Preamp for Shertler pickup

[Chip Booth]

Hi All, I recently bought a Sherlter Dyn-M pickup and the results by itself are a bit mixed. It has a decent woody tone and pretty good dynamics, but has quite bit of low frequency resonance even though I played with it a lot to find the sweet spot for mounting. I know Shertler makes a preamp for it, but I have looked at it and the EQ on the pre is minimal. I expect I am gonna want a lot more flexibilty than it provides at some point. The mixers that I use range from really nice with several bands of sweep EQ to 3 band fixed, so I want to carry a preamp/EQ rig that I can depend on regardless of what gear is provided. One piece that looks interesting is the Focusriote Trak Master.. Anyone got any experience with this or other preamp/EQ combos?

[Gail Hester]

I play at higher volumes and use an L.R. Baggs Para Acoustic DI pre-amp and get good results if I attenuate the problem area which is typically 180HZ for the Schertler.

The Schertler PRE-AII preamplifier has a built in resonance feedback filter centered at around 180 HZ which really helps reduce feedback, so they say. There is a problem with overtones and feedback in that area with the Schertler DYN-M so it’s good to pass that on to your sound guy and it may save some setup time. I’ve also noticed that you have to really follow the directions for installing the pickup and get a real good seal with the putty or you’ll get tons of uncontrollable feedback at higher volumes. If you simply twist and push down to get a better seal, all of that feedback goes away.

I've been thinking about trying the Schertler PRE-AII preamplifier. Has anyone tried both the Baggs and the Schertler pre-amps?

-Chuck

[patsites]

I run my Schertler into a Roland AC-60 acoustic guitar amp. It accepts the XLR in and gives me complete control of my tone and give me a huge signal boost that I can send out to the main PA Mixer via XLR Stereo, XLR mono or 1/4" mono. I place the amp on the floor in front of me and angle it up w/ the little stand that's attached on the bottom of the amp towards me to use a stage monitor just for my mandolin in front of me.

The Roland amp also has a completely independant second channel that I run my electric mandolin through and the amp also offers built in reverb, delay, chorus and also has a auto feedback system that works really well.

The amp's run about $400, but I feel it's worth every penny. You can completely control your own sound at every gig no matter what the sound system, the room size or band configuration. I have played with raging loud rock bands and small acoustic duos w/ just guitar and it has performed perfectly each time. This is obviously a lot more than an Baggs Acoustic DI, but the roland brings out the absolute best in my schertler.

PS. I used the DI before and it was very good too, just not as much control as the Roland amp.

[mandroid]

I use a mixer/amp [ETEK] with EQ, 3 band, on each of the Mic channels. Since the Dyn-M is a contact mic. wood plate reverb has some interesting effects.
a rackmount 1/3 octave #or 31 band #EQ in an Aux loop, part of #most mixers ought to cure controll-ability, I would think.
http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/coffee.gif #http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/mandosmiley.gif #