LR Baggs Dual Source system

Bob-Dubery · 2010-01-16T13:56:05+00:00

I just got my Larrivee back from McGibbon's. It's been in there for a pickup to be fitted. I wanted something a bit better, a bit more believable than the usual under-the-saddle system. I discussed options with Andy. LR Baggs offer two system with dual sound sources. One is the "I-Mix" the other is the "Dual Source". Both are based around the Baggs "Active Element" system. I-Mix marries the element with the Baggs "I-Beam" transducer (that Keira recently had fitted and gave us her opinion on). This is a contact system that fits under the bridge plate. The Baggs "Dual Source" marries the under-the-saddle element with an internal condenser microphone. In the Baggs system this is not mounted on a goose-neck; it is enclosed in a little block of foam rubber and is mounted with velcro inside the back of the guitar. After some musing, discussion and googling I opted for the "Dual Source" system. The first thing I want to note about this system is that it's non-destructive, non-obtrusive (as are several other Baggs systems). Consider this photo... Here you can see the pre-amp/mixer module and the control unit. The "black box" is mounted inside the guitar, on the back, with velcro. The controls (volume and mix) are two little thumb wheels mounted inside the sound hole. The microphone is not visible in this shot. It's mounted inside the back and (in this case) beneath the bridge plate. The battery is installed in a little bag that can be pulled out through the sound hole. So there's no need to cut any part of the body work away. You don't have to mount the mic beneath the bridge plate. You can experiment with placement. However Baggs recommend beneath the bridge plate and slightly towards the bass side as a default. Mark, the technician who fitted the system, said that Baggs do a lot of test installations during their development phase and he finds that you generally get the best results with their default installation. Baggs also pre-set the various controls on the black box. You can, of course, modify these but again Mark chose to go with the default settings - though one was eventually tweaked (more later). OK... how does it sound? I made a quick recording. This is with a lead straight into my PC's sound card. I used Audacity to record but added no effects or EQ. Let me just explain what's going on here. The system was installed in mono mode. In this mode the under-the-saddle element is always on, and the "mix" control progressively adds more of the microphone to the signal. In this recording I start off with the mix set for element only. Then I pause and dial more mic in. You can hear the colour and depth that this adds. http://www.box.net/shared/t3g617ioje One of the tweakable controls on the black box is the microphone gain. By default this is set to 7. Mark took this back down to 3 at installation time. After testing we decided to turn it down a little more so that mix control would offer finer control. We found that you actually don't want a lot of mic. The sweet spot, as Mark has the system set up, is round about 1/3 travel of the mix control. With too much mic things started sounding echoey - this was not feedback, it started to sound like the guitar was being played in a big empty hall. So you don't need to go all the way with the mic - you want just enough to add some depth and air to the signal from the element. We were testing with a very nice AER amp, but even straight into the sound card you can hear the difference that the mic makes. The system is easy to operate too. Just the two controls in the sound hole - master volume and mix. There is a phase switch on the black box which would be easily reached with a screwdriver or knitting needle. This puts the mic out of phase with the element. The default is in phase, but the switch (easily reachable if the system is installed by somebody sensible) is there in case you are struggling to tame feedback. Very nice system. Just what I wanted - sounds a lot more like an acoustic guitar. This can also be fitted in nylon string guitars. For more details see http://www.lrbaggs.com/dualsource.htm

Bob-Dubery

OK. I am now officially "a Believer" (tm). I'm now getting one of these fitted to the Morgan. The internal microphone adds a little bit of "air" or, if you like, an open quality to the Active Element under the bridge. As I reported previously you don't want a lot of the microphone, and in fact you can have too much and that renders the sound boxy. The UST has the oomph, the microphone adds some ambience.

Actually this system has reinforced my belief that the Baggs Active Element is actually a pretty good system and possibly the most realistic of the UST pickups.

I don't know about other brands of dual pickup systems. The Baggs systems certainly are very configurable, and so it follows that you should spend some time fine tuning the system to your liking.

Anyhoo... the Morgan is now at McGibbon's for the fitting of a Baggs Dual Source.

I do think that Baggs need to think about the name. The Dual Source is a dual source system. But the I-Mix is also a dual source system. There are no capital letters in spoken speech, and trying to explain how you have the Dual Source system but that dual source system is not the I-Mix though the I-Mix is also dual source gets confusing after a couple of beers.

racman

X-rated Bob wrote
Anyhoo... the Morgan is now at McGibbon's for the fitting of a Baggs Dual Source.

Thx for letting us know Bob - going to go there on Monday and recce their security system ...... ? ?

Bob-Dubery

racman wrote
X-rated Bob wrote
Anyhoo... the Morgan is now at McGibbon's for the fitting of a Baggs Dual Source.

Thx for letting us know Bob - going to go there on Monday and recce their security system ...... ? ?

Everybody wants that guitar!

I have a queue of 4 people already who have said "if you're selling that then give me a call first". But you can't please all the people all the time, and I've taken a solemn oath with a good friend ("A") who is actually the guitar's previous owner that he gets first dibs. If "A" doesn't want it then it gets offered to "B", if "B" doesn't want it gets offered to "C" and so on.

I ain't selling.

