JourneyTek SBT pickup review

[jricc]

Originally Posted by Marty C

AMI DT-28, which is Sigma as it is sold in the USA. It’s a great sounding guitar… unplugged.

The bridge plate is very narrow. The transducers barely fit and I had to insure there was enough clearance for the bridge pins and string balls. There is ample room between the braces.

I've read good things about the AMI guitars.
Great that you like the results!

[Marshall]

Got my 3M tape runner. I've watched the journeytek video. I don't see a link where the review-guy installed with the 3M tape. If anyone has that link, post it please.

I've installed umpteen pickups in several guitars, so I'm pretty much ready with this thing. But I've never worked with the Scotch Tape Runner before, so it'd me nice to see something with that before I start.

It'll be closer to the end of the week before I give this a try.

[Marshall]

Well I did it. I installed the JourneyTek in my 1957 Gibson J50. It did not go without incident. But the final outcome is very impressive. I just played it loudly through 2 different amps (Shertler David & Genzler Acoustic Array Pro) and it sounds stellar. I may take it out to an Open Mic this evening and see how it performs live. Either tonight or next week some time.

The signal by itself is inherently weak. I plugged in a David Enke end-pin power plug (with a built-in battery) and was able to boost the signal to a very nice high level. The pickup by itself needed the amp to be turned to ¾ on channel gain and amp output to get usable volume. With the Power Plug preamp I get plenty of volume.

The pickup by itself was experiencing a wolfy sound and was feeding back. So I put a rubber soundhole feedback buster in the soundhole and that worked very nicely. Took care of the wolfy sound and feedback. Of course nothing is simple. The rubber soundhole plug is a bigger diameter than the soundhole of the 1957 Gibson. So I had to take an exacto knife and a saw-knife to trim the stinkin thing to fit in the soundhole. (Just one of the little irky things that happen every day).

The installation went OK with a panicky hiccup. The first element install, the putty adhesion was stronger than the Scotch Tape Runner stuff. So when I backed off the cardboard, the pickup element came with it. (Yes, I waited 30 seconds). So then I panicked and applied more glue and went at it again. Then I was careful to remove the cardboard, but the putty stuck on the pickup. I tried to rub that off and, of course, removed the pickup element again. Another panic! So I applied a 3rd smattering ot the Scotch stuff and went at it again. This one worked, but I left the putty on the pick-up. So for the other 2 elements I did the same, so now the inside of the guitar has the 3 elements each with a small gummy wad of putty on the exposed underside. – No big deal I expect.

Then of course I had trouble re-installing the saddle. You see there’s an undersaddle element in the slot from a previous pickup iteration. After a couple tries of stringing it up, getting buzz, unstringing and fiddling with the old element and the saddle I finally got a nice acoustic playability with it. I also ordered a new saddle blank from Stew Mac and likely some day will start afresh with this guitar.

I also had some trouble with the endpin preamp making contact with the pickup. I got some cracklies. But I tried a different model and it seems to make excellent contact so far. No crackly signal noise when turning on-off and increasing volume.

As I said the final home test went very well. Stellar actually. I’ll try it against my mag/SBT pickup later. What I’ve found so far is that the JT is much more natural sounding. No piezo zing. More personality and punctuation than the Mag/SBT pickup. The Mag/SBT pickup is more even and transparent. But the JT sounds much more like my natural guitar. I like it. We'll see how it performs out live. If my happiness stays at this level, I'm likely to install the JT in 2 or 3 other guitars.

[jricc]

That's good news Marshall. Glad you got it installed. If it makes you feel any better, I had the same issue using the Scotch tape runner with the putty being stuck to the transducer, so I left it on one of them.

Let us know if you gig it and how it goes.

[Marty C]

That’s great. Glad you got this set up to your liking. I am loving mine.

[Marshall]

The open mic gig didn't work as well as I would like. It could be the sound system as much as anything. The guitar sounded shallow and a little brittle. But so did all the other piezos that were on stage. I'll give it another shot next week in a more professional stage sound setup. But I was not as happy with the sound as I have been in the past with the Mag/SBT pickup system. Plus the JT didn't have anywhere near the volume output of the Mag/SBT, even with an endpin preamp boost.

I'm kind of a folk/rock strummer with most of my material. I'm not a detailed finger-picker.

