E strings weak volume on Mandobird VIII

[Jim Mullins]

The E strings on my Mandobird don't seem to have the same volume as the other strings. Has anyone else noticed this, and if so, is there a fix for it?

Thanks
Jim

[thistle3585]

Yes. Very common problem. There are plenty of threads you can search but you'll need to be creative since you can't search using "e" as a word in the description. Maybe try weak and mandobird or weak and pickup. You will get a lot of suggestions about adjusting the height of the pickup, rotating the pickup, a synopsis on why they are so weak and finally arrive at the best solution being to replace the pickups and electronics with an Almuse pickup available at moongazermusic.com.

[Ben Milne]

If you have a IV and the poles are exposed (the IV and VIII are different) as a quick fix, you should be able to push the poles in or out to balance things out. Like Andrew said, there's plenty more in depth info already on this subject.

[Jacob]

Heavier gauge E strings should provide more mass for the pickup for more volume.

[Soundfarmer Pete]

If you have a IV and the poles are exposed (the IV and VIII are different) as a quick fix, you should be able to push the poles in or out to balance things out. Like Andrew said, there's plenty more in depth info already on this subject.

OOOhhhhh.....not sure about that.....the `Bird 4 pickup (or at least the one I have) is simply 4 slugs with a ceramic bar magnet stuck on the bottom......not individual rod magnets

[Tom Wright]

You can push up the E pole, even with the bar magnet under, and get improvement, but when I did that with a Fender 52E I had to work a bit to get to the pole pieces. Not sure how readily you can separate the magnet for access on your Bird.

The field will get carried to the string even if the pole is not touching the magnet. When I tried to mod my Fender, long ago, I first pushed the A pole down, breaking the magnet in two; I thought they were magnet pole pieces. No matter, it works fine, after pushing E up high.

Still, it would be nicer to just get a better pickup, and it's not that much money.

[Ben Milne]

Good point Pete, whle I managed to do what I described here, I haven't reinstalled that pickup so I'm unsure of the result.

OP- best you get along to Almuse or Moongazer to get yourself a replacement mandobird pickup. Only trouble is which on to choose.

[Bill Van Liere]

Yea I just landed a Mandobird IV. For the price it's really great in most ways but I am wondering how long I can put up with the pickup. E string is weak & the G string a bit much for my tastes. So I would like a balanced pickup where the E & G have the same strength as the other strings. Ideally a simple bolt in replacement with little modification would be a plus.

Where do I get it and how much?

[Jacob]

US - Moongazer Music
UK - Almuse

[Mandobart]

Got the same mando, had the same problem. Get a new pickup from Pete via Moongazer link above. I got the Almuse pickup and shimmed it up considerably with some closed-cell foam cut to size, kind of wedged so its a little higher on the treble side. Turn the "E"pole out on the new pickup you get and turn the other strings in

Also this bird will take heavier E strings without snapping, which will also help.

[Bill Van Liere]

Just got off the Almuse website, great info.

thanks all

[Schlegel]

Those Almuse pickups that Soundfarmer Pete makes will do the trick for you guys fine. I have a single-coil 4 string version and it's affordable and far superior to the stock pickup.

[Elliot Luber]

This is one of the common problems with inexpensive emandos. I fixed my Kentucky with a new pickup. If it's the same size it's really just two snips, two twists and two solders and you're done.

[Bill Van Liere]

Any thoughts on the phatbird pickup?

Sold my my tele back in 96, never missed it. Couldn't part with my ES-125 with a P90.

[John Flynn]

The E strings on my Mandobird don't seem to have the same volume as the other strings. Has anyone else noticed this, and if so, is there a fix for it?

Thanks
Jim

I had the same problem with my Mandobird IV, the E didn't have as much volume as the other strings and the problem could not be EQ'ed out. I replaced the pickup with a Bartolini half P-bass pickup, but found the E volume was unchanged. What I found worked was changing the pots. The stock ones were 250K and going to 500K pots solved the problem. The instrument probably sounded better with the 'Bart, but if it were just the E string volume issue I wanted to solve, all I needed to do was change the pots. If your pots are already 500K, or going to 500K still doesn't give you the treble response you need, consider 1M pots.

BTW, you may need a reamer to make new pots fit. I don't know how it is with the VIII, but on my IV, the factory pots had a smaller thread diameter than the ones you might buy in the US online.

[Justus True Waldron]

A new pickup would definitely fix the problem... in the meantime if you want to minimize that I would put a slightly thicker string and run it through a little compression. I usually play with some tube overdrive, so that reduces this even more (again by adding compression) but I had the same problem and even a little compression had a positive effect playing clean. Hope that helps

[mandroid]

The E strings on my Mandobird don't seem to have the same volume as the other strings. Has anyone else noticed this, and if so, is there a fix for it?

Mandola tuning... CGDA..


I think it's a mass and pitch problem thin string that doesn't move far
in the magnetic field over the pickup.

if the pickup is further away from the bridge*, the motion may be wider , there.

but as the tension at pitch is high, that is not a lot different.

*a backwards skewed pickup perhaps..