Pickups for Carbon Fiber?

martingitdave · #1 03-05-2020, 10:05 AM

I have a new McPherson Sable with the element pickup, which includes a custom preamp. It's actually not a bad sounding pickup, and the guitar sounds great acoustically. So, I am inclined to leave well enough alone, or swap it for the Anthem SL, which would be easy enough.

However, being a carbon noob, I am wondering if there are different rules to the road with respect to pickups? Or, do the same rules apply for wooden guitars.

Inquiring mind(s) want(s) to know.

GuitarLuva · #2 03-05-2020, 01:04 PM

Dave,

Congrats again on the Sable if McPherson makes it than it must be a great guitar. I will share all of my experimentation with pickups with you in my carbon fiber guitars so bare with me this could be a long post!

First I advise you to keep the stock element in for a week or so, play the guitar lots, as I''m sure you will, than eventually loosen the strings and remove the element, not physically just leave it inside the guitar for now and use the same strings and saddle and give it a test. This will let you see how much of an impact the element had on the unplugged tone of the guitar. For me it was night and day. Removing the element made a guitar come alive. There''s a really good chance you will need to replace the saddle if the element comes out permanently. I don't mean to deliberately hate on the element I just find of all UST's it seems to have the most impact on the unplugged voice of a guitar. Plugged in I find the element to have a real muddy bass and just an unpleasant tone overall.

Since you mentioned the Anthem, if you really don''t care about altering the voice of the guitar than it's a pretty good option for a plug and play solution though not my personal favorite. If you do care than I would avoid the Anthem as well. As you're probably aware, the Schatten HFN is my favorite pickup. I have it installed in my wood guitars with no issues at all. I use it with no EQ. I have the passive HFN in my Emerald X20 which is probably the closest match to your Sable. That brings me to your question at hand: do the same rules apply to carbon guitars as wood guitars? My answer is yes and no at least for my experience with Emerald guitars. Emerald guitars have a very thin carbon soundboard. They're very responsive and sensitive compared to my wooden guitars and that certainly impacts the response of the HFN. In my X20, I have to reduce the bass a lot or I'll get feedback. To me it's not that big a deal I learned to live with it as much as I prefer to not have to worry about EQ. I didn't want to alter the voice of the guitar because I actually love the sensitivity of the soundboard.

When I ordered my X30, because I was aware of this issue, I got the Barbera Soloist installed at the factory with the intention of dual sourcing with the HFN. I could never get the HFN to sound the way I wanted in this guitar and had to admit defeat. The X30's soundboard is even more sensitive than the X20 and I removed it just the other day and did something unique. I soldered a 2.5mm plug on the Barbera and plugged it into the Anthem preamp, mounted the tru-mic on the bottom of the guitar to keep it off the soundboard. I am happy with this setup so far. The Barbera is very crisp and clear and with a little bit of air from the mic sounds much better. Doug Young did basically the same thing in his Rainsong. I had the Anthem kicking around so I wouldn't expect someone to go buy the Anthem and Barbera at the same time to do this as it's quite expensive.

Jonfields has the HFN in his Rainsongs and never mentioned any issues so maybe the traditional design of the Rainsong makes a difference? Hard to say. I'm pretty sure I read on Trance's website that their pickup is not compatible with carbon fiber guitars but don't recall why. I know you're a fan of the K&K so I would caution you before you superglue it on. It will probably be easier to remove in the Sable vs a wood guitar. Having the offset soundhole is really a blessing when messing with positioning with the HFN, so that's something to consider. Sorry for the long post, I should end it here at least for now.

martingitdave · #3 03-05-2020, 01:16 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by GuitarLuva

Dave,

Congrats again on the Sable if McPherson makes it than it must be a great guitar. I will share all of my experimentation with pickups with you in my carbon fiber guitars so bare with me this could be a long post!

First I advise you to keep the stock element in for a week or so, play the guitar lots, as I''m sure you will, than eventually loosen the strings and remove the element, not physically just leave it inside the guitar for now and use the same strings and saddle and give it a test. This will let you see how much of an impact the element had on the unplugged tone of the guitar. For me it was night and day. Removing the element made a guitar come alive. There''s a really good chance you will need to replace the saddle if the element comes out permanently. I don't mean to deliberately hate on the element I just find of all UST's it seems to have the most impact on the unplugged voice of a guitar. Plugged in I find the element to have a real muddy bass and just an unpleasant tone overall.

