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In part I of my interview with Steve Devries, Steve gave us some great advice
about what a player and the guitar buying public looks for in a guitar.
Now let's listen as Steve gives us advice on pickups and amplification.
—Let's talk a little bit about pickups and amplification.
Let's talk about it for acoustic guitars.
Now, you have turned me on recently to B Band.
—Correct. —And this particular guitar is loaded with B band product.
—That's right. –I obviously know that you are biased towards that type of pickup.
What can you give us as far as advice about pickups, active or passive…
—First off, you have to understand one thing.
That, and this has been an age long dilemma with acoustic players
is trying to duplicate the sound of the guitar acoustically
and then get it amplified and it is very difficult to do that.
So, we develop actually two sounds: our acoustic sound and then our electronic sound.
The reason why I chose B Band was through Dan Brevard at Acoustic Pro Musician,
a long time friend of mine.
I found that the way that they build this, the wiring is actually microphonic.
It actually will receive signals much like a regular microphone.
At first it was so different than the Fishmans and other products that I had used
that my guitar just sounded funny and I realized that my guitar is supposed to sound
like this. It is more resonant. It reproduces that better.
There are some excellent pickups out there made by a whole host of companies.
My suggestion would be that number one, that the pickup is put in professionally.
Unless you have lot of experience putting one in let someone experienced
with that particular pickup brand put it in.
Even with the brand that I use, if it is not installed correctly
if something has moved around a little bit you can get some resonant problems and such as that.
There are obviously basically three type of pickups. Those that go underneath the saddle,
Those that are behind the bridge underneath the pinboard
and those that are more of a microphone type.
—Do you have a preference over those three types?
—I do. This has been the most successful for me.
I didn't have a really good experience with the microphone type
mainly because of stage feedback. I got a pretty good sound out of it. I say pretty good
but I would have preferred to have an external mic there
for just the authenticity of the sound.
I use a combination of the one under the saddle
and the one that is underneath and behind the bridge. So, a blend system.
A blend system because both characteristics are different.
You get the resonance of the wood through one and you get the resonance of your string
through the saddle. So, they are different. You blend them and I like that system.
In part III of my interview with Steve Devries, we will discuss headstock design,
tuners, body shapes and styles, nut width, setup action, arm bevels,
soundports and much more.
This is valuable advice to luthiers that want to make their guitars more marketable.