Baritone Ultratonic V3 installation

[tadol]

So I’ve recently installed one of James Mays Ultratonic pickups (V3) into my EIR/Sitka Santa Cruz baritone. Been wanting a good amplified baritone, but have been concerned about getting a good solid bass response that also gas a good bit of the tonal quality of the guitar, and not having issues with feedback or dealing with batteries and such. I’ve an older version Ultratonic in one of my other Santa Cruz’s, so wanted to go this route with my baritone, but was waiting for this latest, easier to install version - got one recently, so here we go!

After stripping off the strings, we have the starting point -



The new version has all the primary elements in a single bar, so instead of gluing in 4 elements, its a much simpler 2 elements. This baritone has a 2-⅜” saddle spacing, so this may be about as wide a spacing as this unit will easily fit with -



Now - I did build a nice jig with rare earth magnets to help align everything easily while gluing it in - but discovered the magnets weren’t really strong enough for the thickness of the bridge, top, and bridge plate. The magnets I had were ¼”x1” rare earth, and I used 3 on each side, but that still didn’t have enough pull to solidly align the pickup underneath on the bridge plate, so instead, I put in the 2 bridge pins, slid the pickup up against them, then pulled it back about ⅛”+, so the ball ends would clear it. Then checked with a mirror, which I couldn’t get a reasonable picture of. But heres the jig I didn’t use -

[tadol]

With the pickup in place, I glued in the secondary disc, which was a breeze since the bridgeplate on this guitar is larger than my first apartment. I attached the volume control in the sound hole (I put it just behind the edge, where I can find and feel it easily, but its not at all obvious). Then, I drilled out the endpin -

I know there are alot of options to do that, but the StewMac reamer does a truly fantastic job, and I’d highly recommend it -



It leaves a wonderfully clean hole -



With that done, I re-strung her and started the “tuning” process of the pickup. Step one, put some tape on the circuit board so it doesn’t accidentally scratch the guitar, then plug it into the amp and start playing with switches!





James has a whole write up on ways to tune this pickup, but basically (as I understand it) you want to eliminate the natural feedback frequency of the top. What I did was to sit right in front of my amp, crank it up, and try to create feedback. Then you run thru the switches. I’m sure there’s more to it, but so far its worked fIne for me. I’ve shot a couple videos with my phone to try and demonstrate, and I will post those up so anyone interested can get a better sense, although the feedback doesn’t come thru the recordings anywhere near as strongly as it did in person -

I really like this pickup - pretty easy to install, good tone, no batteries, and no feedback issues. So far it has exceeded my expectations for use with my baritone, which I was very concerned about feedback. I have not had a chance to try this with the Tonedexter, but I will. And I’ll try to get a better audio recording that shows the natural tone of the guitar amplified with the pickup, and un-amplified.

[tadol]

Here’s a video of my “tuning” -


https://youtu.be/uj4ccly8JX0

And here’s the video of my testing -


https://youtu.be/o9QQfSwYwAo

[wood nacho]

Thanks for you videos! This pickup looks very promising. Props to James May and his wizardry.