Well, here it is, the world's first electrified Jacobson. Marty extremely graciously fitted this K&K Twin for me this afternoon. I won't say he's the most helpful and accommodating luthier in the entire world, since that might go to his head, but he is certainly the finest I've ever met. While I was there I saw y'all's mandos lined up (in parts). There are some very big treats in store for you folks. Anyway, I just wanted to make everyone extremely jealous by being the first one to be able to do this:
Oh, "how does it sound?" you ask? Here is a video where I cut between the input from the mic and the pickup at irregular intervals. Can you tell where? There is a difference, as you would expect, but I actually like both sounds pretty well. I'll be quite happy with that sound live, I believe.
Nice,David. Sounds really good. Yeah, I can tell it, but I don't think it hurts the sound at all. Should work well for live gigs. Gonna go straight to the P.A., or an amp?
Thanks Mike, I'm putting it through an LR Baggs Para Acoustic DI so I get a nice clean signal and can balance the EQ myself, and then, yes, it would go straight from there into the PA. We did try it through a guitar amp at Marty's shop this afternoon, and it was kind of fun, but it wasn't really the sound for my bluegrass band It's actually kind of great to have even more different sounds available, I can see me using a mic AND the pickup in some situations.
Nice job, David. Glad it's working out for you. I can tell where the source changes, and I think I guessed correctly, since one source has a touch more fingering and picking noise. If I guessed correctly, it sounds far more natural than I expected after hearing it through the guitar amp. Never having plugged an instrument into a board directly before, I guess I never realized how good these could be. I thought there just had to always be some of that quack and honk, but I am glad to find out I was just ignorant. Now I need to try running some of my other piezo-equipped instruments directly into my board... hmm...
David, like the close up really looks good. As for sound I can't really hear where it changes, I have been traveling on a motorcycle 8 hours of the day today so I don't think my ears are up to it this second , but I can her a nice crisp ,clear mandolin sound which sounds good to me. Sure you'll have fun with it tweeking the sounds out of it for different situations. Well done David, Marty
Thanks guys, yes, I wasn't sure how it would work out, but to me it seems pretty cool. The Baggs really does a great job of controlling it, but if your board's good enough you could probably go direct. I'm impressed with the results too. From my experiments, it really seems important where the pickups are placed. We got them close up just behind the bridge on either side. Too far from the bridge in any direction seemed to introduce too much quack. But you also need to be able to roll off the higher mid-range frequencies electronically (that's what the Baggs does) because piezos really attract them. The video starts with the mic input, and the first cut to the pickup is at 10 seconds. It cuts back to mic at at 00:19, then again to pickup at about 00:32. You should be able to figure out the other cuts from there. As long as both sources sound like a nice mandolin, that's all I need.
Is there some reverb on the pickup track? If not, I'm surprised that it sounds so "acoustic", it almost sounds like it's being played in a fairly large room.
I noticed that too. I think that was just my mixing error - a little too much reverb on that one. I meant it to have the same as the other track but it got a bit extra.
So when are we gonna hear "Jerusalem Ridge" thru a flanger, wah-wah, and overdrive? Jimi meets Big Mon!
Mike, Bruce Harvie, who supplies all the spruce and redwood for my mandolins, does some cool stuff along those lines.... http://bruceharvie.bandcamp.com/albu...r-of-bluegrass
That's some outrageous stuff! Thanx,Marty, I love it. His 4 string banjo on Old Daingerfield sounds about like my mandolin picking first time I tried to record!
I love the Bruce Harvie link! I haven't listened to everything yet, and some tracks are more to my taste than others, but I like his adventurous spirit and especially his tongue-in-cheek irreverence, a la: "That’s Mr. Bill layin’ down the law.." and "Mangler of Bluegrass." The Schneider "hybrid" A2/A4 sounds fantastic, especially on "Melissa's Waltz." Another example of music as an endless sea of possibilities! David, watch out, slippery slope ahead....first it's a pickup....then trouble in River City...
That's what I wanted to hear. The mic likes that mandolin a lot, but the K&K projects all those voices in there that you hear when you're playing it. Good set up on that.
David, Well its been a month or so how are you liking the pickup? Enjoying it? Easier to get the sound you like at gigs?
Yes, I've tried it a couple of times now, and I've been very happy with the results. When I'm going to have to use a mic, or there are things where I'll be acoustic, I use the Silver Angel, just because it is acoustically louder. But I really like the tone I get from the Jacobson with the pickup through the Baggs DI, so I use it whenever I can.
