Cherub pickup

[Charlie Bernstein]

Just got a Cherub clip-on transducer pickup. They go for about $5, so I figured, what the hell, try it. Popped it into my mando soundhole today and plugged it into my Fender Pro Junior to see what would happen.

It works!

=O]

[Nevin]

The basics of a piezo pickup are pretty cheap. More expensive ones are supposed to have advantages in mounting hardware and ergonomics. They don't always.

[Strabo]

I have used the $5 Cherub and it definitely works OK. I believe they have a guitar style and a violin style, which has a narrower arm and works best with mandolin f-holes. The Cherub is definitely a temporary installation, but it's not a bad way to get started with amplification.

[Charlie Bernstein]

I have used the $5 Cherub and it definitely works OK. I believe they have a guitar style and a violin style, which has a narrower arm and works best with mandolin f-holes. The Cherub is definitely a temporary installation, but it's not a bad way to get started with amplification.

My thought exactly. I just don't have the scratch right now for a good pickup, but I'm occasionally in a situation where I want to be heard over a full band. The Cherub will do fine until I can afford somethng better.

Very happy I discovered it. I was stymied! Thought others would like to know, so I wrote this post.

[Chughes423]

Do you have a picture of how you clipped it on your mandolin?

[Jim Garber]

In this comparison video for guitar the Cherub sounds like a tin can. I don't know if it could be improved somehow and I don't know if it would be better on mandolin. I guess you get what you pay for?

[almeriastrings]

In this comparison video for guitar the Cherub sounds like a tin can. I don't know if it could be improved somehow and I don't know if it would be better on mandolin. I guess you get what you pay for?

The guy in that video does not seem to understand that they need a very high input impedance (>1M).... so that's what you are mostly hearing there. If you run them into the correct type of input, they are not too bad at all. I did some tests with them running them into my own Headway preamps and found the results were OK. I was helping a local Uke group get some pickups at super low cost....the only thing that was needed was a simple single transistor FET-based buffer preamp for each that I built for $5 each (or you can buy the Behringer ADI Acoustic preamp for about $30 that also works with these). The actual transducer inside them is a standard ceramic disk as used on dozens of other pickups. They are not the most elegant transducer in the world, but into the correct impedance, they are fairly acceptable. The impedance makes a massive difference, as with most piezo elements.

[Jim Garber]

Thanks, Almeriastrings! I knew there was some logical explanation and that even a cheap pickup could not sound so bad.

[Strabo]

I don't have a picture of the installation on a mandolin, but I found pics of the Cherub and its installation on a violin (it is sold as a violin pickup). The Cherub has a round soft pad that sits on the mandolin top and a narrow curved arm that reaches through the f-hole with its end held against the inside of the top. The pickup itself is located at the end of the arm. Hope this helps.

[mtm]

Would an ART Tube MP preamp substitute for the Behringer ADI preamp? The TRS input on the ART is said to be "high impedance"

[keithb]

Would an ART Tube MP preamp substitute for the Behringer ADI preamp? The TRS input on the ART is said to be "high impedance"

Spec sheet says the ART Tube MP 1/4" jack input impedance is 840K ohms, vs 4.7M ohms for the ADI.

[pops1]

840K is close to 1 meg and that's what most transducers are. I have used one and it works fine. There are preamps I like much better, but it will work.

[almeriastrings]

+1

It will work with these. When I had some of them (Cherubs) here I played around with some variable impedance preamps and found that for mando/uke/fiddle anything around 1M was fine, but for guitar, something higher (up to 5M) sounded better.

[mtm]

So, for $6, I couldn't resist and got the Cherub WCP-60G, which came yesterday. MISTAKE: if you wish to spend $6, get the violin version because the guitar version doesn't really fit in F holes. Anyway, I made a couple of sound files of the Cherub running through an ART MP Tube preamp, or a Focusrite red interface, into Garage Band. I also compared to an SM57. As Almeria found in his demonstration, the result is that the Cherub does reasonably well ... I'll try to upload the sound files in the very near future.

That said, I'll probably never use the little thing ....