Converting mm-20 epiphone to electric

[DENNY7P]

I was thinking of getting a mandobird,but a have 3 mandolins,and i thought maybe of of just converting my epiphone(that has a very good tones,it sound almost as good as my m-kelly) i thought about getting a couple pick-ups and volume -tone-controls and adding them or just adding a good fisherman pickup bridge combo,has anybody got any suggestone

[Daniel Nestlerode]

Denny,
Adding pickups and controls to your Epi would likely require cutting into the top which would kill the acoustic tone of the instrument. A Fishman bridge would be the way to go if you want to protect the tone of the instrument.

Though I suppose it's possible to mount a little jazz humbucker to the end of the fretboard and run the controls into the pickguard. Lots of archtop guitars have this configuration. This will give you a smooth jazzy tone plugged in, but it'll be prone to feedback.

HTH,
Daniel

[mandroid]

I bought a professionally converted 4 string the pickup is a 4 pole custom wound stacked humbucker

it fits nicely between the tone bars on an A50. mid way between bridge and fingerboard.

essentially an EM150 with something other the P90 pickup.

Would probably ring better acoustically with a different bridge, this one came with (another custom piece ) a 4 string brass TunOmatic,
something with less mass would vibrate differently.

Rather than OnBoard knobs,

possible to put a TRS jack in , and run + from Magnetic in T, + from Piezo in R, and combine grounds of both in S, then re split the signals with an insert patch cord.

then process signals separately , preamp for the piezo, and maybe a stomp box for the magnetic

[jackybaby72]

I have an Epiphone MM-30. My choice was to add a K&K Mandolin Twin. I did not do the internal installation, though I wish i would have for asthetic reasons. I happen use the UltraSound DIPlus with good results. I have also used a simple EQ pedal (Ibanez 10 Series) with very good results.

[thistle3585]

I have seen several acoustic tops sink from a result of cutting into the top to install a pickup because you have to cut through at least one if not both tonebars. There was a picture posted sometime back of someone mounting a pickup on the fingerboard extension. Maybe that person can chime in.