best pickup for mando in rock band?

[darrylicshon]

My Ovation will feedback if i get really loud

[Dave Greenspoon]

I get the Cube is your practice amp at home; what will this rig be feeding on stage? Will it be going thru a board to the PA? Amps?

The Radius isn't the easiest beast to tame, but once you do, it is pretty much natural and acoustic as it gets. If you really like the sound, you can even get it mounted permanently inside your instrument.

[almeriastrings]

The Fishman bridge pickups, are, in my opinion dire. Horribly unnatural, 'quacky' sound. The Baggs Radius is a better sounding transducer than the Fishman (just about everything is), but far from great, and if maximum volume before feedback is your aim - forget it. As a particularly sensitive soundboard transducer it has quite a low threshold. It is also quite prone to external handling noise and 'pick click'. The K&K's are superior in that regard.

In your situation, I would seriously look at that Lace pickup.

For maximum volume without feedback, magnetic pickups rule. Whatever pickup you use, you are not going to get a 100% 'natural' sound as you might from a good microphone, that is just reality, and you have to accept it. At very high volume levels it is hard to tell the difference anyway....

[Paul Busman]

Looking at the Eastwood mandocaster 8 string, any thoughts on how well built? might be a good starting point?

I love mine. It's very well built with good fit and finish. The neck is comfortable, no rough fret ends. There are replacement pickups you can get for more powerful sound, but I find the stock ones just fine.

[JHouse]

thank you all so much!

Pretty sure we're picking up an electric mando now instead trying to make the breedlove function in a rock band (but it will certainly get played in the string band!)

I'm leaning toward a Godin a8 at this point, there's a few available used. Very excited!! Since I posted this thread I've learned a LOT about mandolins and their behavior sound wise. It's good to be my husband right now,he just got a decent acoustic mando and now we want to buy him an electric one. That's what happens when musicians marry musicians ;-)

Jan H.

[jesserules]

emando.com is a useful resource for electric mandolin info & reviews & such.

[CES]

The Godin A8s are good little instruments, and will function well in your full band setting. They're loud enough unplugged for some relatively quiet practice, but sound better unplugged than I expected. Not like your good acoustic, but not terrible.

I have a Mandobird 4 string I picked up used for $125 8 or 9 years ago. I head up the youth praise band at our church, and it's what I use when we have our full band of 2 acoustic guitars, an electric guitar, bass, keys, and drums. If we go acoustic or don't have the drums I'll take my Collings MT and play through a mic, but the Mandobird is a ton of fun!

Good luck with your search!!

[JHouse]

[QUOTE=Dave Greenspoon;1542483]I get the Cube is your practice amp at home; what will this rig be feeding on stage? Will it be going thru a board to the PA? Amps?

The Cubes (have 2 identical) are the gig amps, 80 watts lots of headroom. I have several tube amps that I love, but after bouncing around in the van for one nighters every weekend it's a challenge to keep them running, so the Cubes are just more reliable and plenty loud. Very clean too.

So the plan is, run the mandolin through an amp (with my Martin acoustic don't need a d.i. box for that but we have them if needed), and either mic the amp or run direct from amp to p.a. Probably nothing in the monitors would be best.

We decided to go with an electric mando for full band -- I'm posting at the end of the thread, just pulled the trigger.

[JHouse]

once again thanks all for chiming in -- quite the adventure in this thread.

We just now bought a used Godin A8 online, cherry burst in great condition. Kind of scary but we heard enough good things about them, and we have a great tech that works on a lot of mandolins, so if it needs setup we're in good shape there.

Really glad we did this -- let the acoustic Breedlove be itself, and the Godin be the electric, it just makes sense.

So all husband has to do is learn! He's been spending hours on it, which is great for everyone except the cat.

My job is to augment my guitar playing with banjo. . .(and figure out how to mic etc). . but that's another story for another forum!

Mandolincafe is a great place by the way. . I can see how folks get hooked on them. I plan on stealing some time on these mandolins myself ;-)

Jan H.

[Br1ck]

Do yourself a favor and get the ridiculous priced for what you get $29 DBX GoRack. Plug it in pretty much anywhere in the chain, and let it take care of any feedback issues.

[mandroid]

I see a $C note , down $25 from full SRP http://dbxpro.com/en-US/products/gorack

[pops1]

Here you go:

http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/goRack

I use a K&K on the banjo and it sounds good without a preamp, since there is not much bass it doesn't seem to sound bad like most instruments can. I also have a magnetic pickup for banjo that mounts on the coordinator rods and uses a small piece of brass under a bridge foot. Both easy and work well.

