Archtop Pickup Options for a Natural Acoustic Tone?

[beezle]

I am interested in hearing about pickup options for achieving a natural acoustic tone from an archtop guitar. Magnetic pickups are great but I would like to learn more about the other types of pickups that are available these days.

I have a Kinman noiseless P90 magnetic pickup installed in my fully-hollow Eastman archtop. I also like to amplify the guitar using a microphone; I blend the two sources together or switch back and forth between the two. I have come to prefer dual-source systems like this since installing them on my acoustic guitars, and the result is just as pleasing on my archtop. The Kinman magnetic pickup sounds great (it's my favourite magnetic pickup that I've tried to date), but I find that I also really enjoy the sound of the guitar through the microphone, and I get great results by using FX on the magnetic pickup and blending that with the clean acoustic sound from the mic.

After using this sort of setup for some time, I find that I miss the microphone when I don't have it, but I'm hoping to find a natural sounding pickup that I can use as a suitable replacement for the microphone. The mic is a pain in the neck to deal with in general, and feedback is always a concern. I'm looking for a practical plug-and-play alternative. Ideally, I would like to wire the magnetic pickup and acoustic pickup to a stereo endpin jack for the sake of convenience and simplicity, and I would prefer to avoid pickups that require batteries in the guitar itself.

Thanks!

[citizenk74]

I am interested in hearing about pickup options for achieving a natural acoustic tone from an archtop guitar. Magnetic pickups are great but I would like to learn more about the other types of pickups that are available these days.

I have a Kinman noiseless P90 magnetic pickup installed in my fully-hollow Eastman archtop. I also like to amplify the guitar using a microphone; I blend the two sources together or switch back and forth between the two. I have come to prefer dual-source systems like this since installing them on my acoustic guitars, and the result is just as pleasing on my archtop. The Kinman magnetic pickup sounds great (it's my favourite magnetic pickup that I've tried to date), but I find that I also really enjoy the sound of the guitar through the microphone, and I get great results by using FX on the magnetic pickup and blending that with the clean acoustic sound from the mic.

After using this sort of setup for some time, I find that I miss the microphone when I don't have it, but I'm hoping to find a natural sounding pickup that I can use as a suitable replacement for the microphone. The mic is a pain in the neck to deal with in general, and feedback is always a concern. I'm looking for a practical plug-and-play alternative. Ideally, I would like to wire the magnetic pickup and acoustic pickup to a stereo endpin jack for the sake of convenience and simplicity, and I would prefer to avoid pickups that require batteries in the guitar itself.

Thanks!

Aye, theres the rub. With a responsive acoustic instrument, like as not, when you amplify that sound, you often wind up with howling feedback and an unhappy audience. A multi-band equalizer (preferably parametric) may help control individual hot frequencies.
I do hope you can find a solution to this conundrum that satisfies your ear and your audience.

[beezle]

Aye, theres the rub. With a responsive acoustic instrument, like as not, when you amplify that sound, you often wind up with howling feedback and an unhappy audience. A multi-band equalizer (preferably parametric) may help control individual hot frequencies.
I do hope you can find a solution to this conundrum that satisfies your ear and your audience.

Thanks - I hope so too! It seems that there are far fewer options for archtop guitar than there are for flattop acoustic guitars.

[jazzkritter]

There was a Fishman device called a Fishman Blender that took a microphone and pickup and, well blended them. Had some simple but effective tone controls. I used it with a Gibson Bozeman flat top cutaway had a flex mike inside it and a honky quartz bridge pickup. Not my kind of guitar but the blender was ok.
I think it’s still sitting here if your interested I’d just was well send it off I’ll never use it again.
d

[Littlemark]

Any piezo with the tone Dexter preamp sounds good. I was very impressed.

[Alter]

Very interested in this thread also. I've seen (and tried) such systems in acoustic and classical guitars, not so much on archtops. Like the KK triple ones that have a mic as well in the guitar.

The simpler they are, the better they work for me. A great one is the Lr baggs Anthem, which does work, you set it up once and it can give you mic sound without feedback. But I'm not sure you can use it on an archtop.

I prefer the electronics/preamp to be out of the guitar in a separate box, that way it's much less invasive and easier to eventually upgrade.

[docsteve]

Fishman makes an archtop pickup as a replacement bridge. I have one on mine and get compliments for my sound. I have yet to find a solution to blend it with a magnetic pickup.


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[D.G.]

Any piezo with the tone Dexter preamp sounds good. I was very impressed.

I’m looking to pick up a ToneDexter for my gypsy guitar. I have high hopes that it can turn the bridge Bigtone on my DuPont into something listenable...

[Littlemark]

I’m looking to pick up a ToneDexter for my gypsy guitar. I have high hopes that it can turn the bridge Bigtone on my DuPont into something listenable...

