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| This system was pioneered by Sam Mitchell already in the 70's, when he installed a very cheap ( but great sounding ) £2 magnetic pickup in his 1936 Steel bodied REGAL DOBRO. My next move is to try an old magnetic pickup usualy found on 1964 Hagström Viking electric guitar - on my Style 1. I have this pickup in the soundhole of my Yamaha FG-180 acoustic and it sounds great, it's got this smooth sound when played with the light touch, but as soon as you pick the string a bit harder, it gives me that old timey distorsion ( well, not a real distorsion, but it "roars" so fine...). Now, before I maybe start a discussion on this with "where to install a magnetic pickup on a resophonic guitar" issue, I'd like to say that I don't like the idea of piezzo transducer in the resophonic guitar, specially if I want to play slide. Contact mics can't give me the volume I need. Let me now state why it's good to install the magnetic pickup in the coverplate: Look where the pickup is, and compare it with where you have the pickups on an electric guitar. Placed in the neck position, pickup gives a nice warm basses, in the middle position it's well balanced bass/treble sound, and in a bridge position you get the screaming highs, right ? Well, for my playing style this is the best place to have the pickup, it gives both nice basses and trebles. If I have drilled a hole in the body in order to install the pickup in neck position, I would have gotten this boomy bass which usualy produces lots of "whoooooom" effect/feedback on the volumes I'm playing with. However, Alvin Youngblood Hart has a D'Armond vintage pickup installed exactly there on his new National Steel Bodied Style 1, and it sounds great, but it suits Alvin's playing style, he plays with bare fingers and wants a very smooth tone out of his guitar. Well, the guy knows deffinitelly what he's doing, and don't miss any of his shows - and for God sake, buy his first solo album, it's brilliant ! Another good reason to have everything installed in the coverplate is that you can always get your "true acoustic guitar" back if you want. Buy an extra coverplate and just replace it. You can also have several different pickups in maybe two or three coverplates for different sounds etc, combinations and variations are endless. |
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