Mounting magnetic pickups

[Roger Kunkel]

Surely you emando fanatics have assaulted some unsuspecting cheap mandolin with a pickup installation and now want to share your photos of it.

Don't be bashful...

[mdlorenz]

your avatar is freaking me out!

[Roger Kunkel]

Whaddaya mean.. that's my picture.

[Roger Kunkel]

Actually, it's just "Sir Topham Hat". I took my son to the Thomas train ride and they had this guy walking around. It is a bit distracting, maybe I should change it.

[John Flynn]

It's not the wierdest avatar on the board!

There is another thread going on about an Irish TV documentary on bouzoukis. At one point, a guy is playing a guitar shaped zouk that has a mag pickup held on with duct tape. Great stuff.

[Roger Kunkel]

I guess just some double sided tape could fit the bill.

[mandroid]

Pictures of clever retrofit is in the archives of this section, Research...

Blue-tack for sticking up stuff , a rubber putty, is another Kludge stuff.
Office supply shop.
comes in off white too.

there are the clip on magnetic pickups that were on the market in the 50's & 60s, and maybe later too,
some come up FS every once in a while..
saw one on this sites classifieds recently..
they clip on with a bracket past the bridge and a Brass wire
supports the top , curving around the bridge, and a tab under the pickguard holds the bottom edge.

made by DeArmond [sp?]it was

[Martin Jonas]

For a vintage retrofit, have a look at this Fairport Convention video clip from 1970, with Dave Swarbrick playing a teens pumpkin top Gibson A and Dave Pegg playing a sunburst A50 (or clone). Both have been retrofitted with identical-looking white humbuckers, and they get a really great tone out of them. Difficult to see how precisely they were mounted, but sticky tape does seem to come into it. Not, perhaps, the smoothest look but it worked. I wonder what scars the pickups left on the soundboards?

Martin

[Dave Caulkins]

Howdy Folks, (and please bare my rant)

This is a topic that I have prior to now received very little relevant information on (at least there is POSITIVE conversation about it here). I have wanted to turn my Breedlove Cascade into a magnetic pickup monster, for that Alt. Country/Western Swing/Rockabilly sound, but I have only heard, "buy another mandolin" or "why would you want to do that?" I mention adding a pickguard and a floater, or latching onto the neck, double sided sticky tape options - but not much of anything. Everyone assumes I want a Mandobird or a $1000+ electric - which I do... but...

When it comes time for another mandolin (the instrument that is slowly phasing out guitar in my life), I will likely buy a Mann 5-string. For now, I need a high-volume (like with a drummer volume) solution that won't run me over $300. I'm very tired of piezo feedback and constantly telling the guitarist and bassist to turn down (the drummer has learned, believe it or not).

I have very little love for microphones in the instrument realm (I'm very often singing, and having a 2nd object/stand around is... dangerous? Not to mention, the constant FEEDBACK danger issue from PAs and amplifiers). No one seems too open to talking about the Armstrong humbuckers that are showing up more and more - ie no relative prices, no method of ordering, no information - period. Perhaps I have asked in the wrong places?

Sorry if I sound irritable, but this topic just never seems to get "the right answers". Do I just need to talk to Armstrong (or Tom Short, who makes an amazing Western Swing style archtop pickup... More likely for me). I'm just really reaching for feedback - does it work well? Are you happy? Was it a short/long wait? Etc...

I just don't want to sink $300 into one of my very loved instruments and discover it was a waste, destroyed the value, and just plain irritates me like a piezo does.

Forgive me...

Dave

[mandroid]

I bought a tidy retrofitted A50, which has a 4 pole seymour duncan humbucker in the top, a precise hole cut for it between braces in the spruce. and 2 pots in the usual spot along side the treble F hole .
functionally an EM150, but quieter pickup.

thats one approach

buy a kent armstrong mini floating humbucker , just like on Phoenix Jazz mandolins ,
and mount that , perhaps squaring off the end if the fingerboard would be required.

or get into the Ebay scrum for an old DeArmond magnetic mandolin clip on pickup, long cord , clamps onto the backside of the strings, between TP and Bridge, includes a volume knob.


or buy my Fender FM61 se, 5 franklins with case and my mods.
PM on that.