It does. That's exactly what I bought it for. I have a bigtone on my gypsy guitar. When I use the same setting with my Dearmond FHC it sounds pretty good too. Not like a mic but pretty good.

[beezle]

Very interested in this thread also. I've seen (and tried) such systems in acoustic and classical guitars, not so much on archtops. Like the KK triple ones that have a mic as well in the guitar.

The simpler they are, the better they work for me. A great one is the Lr baggs Anthem, which does work, you set it up once and it can give you mic sound without feedback. But I'm not sure you can use it on an archtop.

I prefer the electronics/preamp to be out of the guitar in a separate box, that way it's much less invasive and easier to eventually upgrade.

I agree with this. I prefer systems that can be processed externally. Also, I have heard a lot of good things about the Tonedexter.

[James May]

Hi Folks,

I'm new here, I'd like to introduce myself. I'm the co-creator of ToneDexter, and I have a separate company that makes the Ultra Tonic pickup. Links in my signature below. I'm happy to take questions about any of the technology and what it can and can't do.

Regarding the topic of this thread: Well, there haven't been many good pickup options for archtop guitar if you're after a natural acoustic sound. An undersaddle pickup (like the Fishman) and a ToneDexter will get you there, to be sure.

If you want a pickup that can get a woody, pleasant acoustic sound all by itself, then you need a sound board transducer. The problem with all of them is that they will feedback and make the whole thing unusable.

That is where the Ultra Tonic comes in. It's kinda like a K&K SBT, except that it has a patented means to buck the feedback (and boominess) using an out-of-phase feedback cancellation sensor in addition the main sensors. They are passively combined to cancel out the bad stuff and keep the good stuff. I've been selling lots of these to flat top players as well as nylon string players. In fact, Eastman and Cordoba are both coming out with models that use the Ultra Tonic next year.

Back to archtops. The main issue is access, and also the ability to blend with a mag pickup which many like to use for its own gorgeous but distinctly not natural sound. So, after some significant design work, I can now say that using an Ultra Tonic is one approach to consider for archtop.

In the below thread I show how I mounted my Ultra Tonic in a seriously good sounding carved archtop, the Eastman AR610CE. It was also an experiment to show that a passive blending scheme was possible between a mag and the Ultra Tonic.

https://www.acousticguitarforum.com/...d.php?t=593356 see post #7

Since then, I've replaced the mag pickup with a Kent Armstrong humbucker with 12 adjustable pole pieces. This allowed me to perfect the string balance with D'Addario nickel bronze strings which I really like.

I made a quick demo clip of the range of voices possible with this setup.
• First half is with ToneDexter on BYPASS, so no processing - straight into soundcard.
• 2nd half is exact same sequence but going through the WaveMap created with the Ultra Tonic
• There is an additional bit at the end showing fingerpicking with Ultra Tonic through WaveMap.

[citizenk74]

Hi Folks,

I'm new here, I'd like to introduce myself. I'm the co-creator of ToneDexter, and I have a separate company that makes the Ultra Tonic pickup. Links in my signature below. I'm happy to take questions about any of the technology and what it can and can't do.

Regarding the topic of this thread: Well, there haven't been many good pickup options for archtop guitar if you're after a natural acoustic sound. An undersaddle pickup (like the Fishman) and a ToneDexter will get you there, to be sure.

If you want a pickup that can get a woody, pleasant acoustic sound all by itself, then you need a sound board transducer. The problem with all of them is that they will feedback and make the whole thing unusable.

That is where the Ultra Tonic comes in. It's kinda like a K&K SBT, except that it has a patented means to buck the feedback (and boominess) using an out-of-phase feedback cancellation sensor in addition the main sensors. They are passively combined to cancel out the bad stuff and keep the good stuff. I've been selling lots of these to flat top players as well as nylon string players. In fact, Eastman and Cordoba are both coming out with models that use the Ultra Tonic next year.

Back to archtops. The main issue is access, and also the ability to blend with a mag pickup which many like to use for its own gorgeous but distinctly not natural sound. So, after some significant design work, I can now say that using an Ultra Tonic is one approach to consider for archtop.

In the below thread I show how I mounted my Ultra Tonic in a seriously good sounding carved archtop, the Eastman AR610CE. It was also an experiment to show that a passive blending scheme was possible between a mag and the Ultra Tonic.

https://www.acousticguitarforum.com/...d.php?t=593356 see post #7

Since then, I've replaced the mag pickup with a Kent Armstrong humbucker with 12 adjustable pole pieces. This allowed me to perfect the string balance with D'Addario nickel bronze strings which I really like.

I made a quick demo clip of the range of voices possible with this setup.
• First half is with ToneDexter on BYPASS, so no processing - straight into soundcard.
• 2nd half is exact same sequence but going through the WaveMap created with the Ultra Tonic
• There is an additional bit at the end showing fingerpicking with Ultra Tonic through WaveMap.