Since you mentioned the Anthem, if you really don''t care about altering the voice of the guitar than it's a pretty good option for a plug and play solution though not my personal favorite. If you do care than I would avoid the Anthem as well. As you're probably aware, the Schatten HFN is my favorite pickup. I have it installed in my wood guitars with no issues at all. I use it with no EQ. I have the passive HFN in my Emerald X20 which is probably the closest match to your Sable. That brings me to your question at hand: do the same rules apply to carbon guitars as wood guitars? My answer is yes and no at least for my experience with Emerald guitars. Emerald guitars have a very thin carbon soundboard. They're very responsive and sensitive compared to my wooden guitars and that certainly impacts the response of the HFN. In my X20, I have to reduce the bass a lot or I'll get feedback. To me it's not that big a deal I learned to live with it as much as I prefer to not have to worry about EQ. I didn't want to alter the voice of the guitar because I actually love the sensitivity of the soundboard.

When I ordered my X30, because I was aware of this issue, I got the Barbera Soloist installed at the factory with the intention of dual sourcing with the HFN. I could never get the HFN to sound the way I wanted in this guitar and had to admit defeat. The X30's soundboard is even more sensitive than the X20 and I removed it just the other day and did something unique. I soldered a 2.5mm plug on the Barbera and plugged it into the Anthem preamp, mounted the tru-mic on the bottom of the guitar to keep it off the soundboard. I am happy with this setup so far. The Barbera is very crisp and clear and with a little bit of air from the mic sounds much better. Doug Young did basically the same thing in his Rainsong. I had the Anthem kicking around so I wouldn't expect someone to go buy the Anthem and Barbera at the same time to do this as it's quite expensive.

Jonfields has the HFN in his Rainsongs and never mentioned any issues so maybe the traditional design of the Rainsong makes a difference? Hard to say. I'm pretty sure I read on Trance's website that their pickup is not compatible with carbon fiber guitars but don't recall why. I know you're a fan of the K&K so I would caution you before you superglue it on. It will probably be easier to remove in the Sable vs a wood guitar. Having the offset soundhole is really a blessing when messing with positioning with the HFN, so that's something to consider. Sorry for the long post, I should end it here at least for now.

Thank you! I have the HFN Active system on hand. I also have a Lyric Mic on hand. I am generally not a fan of the Element pickup. But it’s hard to fault it in this case. I’m interested I trying the HFN system in the guitar. Which adhesive did you use?

GuitarLuva · #4 03-05-2020, 02:13 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by martingitdave

Thank you! I have the HFN Active system on hand. I also have a Lyric Mic on hand. I am generally not a fan of the Element pickup. But it’s hard to fault it in this case. I’m interested I trying the HFN system in the guitar. Which adhesive did you use?

I used the putty.

jonfields45 · #5 03-05-2020, 04:52 PM

I'm not fond of cyanoacrylate glue on CF (I was responsible for a medium sized semiconductor company's package design for 4 years...well it was a small piece of my organization). When you get sick of the K&K, you will need to soak it off with acetone. A razor blade is going to do damage to the CF fibers you want to keep.

That is why I use an HFN, no crazy glue. I install and recommend K&Ks for my friends with wood guitars. The hotter output of a K&K is just an easier path for most people. I do like the HFN tone a little better but the real story for me is glue.

But with ToneDexter, the stock pickup will sound magnificent and is good enough by itself for the average open mic.

martingitdave · #6 03-05-2020, 05:56 PM

Thanks for the input on my output. :-)

I’m going to try the HFN and/or Lyric. McPherson did not recommend the K&K for their instruments, wood or otherwise. However, Emerald is offering K&K for theirs. So, I’ll try the non permanent stuff first.

martingitdave · #7 03-05-2020, 07:43 PM

I pulled the Element and installed the medium action saddle that came with the guitar. It dropped the action to .090” at the low e 12th fret. A little low for me, so a new saddle is probably in order.

I installed the Lyric that I had on hand. The offset sound hole made it a breeze. It sounds totally great. Better than it did in any wooden guitar. Strange coincidence? I’ll have to test it further, but during the first trial, it sounded like the guitar only louder.