[Astro]

Here you go:

http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/goRack

I use a K&K on the banjo and it sounds good without a preamp, since there is not much bass it doesn't seem to sound bad like most instruments can. I also have a magnetic pickup for banjo that mounts on the coordinator rods and uses a small piece of brass under a bridge foot. Both easy and work well.

Where do you mount the disks on a banjo?

[pops1]

Where do you mount the disks on a banjo?

Under the head on each side of the bridge like a mandolin. If you have a plastic or fyberskin head you can tape them on. An open back banjo means you can carry tape if they come loose and easily retape.

[Loubrava]

Have you considered an Ovation? For me, nothing else has come close for an amplified mandolin than the ones made in the USA.

https://youtu.be/f0CTJb_379c

Interesting, have you played it back to back comparing it to a Godin A8 ?
when I was looking the feedback (no pun intended) was the A8 was the
best acoustic sounding. I never played the Ovatin.
Thabks

[Bill Cameron]

"Hello, I play mandolin in a rock band. Of course, I also have a day job in software engineering, and a gym membership. Did I mention I drive a Ferrari?"

Oh ... my bad. I thought we were discussing the best pickup line.

Soooo....does that work?

[Bill Cameron]

Dyn-M contact mikes are also a good choice, had you not already indulged in MAS. Not cheap, $3-400 (dont know US street price now, I paid about 400 Cdn). A bit of fussing around is involved, since you probably dont want to leave the pickup stuck onto instrument between gigs. But it gives great sound, sounds lke a mando, is loud enough to mix easily in a rock band with very high feedback threshold because it is on a low-impedance xlr cable.

[Astro]

Soooo....does that work?

He struck out at "I play mandolin..." After that the rest sounds like bla, bla, bla, bla bla, bla bla...

[almeriastrings]

loud enough to mix easily in a rock band with very high feedback threshold because it is on a low-impedance xlr cable.

Just to address this point. The type of connection has absolutely no impact upon the feedback threshold. None at all.

Balanced - Unbalanced = no difference whatever in that regard.

[Bill Cameron]

OK, thank you. I just know it works well. Why do you think they design that high-end pickup with the native xlr connection? Its rather unusual.

[pops1]

OK, thank you. I just know it works well. Why do you think they design that high-end pickup with the native xlr connection? Its rather unusual.

So it can just plug into the board. Rather convenient, but I didn't like the sound all that much and had feedback problems at not that loud of settings.

[almeriastrings]

OK, thank you. I just know it works well. Why do you think they design that high-end pickup with the native xlr connection? Its rather unusual.

AKG C411 is available with an XLR termination for similar reasons. It bypasses the requirement for a separate preamp or DI box and in the case of the C411 also supplies necessary phantom power.

The main advantage is better line-noise rejection on longer cable runs, though with digital stageboxes and wireless remote mixers becoming more the norm these days that is not quite as important as it used to be.

[Bill Cameron]

I do find it convenient to plug the dyn-m into the board, but my board has 1/4" inputs too, like most onstage mixers (mind you the output signal from the straight jacks is often lacking). Anyway, right, AMstrings, "line-noise rejection", not feedback.
Pops, I agree the sound is somewhat different than acoustic or miked....fatter. Makes it more useful in rock-band type situations than your everyday acoustic combo. Since I play in everyday acoustic combos, I rarely use the dyn-m, truth to tell. Usually I mike the mando with a shure 137 condenser.

[mandroid]

TRS 1/4" can be found in cables with an XLR on the opposite end.. still uses the braided shield , grounded, for RFI rejection,
and the twisted wire pair for the signal and return..

Dyn M let me drop the Idea of any More installations , until I got a Mix A5, which already had a C-dyn S installed ,

the jack tail button is TRS.

[Frankjz]

I'm late to this party I know. I play my 55 Gibson EM-150 in a rock band, we gigged alot for 6 years. when mando is run through the monitors facing me, feedback potential galore. My solution was this, Marshall AS50R behind me, no Mando in my monitor. I can hear it coming from behind pretty well, the other monitors not facing me produce no feedback because there is no mando sound coming at my soundhole and reverberating around causing feedback. I used the D.I. out on back of the Marshall, further reducing feedback potential by not mic-ing. The AS50R (and D) have a nice little feedback reduction circuit. My EM-150 positively wails up front with the lead guitar and vocals. A far less expensive mando with a pickup (not an internal mic like a fishman) works too. A fender m 100 is what i think i started with in this situation. they cost about $100 used.