Pickup Question: Is this possible.

[The Kid!]

I have a Fishman Onboard Prefix Premium Blend pickup in two guitars. Would it be possible to remove the piezo under saddle half of the pickup and replace it with a Schatten HFN passive or active soundboard transducer pickup?

I was wondering if the Schatten and the internal mic from the Fishman could be blended together with the Fishman controls. It would also allow me to switch out to a bone saddle and get better contact with the wood.

Has anybody tried to do this yet?

[rb1591]

I’ve done some experimenting like this over the tears. Occasionally I’ve hit on a good combination of pickup and preamp. That said, it’s unlikely that anyone will be able to accurately predict the outcome. Anyway, such experiments are fun and you always learn something.

That said, my experience tells me to do as little destructive modification as possible. In other words, don’t remove the UST until you’ve tried the Schatten. And have a solid plan to rehook the Fishman in case it’s not a good combo.

One more observation: years ago I tried the Schatten with a well known internal mic. The combination didn’t seem any better than the Schatten alone.

As has been said on this forum many times, dual source systems seem to work best when each pickup or mic or sbt or magnetic source adds something the other one does not. Their strengths should compliment each other rather than overlap.

[BT55]

Originally Posted by rb1591

I’ve done some experimenting like this over the tears. Occasionally I’ve hit on a good combination of pickup and preamp. That said, it’s unlikely that anyone will be able to accurately predict the outcome. Anyway, such experiments are fun and you always learn something.



That said, my experience tells me to do as little destructive modification as possible. In other words, don’t remove the UST until you’ve tried the Schatten. And have a solid plan to rehook the Fishman in case it’s not a good combo.



One more observation: years ago I tried the Schatten with a well known internal mic. The combination didn’t seem any better than the Schatten alone.



As has been said on this forum many times, dual source systems seem to work best when each pickup or mic or sbt or magnetic source adds something the other one does not. Their strengths should compliment each other rather than overlap.

You’re not going to get better advise than this!

[The Kid!]

Originally Posted by rb1591

I’ve done some experimenting like this over the tears. Occasionally I’ve hit on a good combination of pickup and preamp. That said, it’s unlikely that anyone will be able to accurately predict the outcome. Anyway, such experiments are fun and you always learn something.

That said, my experience tells me to do as little destructive modification as possible. In other words, don’t remove the UST until you’ve tried the Schatten. And have a solid plan to rehook the Fishman in case it’s not a good combo.

One more observation: years ago I tried the Schatten with a well known internal mic. The combination didn’t seem any better than the Schatten alone.

As has been said on this forum many times, dual source systems seem to work best when each pickup or mic or sbt or magnetic source adds something the other one does not. Their strengths should compliment each other rather than overlap.

Cool. I was hoping that I could get some percussiveness and air from the mic and possibly use the onboard tone shaping that I already have with the added benefit of the Schatten already sounding better than the UST.

It would also allow me to get a bone saddle made and have better contact with the bridge with the UST out of the way. I might have my tech try it and see how it goes. If I don't like it, I'll have him put the Schatten with another output jack so I'll have a choice between the two.

[guitaniac]

Mixing and matching systems like this can be an "adventure". I once tried to match a Baggs LB6 with the Prefix system in a Taylor and the LB6 signal was much too hot for it. It drove the Prefix preamp into severe distortion with anything beyond very light picking.

More recently, I soldered one of David Enke's "Open To Source Sensors" USTs to a VTC Matrix Infinity system. The resulting signal is extremely bassy, even when the tone control is on its most trebly setting. Although I can remove the excessive bass with EQ, I'd rather not have to. I consider this particular matchup to be only a partial success.

Its anybody's guess as to how running the HFN to the Prefix preamp will work out. One thing which you could try, if you have a blender, is to install the HFN passively with its own strap-jack. Then you could run the HFN signal to one blender channel and the Prefix mic to the other channel. (Of course, you'd set the onboard Prefix blender for full mic.) This method will work very well if your outboard blender has EQ on both channels. You'd be able to EQ out any excess boominess from the mic.

On second thought, you may only need EQ on one of the blender channels if you can EQ the mic signal with the Prefix's onboard EQ controls. You could blend with something like the Zoom A3 preamp, although it won't accommodate separate EQ for each channel.

[The Kid!]

Maybe I’m making things too complicated. I was hoping to swap the UST with the Schatten, but it might cause more issues.

[guitaniac]

Originally Posted by The Kid!

Maybe I’m making things too complicated. I was hoping to swap the UST with the Schatten, but it might cause more issues.

If its like the Prefix systems that I've worked with in the past, you just have to lift up the shielding foil and loosen two screws which hold down the hot lead and the ground lead from the pickup. It would be very easy to try the swap and hook the Matric pickup back up if the swap doesn't work out.

I'm just proposing an alternate plan for blending offboard if the pickup swap doesn't work out. If you happen to be one of the many folks who hates the idea of installing a second jack in a guitar, then the alternate plan would be wrong for you.

[guitaniac]

Its worth mentioning that there are ways to convert the Prefix Blend system from mono out (with onboard blending) to stereo out (where you'd take a stereo or stereo-to-Y cable to an outboard blender or two mixer channels. If the HFN doesn't overdrive the Prefix's UST preamp into outright distortion, this would be an option for taking the mic signal and the HFN signal out of your guitar.

Here's the manual for a Prefix Blender system where you only need to flip a switch to go from mono out to stereo out.

https://www.martinguitar.com/media/9...fix_stereo.pdf

I presume the guitar's onboard EQ would only affect the UST channel when running stereo out.

[The Kid!]

Originally Posted by guitaniac

Its worth mentioning that there are ways to convert the Prefix Blend system from mono out (with onboard blending) to stereo out (where you'd take a stereo or stereo-to-Y cable to an outboard blender or two mixer channels. If the HFN doesn't overdrive the Prefix's UST preamp into outright distortion, this would be an option for taking the mic signal and the HFN signal out of your guitar.

Here's the manual for a Prefix Blender system where you only need to flip a switch to go from mono out to stereo out.

https://www.martinguitar.com/media/9...fix_stereo.pdf

I presume the guitar's onboard EQ would only affect the UST channel when running stereo out.

I thought about that, but I wanted to try to use the preamp/blender on the guitar to mix them.

[GuitarLuva]

Originally Posted by The Kid!

Maybe I’m making things too complicated. I was hoping to swap the UST with the Schatten, but it might cause more issues.

I did this with the LR Baggs Anthem as a test. Soldered a 2.5mm jack on the end of the Schatten and plugged it into the UST jack on the Anthem preamp. The Schatten didn't overdrive the Baggs preamp and it blended just fine with the mic. It didn't make the sound any better IMO just different. The Schatten sounds so natural on its own that it doesn't really need to be dual source. But I hear you on the bone saddle. You can still use a bone saddle with a UST you just need a good consistent piece of bone and make sure it's completely flat on the bottom. I've done this as well with the Anthem system before I swapped it with the Schatten HFN.