Official Luthiers Forum!

I have my new "performance" guitar completed, and have installed a B-band A-11 UST pickup and preamp in it.

From the first note I played on it, the low E string was loud, clear, and had plenty of punch. Every other string is weak in volume and has a "rubbery" sound to it. (rubbery= muted, no punch, lacking treble and clarity of tone).

I have taken the saddle off several times, made sure that it is seating properly on the UST pickup, and I even slightly relieved the edges of the saddle on the lower edge so that I am sure that as much pressure is placed on the UST as possible and that it isnt hanging up on the sides of the bridge.

No matter what I do, I still get this "rubber" sound from the pickup. I might also add that the acoustic properties of the guitar are excellent, so I know it has something to do with the pickup and not just amplyfing a problem with the guitar.

I'm out of ideas to try with this thing other than to yank out the UST and replace it with some other kind of UST.

the B-band UST is a flat piece of ribbon, about the thickness of a piece of paper. It looks and feels like a thick piece of cassette tape (if you are old enough to remember the cassette tape days?)

Any suggestions on something else to try before I trash this thing?

_________________
Reguards,

Ken H

Ken,

I feel you pain buddy, these things can get you running in circles real quick. I don't have any experience with the B-band products specifically but the symptoms you describe sound like inconsistencies in the bottom of the saddle slot or bottom of the saddle. It sounds like you've gone over the saddle with a fine tooth comb, have you pulled the element back out and looked at the saddle slot itself? Possibly a small piece if debris or chip from drilling the hole for the element has gotten stuck under the low E area? Is the element entering from the low E side of the slot? Perhaps you need to relieve the hole the element slips through to avoid a sharp kink in that area?

Louis

_________________
- Louis Freilicher

Oh No! Not another learning experience!

I have used the A11 once and if I remember you can adjust the gain via the onboard preamp.
Have you tried that? And make sure all connections are plugged in all the way with the open ends facing up....

_________________
Peter M.
Cornerstone Guitars
http://www.cornerstoneukes.com

It seems like it would be prudent to determine if the problem is with the pickup or the guitar. Can you install the pickup temporarily in another guitar to see if you have the same problem?

I have only looked at pickups in catalogs, but I have noticed that some have a thickness on the bass end of the strip which may affect how the saddle contacts the whole strip. In other words, it may not be the saddle, per se, but rather something about the shape of the pickup which prevents the saddle of seating fully across the strip and bottom of the slot. Just thinking out loud. Good luck!

Do you subscribe to the trade secrets emails from stew-mac? The one I got this morning was on this very topic.

_________________
53% of all statistics are made up on the spot
http://driftwoodguitars.blogspot.com/

Thanks for the replies and help!

Here is what I found out today:

1. There was a small amount of wood debris around the hole that I drilled for the UST to enter through the saddle. This was removed and the bottom of the slot cleaned and leveled. This helped some, but not completely.

2. I called the tech support phone line for B-band today and had a long conversation with their tech. By the way, I am a dealer for B-band pickups, so this gave me a little more clout with them than the ordinary caller. The tech support guy was VERY helpful in helping solve my problem.

Here is what was happening:

The ribbon has an active tip, which is a hair over 3" in length. The only way you can tell the active part of the tip is that there is a line on the ribbon denoting the active part. I didnt have the ribbon all of the way inside the slot. Clarification: The active portion of the ribbon was longer than my slot.

This was causing the lower E to be louder than the other strings, and was causing the whole ribbon to act like a microphone, so I was getting string distortion and harmonics because my top is so active.

To solve the problem, I was instructed to to to the other end of the slot (the high e), and drill a hole at an angle into but not completely through the bridge. The end of the active part of the pickup had to be stuffed into that hole until all of the active part of the pickup was completely inside of the slot on the other (Lower E) end. This stopped the ribbon from acting like a microphone and causing the distortion and harmonics, and made the pickup clean and clear through all of the strings.


I'll try to post some pictures of this later on, just in case it isnt clear what I am talking about. It is the first time I have run into this and I would venture to guess that nobody else has run into it either?

_________________
Reguards,

Ken H

Ken, When I install the LR Baggs undersaddle Element pickup in guitars, I usually do that very thing. I drill at an angle on the other end of the bridge slot to allow some of the ribbon to slide into that area. This usually evens out the pickup. Glad you got it figured out.

_________________
jw ( o)===:::

I too have had a similar problem with an LR Baggs dual source pickup that uses an active "Element" UST. I installed it on a guitar with a very active top and got a low 200k distortion that I could not find a source for. And now that you mentioned drilling into the end of the slot, I realize that this is probably the source of my phantom distortion. Thanks for the tip.