[jricc]

Originally Posted by Marshall

The open mic gig didn't work as well as I would like. It could be the sound system as much as anything. The guitar sounded shallow and a little brittle. But so did all the other piezos that were on stage. I'll give it another shot next week in a more professional stage sound setup. But I was not as happy with the sound as I have been in the past with the Mag/SBT pickup system. Plus the JT didn't have anywhere near the volume output of the Mag/SBT, even with an endpin preamp boost.

I'm kind of a folk/rock strummer with most of my material. I'm not a detailed finger-picker.

Thanks for the report Marshall. Sorry it didn't work at this gig, but like you said, it may work next week with a better system. Is it possible the gain thing is because of the tape roll-on adhesive? I know with my installation with the tape roll-on, the output is a bit low, but having no prior experience with an SBT and a glue vs tape install, I don't no how much of an output difference there might be...

[Marty C]

Originally Posted by jricc

Thanks for the report Marshall. Sorry it didn't work at this gig, but like you said, it may work next week with a better system. Is it possible the gain thing is because of the tape roll-on adhesive? I know with my installation with the tape roll-on, the output is a bit low, but having no prior experience with an SBT and a glue vs tape install, I don't no how much of an output difference there might be...

I just went through this exercise with this pickup. The difference is about 25-35% stronger signal with glue and a much warmer sound. That’s in my guitar with my equipment. I had a very strong tape that was 0.5mm in thickness, which is about 0.020”. So I don’t think any sound was getting absorbed in a thick, spongy adhesive. Once I removed the tape and glued it in. There was a much improved sound - in both strength and tone.

When I finished gluing it in and restringing, the bass was fairly heavy. It calmed down when I switched preamps. However, I can plug into my S1 Pro direct and leave the setting on “no presets” and then dial the bass back to 9:00. It works best when plugged into something with The correct Impedance and still using cuts around 180 and 400. I have not turned the volume to full so I know things will change some at that point.

That’s has been my experience with my guitar, preamps and one powered speaker. I will try outside tonight and higher volume.

Best of luck. It seems to be a good system and I feel sure you will eventually get what you want.

[SpruceTop]

Originally Posted by Marty C

I just went through this exercise with this pickup. The difference is about 25-35% stronger signal with glue and a much warmer sound. That’s in my guitar with my equipment. I had a very strong tape that was 0.5mm in thickness, which is about 0.020”. So I don’t think any sound was getting absorbed in a thick, spongy adhesive. Once I removed the tape and glued it in. There was a much improved sound - in both strength and tone.

When I finished gluing it in and restringing, the bass was fairly heavy. It calmed down when I switched preamps. However, I can plug into my S1 Pro direct and leave the setting on “no presets” and then dial the bass back to 9:00. It works best when plugged into something with The correct Impedance and still using cuts around 180 and 400. I have not turned the volume to full so I know things will change some at that point.

That’s has been my experience with my guitar, preamps and one powered speaker. I will try outside tonight and higher volume.

Best of luck. It seems to be a good system and I feel sure you will eventually get what you want.

IMHO, you've discovered that thinner is better. Just for reference, the Trance "permanent" tape is .009" inches thick. I used this Trance Audio supplied tape in several installations of the Trance Amulet Dual Mono M-VT systems with decent amplified tone results but always felt that the tape was too thick. Finally, I tried a thin film of Henkel Loctite 6-Minute Epoxy to mount each Amulet transducer and the resulting amplified tone was night-and-day compared to the tape. The epoxy-mounted tone was louder, fuller, with more bass and everything else--in other words, the tone was here and now with no thinking Gee, I wish it had more of this and less of that.

With the Henkel Loctite 6-Minute Epoxy, I could get the Amulet transducers exactly where I wanted them and within a 4- to a 5-minute window before the epoxy started setting up. I'm the only one I know of who has been cavalier enough to install the Trance Amulets with this epoxy and I have no regrets for doing so in my 2020 Martin HD-28 Sunburst and my 2020 Larrivee C-03 TE Tommy Emmanuel.

[kurth]

Originally Posted by SpruceTop

IMHO, you've discovered that thinner is better. Just for reference, the Trance "permanent" tape is .009" inches thick. I used this Trance Audio supplied tape in several installations of the Trance Amulet Dual Mono M-VT systems with decent amplified tone results but always felt that the tape was too thick. Finally, I tried a thin film of Henkel Loctite 6-Minute Epoxy to mount each Amulet transducer and the resulting amplified tone was night-and-day compared to the tape. The epoxy-mounted tone was louder, fuller, with more bass and everything else--in other words, the tone was here and now with no thinking Gee, I wish it had more of this and less of that.

