Any suggestions about when the voltage on the 9v is too low for a Lyric?

Originally Posted by Mobilemike

This actually does work on the Lyric and other active pickups, its just a bit finicky.

[silverspear]

LR Baggs customer support says to replace battery at 8.5v, though they tested that the lyric will work at 7.5v.

[martingitdave]

The Lyric WILL distort when the battery gets low. I have experienced this. It is a condenser mic and needs the phantom power, provided by the 9v, through the pre-amp. If the voltage is insufficient, the mic distorts. Change the battery and it sounds wonderful again.