SCHERTLER DYN-M

[tracehunt]

Does anyone have any expereince with the SCHERTLER DYN-M pickup. Also, if you have have you used the pre amp also. I am looking for a pickup for my Gibson F5 that is non-intrusive to the instrument. I will not do any instrument modifcations including changing the bridge (i.e. Fishman)
You can email me at trace_hunt@yahoo.com as well.

Thanks

Trace Hunt

[Hoyt]

Trace,

The SCHERTLER DYN-M is unquestionably the best I have used (other than a mic). I have not used the preamp since I get great tone without it.

I do prefer a mic in combination with the Schertler for the best tone, but I would still feel comfortable with the pickup alone. I have tried PUs by McIntyre, Pick Up the World, Fishman, and some other stickon that are all but worthless. I've tried clip on mics with no success. I do understand there is a contact mic by AKG (I think. model number 411 or something similar)that has favorable comments here. It's in the $100 or so range.

While the price is high, I wasted a lot more than that trying to find something acceptable before getting the Schertler.

You will be pleased and can move on to other concerns.

Let us know what you do.

Hoyt

[Nolan]

I borrowed a SCHERTLER last fall for a gig and was blown away. I have a McIntyre and the SCHERTLER blows it away. It was awesome, that's what I'd get if I had an extra $400.

[peterbc]

I'm sorta looking for a pickup too, but don't have $400 to blow... Where can I find one of those AKG's? Elderly doens't have them, musicians friend doesn't have them...

[THP]

Great choice. I use the DYN-M and the preII...but i also use a stage mic as well and mix them both togehter.. The PreII comes in handy when you dont have your own sound guy..you can handle the tones yourself...
Highly suggested!!
Anthony
www.hickoryproject.com

[mandocaster]

I played in a church band this morning with this guy playing electric guitar, and with the Schertler I was able to hold my own. Wait a minute - you were that guitar player, Trace. It was a lot of fun to play with you and to see and play your new F-5G.

Mitch

[mandojosh]

The Schertler rocks! Its so great you dont really need the Pre, but the pre also kicks, its with out a doubt the best yet, and you dont have to drill any holes into your baby!
Josh

[Gail Hester]

I play in a very loud country band and I recently switched from a Schatten Design piezo with mounted violin jack and volume control, to the SCHERTLER DYN-M pickup. My frustration with the SCHERTLER DYN-M pickup has nothing to do with the sound as it sounds great but rather with determining a practical way to use it.

First of all the chord is very short, I’ve connected a microphone cable to extend it but now I’m dragging around the heavier cable and two XLR connectors on stage and it seems to catch on everything. The other problem is that some method of personnel volume control and a pre-amp is a must for me. The Schertler pre-amp will accommodate a male XLR input but most other pre-amps only have that connection on the output. Unless you are going direct to a mixer I can’t really think of a good way to hook everything up. My work around has been to use a microphone cable to extend the cable from the pickup into a XLR, then to a phone plug transformer adapter, then into a volume pedal, then out to my pre-amp, then back to my amp with a balanced line microphone cable. It seems to work but jeeze what a mess! I talked directly to Schertler and their answer was to not use a volume control and to, “pick harder for solos.” Does anyone have a better solution? Thanks in advance.

NOT Gail but her husband -Chuck
[U]

[Tbone]

Hey Chuck-

I put the cable in my back pocket. I attach the p/u cable to a monster XLR, and keep the connection in my back pocket so it doesnt catch on stuff. Works great!

Also, can't you use your amp's effects sends for your volume pedal? It seems to me like you could lose a lot of signal strength. Either that, or go p/u->preamp->volume pedal->amp. I would think you would want to get the signal up as high as possible before going into the volume pedal, which would have more noise, I would think. But I don't know.

[Gail Hester]

Thanks Tbone, I appreciate the help. I use an SWR California Blonde so the effects loop is a side chain design. Essentially the input signal and the effects are mixed in parallel which eliminates the possibility of using that for volume control. I’m right with you on the order of things and I tried that first but I found that the signal dropped to nothing when I put the volume pedal last. I assume there is an impedance problem that going balanced from the pre-amp to the amp seems to solve.

