#106
|
|||
|
|||
Quote:
I had a thought....maybe the Seymour Duncan Mag Mic is worth a try. It is the only one I haven’t bought yet, I think! Quite hard to find locally. But a couple of youtube clips had that mic ‘air’. (The only thing that has stopped me from buying, apart from money, is the battery situation. I would never permanently install a mag, and I am a bit confused with their alternative wiring and soldering instructions to change to the watch batteries instead of 9V.....) I have some mags with mics, but they don’t have adjustable pole pieces like the Mag Mic and the high strings are way too loud. BluesKing777. |
#107
|
||||
|
||||
Quote:
__________________
Music: Spotify, Bandcamp Videos: You Tube Channel Books: Hymns for Fingerstyle Guitar (std tuning), Christmas Carols for Fingerstyle Guitar (std tuning), A DADGAD Christmas, Alternate Tunings book Online Course: Alternate Tunings for Fingerstyle Guitar |
#108
|
||||
|
||||
Quote:
This is one of the big "secrets" of amplification. It always seems like everyone wants to talk about pickups, but the entire chain matters, and the sound system is at least equally important. I've heard lots of pickups sound really good thru great PA systems (i.e. usually too expensive for individuals to own) and not so good the bad PAs. Transducers are generally the weak link in any sound system, and the first 1 is the pickup (converts your guitar into electricity) and the 2nd is the speakers (converts electricity back into sound).
__________________
Music: Spotify, Bandcamp Videos: You Tube Channel Books: Hymns for Fingerstyle Guitar (std tuning), Christmas Carols for Fingerstyle Guitar (std tuning), A DADGAD Christmas, Alternate Tunings book Online Course: Alternate Tunings for Fingerstyle Guitar |
#109
|
|||
|
|||
Quote:
Thanks Doug!, Ordered the Mag Mic about 2 hours ago! I will ask my luthier to get his soldering iron out again. When I bought my Sunrise with just the installation kit, I asked him to solder a guitar plug on the bare wire on the pickup for me. Not only did he do a pro job of that, but he also heat shrunk a rubber protection cover over the join and wires to hold it nicely and stop the metal plug scratching my guitars! I didn’t have the heart to tell him the Sunrise didn’t fit in the custom guitar he made me a few years ago.....it is an eighth too big to fit no matter how I tortured it..... After ordering the Seymour Duncan MM, I dragged out my Schertler Mag + Mic and played around with various settings and also tried it through my Sunrise buffer, no good - it is best plugged direct to my mixer really. It is a good pickup but has no adjustable pole pieces and the bass string on my subject of the moment, Waterloo WL-14X, was a bit quiet. Annoyed, I ran a lead to the K&K that is installed in the guitar to the Tonedexter on BYPASS and ran 2 inputs at once in my little A&H mixer...probably 75% K&K with 25% Schertler with mic on full. Workable, very workable....but I didn’t really like the bass sound. I recorded it but nobody will ever hear that one. BluesKing777. |
#110
|
|||
|
|||
Quote:
|
#111
|
|||
|
|||
Quote:
|
#112
|
|||
|
|||
Quote:
James May creates a new "Strum Jockey" dual preamp version of the ToneDexter for the ham fisted strummers amongst us. He also brings out a sound hole mic to match that is less offensively modern looking than the Seymour Duncan MagMic. How does it work? Being the genius he is with EQ he does away with the stupid redundancy of blending dual sources only by volume. Instead he uses complimentary frequency taking the mids and bass from the SBT and a reverse notch of the trebles from the sound hole to pick up authentic string strike. I know the Anthem and Cole Clark kinda do something similar but the above seems a more logical and elegant way to represent the whole guitar sound. He also puts a tube in the preamp just because tube. Please universe!? |
#113
|
||||
|
||||
Just to be clear, the MagMic is very nice as a *magnetic* pickup. It sounds fat and full, and electric - not much getting around that. So if you're looking for a natural sound, the MagMic doesn't do that, really. The mic adds some air and highs, but the electric quality is inescapable.