With the Henkel Loctite 6-Minute Epoxy, I could get the Amulet transducers exactly where I wanted them and within a 4- to a 5-minute window before the epoxy started setting up. I'm the only one I know of who has been cavalier enough to install the Trance Amulets with this epoxy and I have no regrets for doing so in my 2020 Martin HD-28 Sunburst and my 2020 Larrivee C-03 TE Tommy Emmanuel.

Any catalyst epoxy (fast curing) should work. As well, knowing a little about epoxy's...the thinner the bond, the stronger it is. What I've always wondered, when considering putting a transducer type piezo glued to the undersurface of the guitar is .... would it be better to apply a thin coat of lacquer to the guitar....cause the fragile part of the bond would be to the untreated wood....although that might be exactly the reason to not treat the wood....so the transducers can be more easily removed. Anyway....the thinner the better.

[SpruceTop]

Originally Posted by kurth

Any catalyst epoxy (fast curing) should work. As well, knowing a little about epoxy's...the thinner the bond, the stronger it is. What I've always wondered, when considering putting a transducer type piezo glued to the undersurface of the guitar is .... would it be better to apply a thin coat of lacquer to the guitar....cause the fragile part of the bond would be to the untreated wood....although that might be exactly the reason to not treat the wood....so the transducers can be more easily removed. Anyway....the thinner the better.

And the thinner it is, likely the easier it'll be to remove with a straight edge.

Recently, I've traded in a couple of great-sounding guitars to my local favorite dealer. One was a Larrivee D-03 Sunburst with a personally-installed Ultra Tonic 3.2, and the other a Larrivee D-40M with a Dazzo #70 system also installed by me. I used Henkel Loctite 6-Minute Epoxy for both installations. Dave, the owner, gave me about $100 above the trade-in value of the guitars for the inclusion of the pickup systems. He also asked me if the systems could be removed and I told him they could but why would you want to do so? These systems sound as good or better than most aftermarket systems, are passive, and need little outboard EQ, and they add very little weight to the bridgeplate/soundboard, and to my aging ears don't affect the guitar's acoustic tone. I told him he could probably pop the transducers off the bridgeplate with careful swordsmanship of a straightedge--I didn't mention Teddy Randazzo's method of applying brake cleaner fluid as I didn't want to give him or myself a dose of heart palpitations with his probable initial reaction!

[Marshall]

I won't glue anything. That's just me. But I have to say the volume issue is much more than a 25% boost is going to solve. I ran it thru a 9V battery preamp and had to turn that up to 80% to get a signal the sound person could even find. My Mag/SBT with internal 9V battery pumps out much more signal. Like twice as much or more. And that's even at home thru my amps.

[Marty C]

Originally Posted by Marshall

I won't glue anything. That's just me. But I have to say the volume issue is much more than a 25% boost is going to solve. I ran it thru a 9V battery preamp and had to turn that up to 80% to get a signal the sound person could even find. My Mag/SBT with internal 9V battery pumps out much more signal. Like twice as much or more. And that's even at home thru my amps.

I hate that Marshall. I was hoping your results would be great and I just had the wrong tape. The tape I used made the pickup almost as difficult to remove as when i glued it in earlier.

I was being conservative in my 25% difference in volume. It might be closer to 50%. I just didn't want anyone who had a different tape than me get lower results.

I found a Q & A somewhere on the web where the manufacturer responded. They said the tape was not recommended and would result in a much lower output. I was certain after my first install with glue, when I ended up removing because of a faulty transducer, that I would not be using glue again. But I ended up doing just that.

Best of luck Marshall. I hope this has a good ending at some point.

[Marshall]

It's not the destination, but the journey. (**smirk**)

I think this pickup is great for some people. But I'm thinking it's not going to work well for me. I suspect I'll got back to my Mag/SBT pickup arrangement. It works well for me in many settings and is pretty bullet-proof. Maybe not the most accurate representation of the guitar. But a fine full-sounding amplified sound.

[kurth]

I noticed they disappeared on amazon. Wonder what to make of that? Everybody wanted a better k&k for half the price. Me included.