When you get lucky with a guitar/pickup combo

[rockabilly69]

Today was a good day! Why? Because I chanced into a very good combo of pickup and guitar.

A little background... I was wanting to amplify a guitar that I just got back from a neck reset. It's my 1998 Martin SP00016TR, and it's the guitar that I started my full time professional career with. Years ago, when I bought it, I went to every music store within a 150 radius of my house, and I picked it from every acoustic guitar under $2000 that I could find. It took a long time to find it, but I found it in the last store that I visited, Intermountain Guitar And Banjo in Salt Lake City!

And I knew it when found it, it just had the MOJO, so much so...my duet won Utah's Showdown to the South By Southwest festival with it. We also won Best Blues Band in Salt Lake City with it 3 years in row, and to be clear, my duet was driven by the sound of this little Martin. I made a racket it with it! Also I wrote all the songs on my very first CD with it, except for one resonator/mandolin song. So it's a special one, and I love it, but after many years of rock and rolling with it, it's succumbed to the dreaded neck angle change, as many older guitars do. So I retired it because it badly needed a reset..

Well..... I finally got around to sending it to my favorite guitar whisperer, and it came back from repair BETTER THAN NEW! It just sounds killer, and it's got 28 years on it, so it sings with a clear midrange vintage voice.

Now.... I want to bring it back into the rotation so to say, so I specifically set it up string-wise to play some of my original songs which feature some of my favorite tunings (CGCGGC and DADAAD). And as you can see by the notes in these tunings. they are great for sympathetic droning.

Well even though I mostly use B-Band UST/AST combos. I thought it would be good to use the SA6 for these droning style songs because, being magnetic, the SA6 mates well with electric guitar amps, and when I play these songs live, I will have one output of my pedalboard driving a small mic'd up tube amp (5E3, Princeton, etc) which will blended with my acoustic signal at the board.

Well tonight, after installing an SA6 into the little Martin, I plugged it into my BOSE T4S mixer and BOSE Pro16 PA, and man, did it sound great!!! This pickup just works with this guitar.


(and it also got cool Antique Acoustics bridge pins courtesy of AGF member A.Wilder1's classified ad)

I've tested this same pickup in my other guitars but it never sounded this good. And unlike when testing with my other guitars, I can go as much as 75% microphone and it still isn't feeding back.


I couldn't test the amp tones because it would have been too loud for the time of day, but tomorrow the party will be on.

Stay tuned for a demo soon!

Soundhole Mags are severely underrated. Glad you got the magic pairing!

[jricc]

Cool story about your well loved Martin. Great you found a good sounding combo.
Look forward to your demo.

An aside, I have a 1998 000-1 that is a great sounding guitar. A step down from your 16, but it's a keeper. Maybe 1998 was a very good year

[Rick Jones]

It made me smile to hear that you have your old friend back in action with you. And now it's turbo-charged too... win win!

[rockabilly69]

Originally Posted by jricc

Cool story about your well loved Martin. Great you found a good sounding combo.
Look forward to your demo.

An aside, I have a 1998 000-1 that is a great sounding guitar. A step down from your 16, but it's a keeper. Maybe 1998 was a very good year

I think the only difference of importance between our guitars is the Mahogany back on yours. I like Mahogany so I bet I would like your guitar!

[jricc]

Originally Posted by rockabilly69

I think the only difference of importance between our guitars is the Mahogany back on yours. I like Mahogany so I bet I would like your guitar!

Correct, mine has the solid mahogany back and lam sides.
Cheers to 1998...