Fine tuning pickup installation

Bob-Dubery

I have had LR Baggs "Dual Source" systems installed in my Larrivee and my Morgan. The Larry was the first recipient of this system. It didn't have any kind of pickup in when I bought it. McGibbon's did the installation on both guitars. The installation on the Larry was the first they'd done for this system.

I was happy with the results and asked them to order another DS system for the Morgan. This was fitted a month or so later. The same technician, Mark, did both installations.

Both guitars sounded very good plugged in, but the Morgan was obviously louder. The volume difference lay in the UST part of the system (which could be proven by turning the internal microphone all the way down).

I queried this with Mark. His first thought (and mine) was that there was a bad connection somewhere. I left the Larrivee with him whilst I was on holiday. He checked all the connections, made sure all the wiring was neat and so on. Today I took the Morgan over to the shop and we did a comparison. The Morgan was way louder.

Mark then checked both guitars out in the workshop. Two things caught his eye
1) The Morgan's saddle is Tusq, the Larry's bone
2) The Morgan's bridge is built so that the pins are a little closer to the saddle than on the Larry, thus giving more downwards pressure.

He fitted a Graphtec saddle that he had in the work shop. This was a bit on the high side, but he just wanted to check if there was any difference to the volume. There was. So now do we cut a Tusq saddle for the Larry?

Mark took another look. He noticed that the bone saddle was a very snug fit. You didn't need a hammer or anything like that, but the Graphtec saddle, whilst not loose, went in a little easier. He sanded the side of the bone saddle very slightly so that it slipped in a little easier.

Bingo! Volumes were now in the same ball park. It seems that the tight fit meant that some of the vibrations were getting choked (my words, not his) and thus transfer of energy to the UST was impaired.

This was a nice example of trouble shooting. It took maybe 40 minutes in all.

MikeM

I'm looking for the facebook like button ?

Interesting and informative post. Thanks.

chris77

Very interesting, thanks for sharing. Does it affect the unplugged sound as well? Basically what I'm asking is, Will a snug saddle add to the resonance or 'choke' it and dull the natural tone?

AlanRatcliffe

I've run across that problem more than once. Fishman make a point of emphasising a "sliding" saddle fit to avoid problems. A too-tight saddle often manifests as unbalanced string to string volumes in the pickup rather than the overall volume drop, but it does happen.

It doesn't hurt the acoustic tone at all that I can tell. The vibration is still reaching the top of the guitar - it's just it's taking a slightly different path via the sides of the saddle slot rather than the bottom.

Bob-Dubery

Alan Ratcliffe wrote: I've run across that problem more than once. Fishman make a point of emphasising a "sliding" saddle fit to avoid problems. A too-tight saddle often manifests as unbalanced string to string volumes in the pickup rather than the overall volume drop, but it does happen.

It doesn't hurt the acoustic tone at all that I can tell. The vibration is still reaching the top of the guitar - it's just it's taking a slightly different path via the sides of the saddle slot rather than the bottom.

Eggzactly. There was nothing wrong with the unpluuged sound, and if there's any change now it's subtle. But there was a major difference in output from the UST on the two guitars. I don't expect them to be identically loud, but the difference here was so marked that it was worth investigating.

Bob-Dubery

Alan Ratcliffe wrote: I've run across that problem more than once. Fishman make a point of emphasising a "sliding" saddle fit to avoid problems. A too-tight saddle often manifests as unbalanced string to string volumes in the pickup rather than the overall volume drop, but it does happen.

Well where does imbalance stop and overall volume drop start? Mark thought the Larry sounded a lot thinner plugged in than the Morgan. Maybe the bass strings weren't driving the UST properly.

Whatever, problem solved now, and McGibbon's treated it as a warranty job.