I used Gorilla branded heavy duty black double sided tape to install the Lyric. Very nice solution if it holds up.

tbeltrans · #8 03-05-2020, 08:51 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by martingitdave

I pulled the Element and installed the medium action saddle that came with the guitar. It dropped the action to .090” at the low e 12th fret. A little low for me, so a new saddle is probably in order.

I installed the Lyric that I had on hand. The offset sound hole made it a breeze. It sounds totally great. Better than it did in any wooden guitar. Strange coincidence? I’ll have to test it further, but during the first trial, it sounded like the guitar only louder.

I used Gorilla branded heavy duty black double sided tape to install the Lyric. Very nice solution if it holds up.

Did you notice a change in the unplugged volume and tone of the guitar when you removed the Element?

Thanks,

Tony

zeeway · #9 03-05-2020, 09:04 PM

Pardon me for butting in...but I also removed the Element from my Emerald X20. The guitar became a bit louder with more sustain...no scientific measurements, just my perception.

tbeltrans · #10 03-05-2020, 09:22 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by zeeway

Pardon me for butting in...but I also removed the Element from my Emerald X20. The guitar became a bit louder with more sustain...no scientific measurements, just my perception.

Appreciate the input, as I am sure anybody who either has, or is considering getting, a CF guitar will.

Thanks...

Tony

martingitdave · #11 03-05-2020, 09:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tbeltrans

Did you notice a change in the unplugged volume and tone of the guitar when you removed the Element?

Thanks,

Tony

It seems more resonant, perhaps louder, and the sustain is longer. I don’t think it’s my imagination. I definitely, heard something different when I took it out. That’s not to say that it sounded bad with the element in, because it didn’t. Also, the action is lower. So, when I get the action back up, I expect the differences would be more noticeable.

AeroUSA · #12 03-05-2020, 11:05 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by martingitdave

It seems more resonant, perhaps louder, and the sustain is longer. I don’t think it’s my imagination. I definitely, heard something different when I took it out. That’s not to say that it sounded bad with the element in, because it didn’t. Also, the action is lower. So, when I get the action back up, I expect the differences would be more noticeable.

I’d like to add my experience. I had a Rainsong with the full Anthem that sounded incredible plugged in. One of the best sounds ever. I never heard it without the pickup but it was loud (carbon guitars are big empty boxes!). A year later I bought another model with k and k it felt too light and sounded too bright unplugged. For this reason (and the fact that the Anthem is one of the best systems out there) I have decided to not change a good thing anymore. Just my two cents.

guitarwebguy · #13 03-05-2020, 11:26 PM

I’ll add another perspective. I have an Emerald X20-12 with a K&K Powermix Pure setup that works for me. It does tend to bring out the bright sounds of the Emerald, especially as a 12 string. I like the ability to adjust the onboard preamp to fine tune the EQ. It does have a different sound compared to my other 12 strings. I have not noticed any significant change in tone or volume. I considered a Trance but they were very clear that they were designed for wood and CF has a very different response and very strongly discouraged using it in a CF guitar.

SpruceTop · #14 03-06-2020, 03:25 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by martingitdave

I have a new McPherson Sable with the element pickup, which includes a custom preamp. It's actually not a bad sounding pickup, and the guitar sounds great acoustically. So, I am inclined to leave well enough alone, or swap it for the Anthem SL, which would be easy enough.

However, being a carbon noob, I am wondering if there are different rules to the road with respect to pickups? Or, do the same rules apply for wooden guitars.

Inquiring mind(s) want(s) to know.

David, I'd have left left well enough alone as long as the output per string is balanced with the Element. A UST in a carbon-fiber guitar also acts like an SBT to a good degree. If you feel you need something extra in your Sable's amplified tone, I'd get a ToneDexter to work in conjunction with the Element.

zeeway · #15 03-06-2020, 06:58 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SpruceTop

David, I'd have left left well enough alone as long as the output per string is balanced with the Element. A UST in a carbon-fiber guitar also acts like an SBT to a good degree. If you feel you need something extra in your Sable's amplified tone, I'd get a ToneDexter to work in conjunction with the Element.

My “final” solution is a passive HFN with a Tonedexter...that produced the sound I have been looking for. I could have saved some $ by going directly to this solution...perhaps even if I had kept the Element. But as Henry Ford said...the man who needs a machine tool, already is paying for it...well, it makes sense to me.