Click track

Riaan

I noticed something tonight: been experimenting with some recordings and I noticed that sometimes the click track seems to have been recorded with the DI acoustic guitar. I suspect that the click track's sound is picked up from the monitors by the guitar's sound box and transferred to the bridge piezo's?

FatBoy

I'm no expert, but I believe you are supposed to play the click track through headphones.

AlanRatcliffe

Clicks should be monitored through headphones yes. But it still sounds strange that the guitar is that microphonic with a piezo - even if you are blasting the click monitors. Are you sure it's not an acoustic with a dual piezo/mic pickup system in? What is the guitar BTW?

Neps

it can happen.. ive picked up the whole drum kit through the bass guitars pups. The bassist was in the same room as me, and when you solo the bass, you can hear the drums in the BG. Also happend on acoustic.

So it's entirly possible that it can happen. If the click was running through the monitors quite loud, and the guit was facing them whilst you were recording, the guits normal pick up would have taken that signal as well.

Remember, eventhough the pick up does work on the electrical vibrations from guit strings, its still a change in sound presure that also has an effect here. Same principle as whith a mic. A pick up is just another design along the lines of sound preasure being changed to audio/electrical pulses.

Riaan

Are you sure it's not an acoustic with a dual piezo/mic pickup system in? What is the guitar BTW?

It's a Cort electro-acoustic, a more or less R2K priced model - I'm not sure what exact model it is. As far as I know it doesn't have a dual system. Piezo's only. Yes, the click was quite loud on the monitors and I didn't adjust the individual levels properly. And I was sitting right if front of and facing the monitors. So yes, looks like I will have to start using headphones!

AlanRatcliffe

Unpotted pickups can be microphonic I know, but AFAIK, Riaan does not monitor at very loud levels - a drum kit in comparison is LOUD. And it's a piezo pickup system anyway, which are usually very resistant to feedback.

Piezos generally are pretty feedback resistant, because they pick up 95% of their tone from the strings and very little from the top. There are ways to make a piezo more microphonic like squeezing a 3.2mm pickup into a 2.8mm slot (not recommended), or routing the bridge slot through the bridge to the top surface, but neither is something you will usually find in a stock acoustic pickup installation.

So if the click is coming through loudly (Riaan?) I think it's more likely that it's a dual pickup/mic system or even that there is something routing the click signal into the input.

deanBailey

Yeah I've had this problem too, Mainly with overdriven guitars and EMG pickups though.

But once I noticed I was getting click bleed I did tests out my ass to narrow down the problem. It basically came down to what most have said here about pickups being so sensitive that it does pick it up slightly (and is a nightmare when re-amping)
sometimes I've just been negligent(stupid) and leave an un muted mic around.

And the other problem was my shitty mixer that had tracks bleeding into one another (mainly click) so I just ran it as direct outs.

But piezo pickups aren't that sensitive or high output to capture the click bleed AFAIK.