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Adding a pickup


Ricardo52

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I have a Crafter cc125, thin hollow body/no sound hole guitar with an under-saddle pickup and L.R. Baggs L.R.-F plus pre-amp. I would like to add a pickup in the neck position with either a blender or a 3-way switch and both pickups going through the pre-amp. I plugged a single coil from my Godin strat-style guitar's output jack into the pre-amp input and it sounds fine, but it wasn't quite as loud as the undersaddle going through the pre-amp. I expected the opposite. I'm considering a Stew-mac Golden Age tele-style or lipstick pup. There is enough wood under the neck area to route for a single coil, but not a humbucker.The guitar is used, a little banged up and I got it for a great price so I'm not afraid to do some routing. The lipstick is 3.8 ohms and the tele style is 7 ohms. Godin and Crafter make similar guitars and use lipstick pickups. Any suggestions about wiring and pickups? Will I need to add a resistor?

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Something like this might fit without having to route a hole for it. plus it will have a stronger output. http://www.ebay.com/itm/Ibanez-Mini-Humbucker-PAF-type-Floating-Jazz-Pickup-Chrome-for-AF84-MHFC93-CH-/171636821620

 

The reason the pickup and the under saddle don't have the same output levels is the preamps impedance is designed to match the higher saddle transducer impedance. you may be better off running the pickups output directly through to the amp and keep the transduces on the preamp by themselves.

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Thank you very much for your suggestions. The Ibanez pickup would be perfect, but my guitar has less room under the strings than an arch top. When I press the string on the 15th fret that pickup would only be about 1/32" below the string, probably too close without doing some shallow routing. Would a higher impedence pickup be more likely to match the output of the under saddle PU? Would the output from my Godin (or any guitar) be higher if I hooked up to the wires coming directly out of the pickup instead of the output jack as I did on my test? Maybe I need to ask Godin about that pickup's output and buy a slightly louder pickup, the StewMac tele bridge rather than the lipstick. A blend pot, rather than a toggle switch, might solve any imbalance.

 

I've considered installing a second 1/4" jack or replacing the existing one with a stereo jack, but I would like the option of having the combined pickup sound and controlling volume and tone easily and I hope to avoid replacing my 1 channel amp with a 2 channel or buying a mixer. I usually use an Artec EQ pre-amp when playing with others. Could the 2 signals be combined with a 1/4" Y' connector and sent to my EQ pre-amp and then to my amp? I once tried combining a Dean Markley sound hole pickup with the US transducer on a Hohner acoustic/electric using the 'Y' connector (without the EQ box) and the guitar's built-in pre-amp mysteriously controlled both pickups making it impossible to control the balance.

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If you haven't got enough clearance then you'll have to cut a hole for one. Using a Y jack through the preamp isn't a good idea. If anything getting a 2 channel preamp would be better or using a stereo output and running the two to two separate amp channels. You could mount passive controls for the pickup in the guitar or get a small preamp designed for an inductive pickup like this. http://artecsound.com/pickups/electronics/vtc.html

 

If this guitar has a built in preamp you may be able to use a dual pot before the preamp and wire the pickup and Piezo element to each of these pots to act as a panner. turn the dual pot in one direction and you have only the Piezo, turn it the other direction and you have the pickup. In between you balance the output of the two into the preamp. This has to be done on the input of the preamp, never the output.

 

I'm not sure how well it would work because it depends on the strength of the signals they produce. Pickups normally put out a much higher signal level so you may be having to pan the signal way over towards the piezio side. This would make the pickup sound dark in comparison, bity it would depend on the pickup choice.

 

You can just run the pickup straight out through a stereo jack then split it to run into a mini mixer which would combine the two signals and keep them buffered from one another. Just be sure the mixer will accept a guitar pickup straight in. Most mini mixers like Behringer and Mackie have guitar level inputs that should work. you may get more noise adding a second amplification stage for the Piezo pup but you do what you have to to make things work.

 

The best option is an on board preamp that combines the Piezo and pickup properly. http://www.guitarcenter.com/Graph-Tech-GHOST-Acousti-Phonic-Preamp-103235024-i1129712.gc?country=us&currency=usd&source=4WWRWXGP&gclid=CLq-6pjqkMMCFUWCMgod6kIAPw&kwid=productads-plaid^93544506621-sku^103235024@ADL4GC-adType^PLA-device^c-adid^44639487282

 

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Thanks for your helpful suggestions. I'm leaning towards buying the Stew-Mac Telecaster neck pickup and blender pot and testing it before routing and drilling a hole for the pot. As I mentioned in my first post, the Godin pickup run through the built-in Baggs pre-amp was only slightly, maybe 20-25%, lower volume than the under saddle pickup, close enough that theoretically the blender should work ok since they are designed to balance between bridge and neck pickups that often have different output levels, and give me full tone/volume control of both pickups. If that doesn't work well I'll either install a second jack or replace the original with a stereo output, maybe buy a small mixer, and use a toggle switch pedal to quickly chose between pickups. I can always install a combined volume/tone control later if I think I need them.

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Tele neck pups aren't all that strong in output. May be good enough though. They do sound pretty good because they are lower output.

 

One item you will have to address however. With coils you have hum and single coils with single wires are the worst choice you can make because the wires aren't shielded. In addition to that your strings must be grounded using inductive pickups so you body helps to block hum when you touch the strings.

 

Best method may be to use copper foil on the inside of the body where the strings go through the bridge. If this is a sealed guitar, you wont be able to get to the bottom of the bridge where the strings are held in by pegs. You want copper foul across those holes the strings contact when you put them on. Then that foil gets a ground wire attached and connected to the negative side of the pickup coil which is also likely gound for the 1/4" jack.

 

Without the ground wire you'll hum badly whenever you are around noisy AC devices.

 

Your best choice would be to use a Humbucker pickup which cancels the AC waves. Your Woody type pickups are humbuckers with heavily grounded cables so the need to ground the strings is virtually eliminated. Something like a Mini Humbucker will have a shielded cover and have grounded leads. Its still best to ground the strings, I just don't see you getting there easily. Maybe through the pickup route but that's a tough job for guys really good at working on tough ones like that.

 

Also, the reason the pickups are likely weak is because you're using non magnetic acoustic string. Brass and Bronze are not very good for pickups. You'll need to find electric strings of a similar gauge and feel. The pickup output should go way up with highly magnetic strings.

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It's more complicated than I thought! Grounding the strings may be possible, but way too much trouble as the only access to the underside of the bridge is through the pre-amp control panel hole. And the bridge is like a Breedlove's with no peg holes that would make it a little easier to ground strings. A mini-humbucker or possibly a pickup designed for an acoustic guitar's sound hole running through the Baggs pre-amp would be the way to go. I have never had hum problems using the Dean Markley humbucker pickup on my old dreadnought. I'm reconsidering the arch top add-on style pickup you suggested as I could route a quarter inch hole to accomodate it, but a mini-humbucker would probably be equally hum-free. I suppose a single coil sound hole pickup would work with minimal risk of hum noise, but the humbucker would be ideal. Thanks for your latest post about grounding.You saved me from a lot of grief!

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