Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by David L. on December 27, 2009 at 12:57pm

Hi Ron,
What kind of store bought pickup do you have in mind? Many reso guitars have a magnetic PUP at the neck end (this sounds like an electric guitar rather than a reso sound) plus a piezo PUP at the bridge (this will give the reso sound). If you mean a piezo disc it is personal choice though many favour under or around the bridge area. A great idea I plan to try in the future is to install a piezo disc into the bridge itself -in this discussion http://www.cigarboxnation.com/forum/topics/transducer-hanky-roll check out the pdf by Scott Winburn http://www.jugtones.com/instruments/10.Old%20Crapper%20(Bedpan%20Guitar)/files/Piezo%20Sandwich%20Bridge.pdf
he shows how to in excellent detail.
Regards,
David

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Permalink Reply by Mungo Park on December 27, 2009 at 6:53pm

David:
Thanks for the help, from this I think I want it at the bridge. I ordered the long stick like piezo, so from what you have shown me I could drill the bridge and slide it into the bridge/biscut. Or at least I will try that first and see how it goes.
Thanks again for the direction.
I am waiting for the reso and pick up to come so I will post some photos when the stuff gets here.
Coll bedpan, man I have to get this going before I start on something like that, hmmmm might take that lokng to find a mint bedpan like that.
Cheers Ron.

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Permalink Reply by ChickenboneJohn on December 28, 2009 at 6:05am

Hi there

A normal piezo pickup isn't what is usually used on resos...but go ahead and see how it works (but you will doubtless need a preamp otherwise it will probably be way too trebly and tinny.). Simplest approach is to use a regular electromagnetic pickup but you can loose a lot of the reso tone.

Pickups on resonator guitars is a whole subject in itself..undoubtably the best for National type biscuit bridge guitars is the Highlander (the only one that most pros will ever use), but they are very specialist and $300 plus.

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Permalink Reply by Mark Werner on December 28, 2009 at 8:12am

I used a standard Radio Shack transducer on my resonator, and it works well and sounds fine. I mounted it on the resonator (the lid from a girl-scout cooking set...) directly under the bridge, using Silicone Seal to isolate it slightly from the metal.
I incorporated a volume control...First try at this and it works great.

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Permalink Reply by JUJU on December 29, 2009 at 12:57am

Finding a sweet spot on a reso with a Piezo is a pain in the ass , after weeks of trying just about every position possible i ended up fitting the Piezo to the under side of the Biscuit Bridge between the Cone and Biscuit (6" uke Cone ) dont sound half bad but the magnetic pickup i fitted sounds mint and you still get a reso sound from it - in my set-up i have the Peizo and a Magnetic Pickup along with a three way switch which enables you to have Peizo only , Magnetic only or both - both sounds pretty cool !

here's a video of Chickenbone John playing it at the 1st UK CBG Fest back in October

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4lDjbamcY6Y&feature=channel

Hope this helps

juju :-)

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Permalink Reply by Mungo Park on December 29, 2009 at 4:16am

I will try the piezo first and then if I can't get the sound I want I will try the magnetic PU, I am in the low budget camp so the expensive PU will not be in the plan"B" camp :( I will try the piezo in the bridge first.
I will keep things in perspective, I guess with low budget it has its limits, but I am building this for my son to play and it will be a fun project we can work on together.
Cheers Ron.

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