Meantime one of Andy's staff is already playing "Morgan? What Morgan?" games with me.

I have a receipt ?

racman

Bob, can you send me the names and addresses for persons A,B,C & D and add me as E ? ?

Bob-Dubery

racman wrote Bob, can you send me the names and addresses for persons A,B,C & D and add me as E ? ?

Several solemn and blood curdling oaths are involved, and if I divulge that information to you then I have to kill you. In which case your place in the queue becomes redundant.

Bob-Dubery

X-rated Bob wrote OK. I am now officially "a Believer" (tm). I'm now getting one of these fitted to the Morgan. The internal microphone adds a little bit of "air" or, if you like, an open quality to the Active Element under the bridge. As I reported previously you don't want a lot of the microphone, and in fact you can have too much and that renders the sound boxy. The UTS has the oomph, the microphone adds some ambience.

Actually this system has reinforced my belief that the Baggs Active Element is actually a pretty good system and possibly the most realistic of the UTS pickups.

I don't know about other brands of dual pickup systems. The Baggs systems certainly are very configurable, and so it follows that you should spend some time fine tuning the system to your liking.

Anyhoo... the Morgan is now at McGibbon's for the fitting of a Baggs Dual Source.

OK... the Morgan is back (had some cosmetic work done as well), and I'm very happy in this case as well.

I was at Andy's yesterday (and had the pleasure of meeting Joel of this forum whilst I was there) and we did a test and some tweaking.

Some observations....

When I plugged in I made sure the microphone was turned right down and so was running just the Element UST. The Morgan had previously had a Baggs Active Element installed. My first thought was "wow! The element sounds better". Two reasons I can think of for this
1) Installation makes a difference. (Mark re-routed the groove for the UST and cut a little of the saddle away under the 2nd string - which Andy believes aids balance with UST systems)
2) Different pre-amp - though how different I do not know (the Dual Source does not provide any adjustable EQ for the UST).

I also found that with the Morgan I can run slightly more microphone without the sound getting boxy - in fact it seemed to need a little more microphone (but by no means all). My guess is that this is because of the smaller, shallower OM body. Andy thinks it's to do with the heavier top on the Morgan.

In both cases I am running the system in mono with the microphone and UST in phase.

Gearhead

Andy's theory is that the decrease in emphasis of this string is beneficial to the plugged and unplugged sound. Compare to the pole piece height on a Strat with fixed poles - the heights are also not linear.

I do think the cutout makes more of a difference with a UTS fitted since that allows motion of the saddle relative to the bridge.

Bob-Dubery

zohn wrote
X-rated Bob wrote 1) Installation makes a difference. (Mark re-routed the groove for the UTS and cut a little of the saddle away under the 2nd string - which Andy believes aids balance with UTS systems)
Re-routing of the saddle groove (flattening of the saddle's footprint) is a tried and tested means of ensuring uniform contact with the saddle to get the balance right. I don't understand why one would want to remove saddle material after wards under a certain string though, especially with the Baggs UST which is in essence a piece of "screened wire" really.

No. There's a pressure sensitive element in there as well. The Active Element system that was in the Morgan was salvaged and you can clearly see that there's a length of something else under the braid - Baggs even mark the point at which this starts.

Surely that would affect the unplugged response of that string... ???
You seem happy with the result though which I suppose is what matters.

I don't hear a difference - certainly the 2nd string is not quieter relative to the others. I play mostly fingerstyle and the Morgan has very good separation between the strings, so if the tone had changed relative to the others that would be noticeable. The saddle is not cut through. There is still a path for the vibrations from the 2nd string to get to the bridge and to the UTS.

Bob-Dubery

Gearhead wrote Andy's theory is that the decrease in emphasis of this string is beneficial to the plugged and unplugged sound.

Interesting. Sometimes, especially with the Morgan, I thought the b-string was ringing a little more than the others. I thought it was something to do with the way I'd cut my nails, the way that they grew or - since I pick 2nd string with middle finger, 3rd string with index - that my index finger is bent out of shape as a result of an injury I incurred years ago keeping goal in a street soccer match.

Gearhead

We tend to adapt our string plucking / strumming to the output we hear. Andy showed in the 'electrics' session that if you get the string to string balance right, the guitar will sound better but also feel easier to play. You mind does a lot more than you think (no pun intended) ? (okay, pun was intended) ?

Bob-Dubery

Gearhead wrote We tend to adapt our string plucking / strumming to the output we hear. Andy showed in the 'electrics' session that if you get the string to string balance right, the guitar will sound better but also feel easier to play. You mind does a lot more than you think (no pun intended) ? (okay, pun was intended) ?

Yes.

Andy demonstrated something that surprised me yesterday. He is launching his own range of cables. He said "try one, you'll hear the difference". I said I doubted it, I thought it would be a difference that only dogs could hear, and besides we'd used a George L cable whilst setting up the microphone in the Morgan. He then told me it would FEEL different too.

So he got one of these cables out and we played a bit using that. The sound was better - clearly so, especially on the top end. Which surprised me. The guitar did seem to feel a little different. On reflection I think that it was that I didn't have to dig in quite so hard. Another application of on-the-fly adaption.

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