I’ve looked at lots of pictures of Chris Thile’s setup and he seems to have the chord shortened to a pig tail with a phone jack that he hooks to the end of the mandolin with Velcro or something. I’m not sure if he’s using a ring-tip-sleeve stereo plug arrangement or if maybe he’s connected pins 1&3 to adapt to a phone plug. At any rate, he’s a major endorser for Schertler and he certainly uses a volume control and other gear. We’re going to get to the bottom of this yet, thanks for the ideas! Here’s the picture I was referring to, the pickup is mounted under his wrist just behind the bass side of the bridge.

-Chuck

[John in T-ride]

That Mic looks like a Shure KSM 32. nice pic

[tracehunt]

I played in a church band this morning with this guy playing electric guitar, and with the Schertler I was able to hold my own. #Wait a minute - you were that guitar player, Trace. #It was a lot of fun to play with you and to see and play your new F-5G.

Mitch

Thanks Mitch i had a lot of fun playing too!!

[Tom C]

I'm on the phone ordering one right now with Kit from Olde Town Pickn Parlor for $360. Nice fella.

[iampeterfonda]

I’ve been using the Schertler DYN-M recently. It’s definitely much better than the McIntyre I’d been using but I’m still not 100% happy with the tone. I recorded Sally Goodin’ on it and posted it here http://www.mandolinproject.150m.com/ under iampeterfonda1 if you want to have a listen.

One potential weak point is feedback. I’m not too sound equipment savvy, but it took our sound guy about an hour to eliminate feedback—that said, it was a pretty loud event

[Gail Hester]

The Schertler PRE-AII preamplifier has a built in resonance feedback filter centered at around 180 HZ which really helps reduce feedback. I use a different pre-amp that fortunately has a similar adjustable filter in the 180-200 HZ range. I’ve noticed that there is a problem with 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.

-Chuck

[Tbone]

Hey Peter FOnda-

I think with a little EQ you could really improve the tone on your mando. Just from listening to your sound clip, the lows seem too high to me. Might be worth a shot.

[iampeterfonda]

Thanks for the information. I'm still pretty new at playing amplified and don't really get much of a chance to experiment. At some point I'm going to have to get a hands on tutorial from someone.

[iampeterfonda]

I’m trying to get my head around all this pick-up/amp/pre-amp stuff and among the tons of things I don’t understand is the “dry” output on the Schertler Pre-AII. The literature talks about two outputs, one is local and one is dry which is intended for the house system. But if it’s dry and unaffected by the EQ on the Pre-amp, what’s the point of having the pre-amp in the first place?

Second question: Can anyone point me to a good resource on amplification for dummies?

Thanks

[Tbone]

The dry output, like you said, is unaffected to changes in tone control from the preamp. This is because some players use an amp. You would run the dry out to the house, so the sound guy can EQ your mando so it sounds best in the house speakers. The 'wet' output would run to your amp - so you can have your amp sound like you like it to sound. The point of having the pre-amp is just to boost the signal for long cable runs.

A GREAT resource: The Acoustic Musician's Guide to Sound Reinforcement and Live REcording..........a killer intro on all the basics.

[iampeterfonda]

Thanks Tbone (is Tbone a George Constanza thing?)
That book looks great and I think I might have to make an order. Does it put things in an easy to understand way? Following up on the Pre-amp question, would the pre-amp take care of the 180 HZ problem that Chuck mentioned when going into the house system on the dry out?

[Tbone]

Well, you can call me Koko if you want.

Yes, from what I remember, the book puts things in a VERY easy to understand way. And yea, sounds like the preamp would take care of the 180 hz problem. Or, instead of spending the $400, you could get a nice little parametric EQ, maybe. That would do a good job as well, or just have the sound guy hit the low cut, and set a notch filter at 180, if that is an option.

[MandoDiddle]

Guys, for what it's worth. Schertler says that this is Thile's setup: Schertler Pre-Amp II, a Boss TU-2 pedal tuner, and a BSS direct box. (I'm not sure why he needs the direct box after the tuner) He also uses a Shure KSM44 mic for solos.