__________________
Music: Spotify, Bandcamp Videos: You Tube Channel Books: Hymns for Fingerstyle Guitar (std tuning), Christmas Carols for Fingerstyle Guitar (std tuning), A DADGAD Christmas, Alternate Tunings book Online Course: Alternate Tunings for Fingerstyle Guitar |
#114
|
||||
|
||||
Quote:
When I add a mic, to a guitar you can barely see it, and it sounds pretty good to me. Here's a photo of one guitar with an internal mic in it, from an angle where maybe you can (maybe?) see the mic. Note that I place the mic right inside the soundhole, where it picks up plenty of "string strike". This guitar has bracing in the way of where I usually place the mic, which is centered below the strings, for probably even more string sound, but this still works. IMG_3094.jpg Quote:
__________________
Music: Spotify, Bandcamp Videos: You Tube Channel Books: Hymns for Fingerstyle Guitar (std tuning), Christmas Carols for Fingerstyle Guitar (std tuning), A DADGAD Christmas, Alternate Tunings book Online Course: Alternate Tunings for Fingerstyle Guitar |
#115
|
|||
|
|||
Quote:
Though maybe I have that phase issue wrong? |
#116
|
||||
|
||||
Quote:
But to use a mic+ToneDexter, you would need a way to blend the 2 sources, so yes, you'd need a blender preamp of some kind. A ToneDexter with support for a 2nd channel would be very nice (and more expensive, and probably not needed by most people....). You can always use an external mic (or guitar-mounted mic) and just use your PA system or amp as the "blender", if your playing situation allows. Or you could route an internal mic to a separate preamp that supports it and again, run the mic preamp and tonedexter to a PA or amp, where they get blended. Of course, many people find that ToneDexter kind of reduces the appeal of a dual source system - it restores a lot of the complexity and natural sound that people are trying to get from dual source systems. It's simpler and sounds good. This is getting far away from "tonedexter in the field" :-)
__________________
Music: Spotify, Bandcamp Videos: You Tube Channel Books: Hymns for Fingerstyle Guitar (std tuning), Christmas Carols for Fingerstyle Guitar (std tuning), A DADGAD Christmas, Alternate Tunings book Online Course: Alternate Tunings for Fingerstyle Guitar |
#117
|
|||
|
|||
Yes I agree.
I realised I didn't clarify what I meant by reverse notch. Basically I'd envision just controlling Q quotient and frequency and having everything else completely rolled off. That way you can just find what's missing in string attack and don't try to do anything else with that mic so make it as feedback resistant as possible. |
#118
|
|||
|
|||
You can run an EQ device into the effects return in Tonedexter, if that helps.....
I have tried it with my Baggs Align EQ and my Fishman Pro EQ and while both these are great to get a nice sound from, for example, my Baggs M80 and M1A, a bit more work is needed to EQ a Tonedextered sound, a much fuller thing to work on than the ‘straight line’ soundhole pickups. I gave up. My wishlist for Tonedexter 2 is the impossible, I have been told. One that makes a soundhole pickup sound like a mic’d acoustic. , so I can slip a pickup in an unaltered vintage guitar..... BluesKing777. |
#119
|
||||
|
||||
Quote:
This is an interesting idea, let us know if you try it. I suspect you'd find that the string attack isn't just one narrow frequency. You should be able to get what you are looking for just with the usual approach of rolling off the low end of a mic, ideally with a high pass filter, so you only have the highs. A little bit goes a long way, and you're not likely to feedback (at least not due just to the mic - acoustics tend to feed back at higher volumes no matter what) On the other hand, playing around with ToneDexter lately, I hear plenty of string attack when I use a pick, so I may not be understanding what sound you're going for.
__________________
Music: Spotify, Bandcamp Videos: You Tube Channel Books: Hymns for Fingerstyle Guitar (std tuning), Christmas Carols for Fingerstyle Guitar (std tuning), A DADGAD Christmas, Alternate Tunings book Online Course: Alternate Tunings for Fingerstyle Guitar |
#120
|
|||
|
|||
Quote:
The meters, RTA and my ears would suggest we are hearing a similar band of frequencies but there's something about the character that makes for very different results.
__________________
Give a man a fishing rod... and he's got the makings of a rudimentary banjo. |