Electric pickup on acoustic guitar

[trekkiesoy]

Plan to put a dimarzio fast track 2 in a soundhole on a 1985 fender concord 2 dreaghnought guitar.

 

Any ideas.

1) strings to use

2) volume pot to use (500 or 250)

3) Experiences with an electric pickup on an acoustic

[melandy]

What sort of sound are you looking for out of this? It is not going to sound much like an acoustic guitar.

 

1. Assuming that is not what you are looking for, you would probably get better response from the pickup designed for electric guitars with electric strings. Acoustic strings don't have the same ferrous properties and won't drive an electric pickup the same way.

 

2. I think normally you use 250 with single coil and 500 with humbuckers. or do I have that backwards?

 

3. No experience with this. Take with grain of salt.

 

Again, this won't give you an acoustic sound. You're basically making a giant hollowbody electric.

 

-A

[trekkiesoy]

i really don't know what sound to look for, only want to experiment with it.

[Stackabones]

Again, this won't give you an acoustic sound.

 

This is true of almost any pickup system on an acoustic. Anything beyond a mic is full of compromises. At least these pups won't sound like a piezo.

 

 

Sounds like a cool project, trekkiesoy. Will you post clips when done?

[trekkiesoy]

you bet i will put clips. But i was wondering if somebody here already did this and with what results, and with which pickups. I hate the piezo sound and feedback. So that is mostly my reason to try this.

[seagullplayer77]

There's that Epiphone John Lennon model...I think that has a P90 mounted just below the neck, and there's volume and tone pots mounted on the top of the guitar too:

 

http://guitars.musiciansfriend.com/product/Epiphone-EJ160E-John-Lennon-AcousticElectric?sku=518653

 

If you could find some sound clips of that, you might be able to get an idea of what you're project will sound like. As other folks have pointed out, it definitely won't sound like an acoustic, but I'm sure it'll sound interesting. I used to play with a Seymour Duncan Woody, which is basically a humbucker stuffed inside a maple box. It didn't replicate the acoustic sound well at all, but I plugged into an electric amp and played without an issue. I'd imagine that it would probably sound OK with effects as well.

 

As far as string composition, it beats me . Nearly all the acoustic strings I know of are either PB or 80/20 bronze, and those aren't nearly as magnetic as steel or nickel, which is what electric strings are typically made of. I suppose you could try using some heavier gauge electric strings. If you use light ones (i.e. .009s), you'll probably run into some problems...I don't think there will be enough string tension to drive the top of the guitar properly.

[DarkHorseJ27]

One problem your going to run into is that the pickup won't be able to sense the wound strings as well as it does electric strings, so the high E and B strings will sound much louder than the rest. You'll have to use electric strings, or try GHS White Bronze or DR Zebras. The GHS claims the White Bronze strings use an alloy that is ferrous but reacts likes bronze. Some people told me that it is really just nickel, and its a dirty little secret GHS wants no one to know. The DR Zebras have an alternating winding of bronze and nickel, so it will work better with magnetic pickups, but I'd imagine the sound would be halfway between acoustic and electric strings.

 

The other problem will be string spacing. Most acoustics have a wider string spacing than electrics. That would cause the pole pieces on the pickup not to match up with the strings. I would check string spacing before you do anything to see if the strings and the pole pieces will match up.