Post by snakehips on Sept 2, 2022 11:28:31 GMT
Hi there !
The best acoustic/resonator sounding pickup, in my mind, and many others, was always Highlander pickups.
Fishman have a newish pickup for single-cone Nationals, called the Nashville Biscuit pickup - and comes with a new biscuit (with two saddles) and the pickup is already imbedded into the underside of the biscuit.
I bought one and really didn't like it - so sent it back.
It had good string balance and a strong output BUT it had no National resonator characteristics to it at all - it sounded somewhere beteen a regular non-reso acoustic ..... and a nasal Dobro !!! (hence the "Nashville" name, I suppose !!).
Last year I got into discussions with the Headway pickups/preamps guy, based in England.
They make pickups for all sorts of instruments - and have a "National Steel" pickup.
I bought some of their pickups, have done a lot of experimenting - and plan on doing some videos of it soon.
Headway use their own coaxial piezo pickup (so did Highlander) and it is installed into a slot routed out into the (near) perimeter of the underside of the biscuit - just like Highlander pickups did. The rest of their "standard product" design is conventional acoustic guitar preamp'd piezo derived - ie. an internal preamp built into a barrel-type combi jack socket & strap pin, installed into the end of the guitar, where the strap pin would be.
What Headway still can't seem to understand (after lots of emails back & forth with them) is that this barrel type preamp CAN'T be fitted into the strap pin area of a National, as the neck stick, inside the guitar, is totally in the way.
You could drill a hole in the side of the guitar to install the preamp elsewhere (eg. in the traditional lower bout, treble side, side of the guitar body) - but then it will have a strap-button type jack-socket sticking quite far out of the side of the guitar (certainly more than necessary anyway).
I prefer a pickup jack-socket being mounted on the front of my Nationals (in the small round hole, which is part of the F-hole design) but I know not everyone do.
Mounting the jack socket there means that no holes need to be drilled into lovely vintage National guitars. For some people, that's a necessary evil.
To be fair, I don't have any qualms drilling a hole into the heel of a neck to install a 2nd strap button - although have resisted the temptation of two of my Nationals.
Their preamp barrel jack-socket thing is too long, length-wise, to fit into the F-hole (ie. sideways through the guitar, from front to back), as it is longer than the depth of the guitar. I asked the Headway guy how long was their preamp barrel - and he said about 8cm long. I said that it won't fit into my guitar, as it's only about 7.2cm deep between the F-hole and the back of the guitar.
He then said "I could shorten the preamp to about 7.5cm - would that do ? "
Eh, duh, it's still too long - so, no !!!!!!!
I should state that the body-depth issue I'm talking about, is with a vintage 12-fret neck National. Their bodies are perhaps about 1/4" less deep than 14-fret neck Nationals AND modern NRP guitars. This Headway pickup MIGHT fit into the F-holes of NRP guitars (but not MM guitars, as those follow vintage National spec/dimensions quite closely).
So, this company markets a pickup for a National steel single-cone guitar yet seems to know and understand VERY little about these type of guitars !
I've managed to get Headway to make me a custom version of their preamp, that can be mounted onto the neck stick, inside the guitar - and you can either use a 9V battery inside the guitar (and use a standard mono jack-to-jack), OR via a stereo jack-to-jack cable, you can power the preamp from an external 9V battery box (like Highlander did) , or you can use a Headway external acoustic preamp/DI box, that can send 9V down a stereo cable. That gives you a few more options than the Highlander pickup system did.
As for installing, into a National, their "stock" pickup system has all the parts hard wired to short cables - and this makes their product difficult to install. And that is the reason, I would think, that Highlander chose to have the pickup part seperate from the preamp part. The pickup and preamp can be connected / disconnected to/from each other via a RCA phono connection. I managed to get Headway to do the same for my custom-build pickup system - BUT it took a LOT of persuasion from me to custom build it like that !!
The Headway pickup does NOT come with a new biscuit, with the a routed out slot for the pickup (like Highlander did).
They expect you to get a luthier to route out the perfect slot.
Unfortunately, unless you get the slot just right - a consistent tight fit, and the right depth into the biscuit all round, the overall pickup tone & signal strength will not be right. I'm still trying to get this perfect.
I have urged them to provide "perfect" biscuits with their pickups so their pickups will always sound as best they can - yet they just can't understand the need for this.
If you mount the pickup wrong in the biscuit, you will think their pickup sounds rubbish !
They could control this if they supplied a pre-slotted "perfect" biscuit with their pickups.
Despite this, I think battling with them & their pickup system is worthwhile.
The Headway pickup is sounding pretty good so far - nice sustain, sounds good with a slide up the neck. I'm hearing a good bit of National resonator tone.
I can very comfortably play bare-fingered, or with fingerpicks and still get great sound.
The dynamic range from loud to the most delicate playing with a slide, comes out really well, much more I think, than with Highlander pickups.
I did a bit of busking last weekend (first time ever !) with my National and this Headway system installed, plugged into a Bose S1 Pro speaker (battery powered mode) (I had a vocal mic too). It performed really well.
The only hurdles left with my pickup experiments is that there is an unpleasant piezo-quack at times, when plucking the strings hard.
I think I might be able to reduce this by experimenting with some more biscuits, trying the routed-out slot in the biscuit in slightly different positions - closer or further away from the edge of the biscuit (and cone), or deeper into the biscuit (or not).
I was thinking that this piezo quack was going to be a limiting factor - until I then compared it with my Highlander pickup equipped National, and I actually found the same issues with it ! So, the issues are no worse, I think, than with the Highlander - and thus maybe not that bad really. I've maybe been getting too critical ?? !!!
I need to plug into a system that I can alter the input gain, and still have a seperate volume control.
I think the Headway pickup/preamp signal is a bit too strong - so lowering the amp's inputgain night reduce the peaks that create that harsh piezo quack.
More experimenting required BUT I think this pickup might just be the new Highlander !
More to follow in due course.
The best acoustic/resonator sounding pickup, in my mind, and many others, was always Highlander pickups.
Fishman have a newish pickup for single-cone Nationals, called the Nashville Biscuit pickup - and comes with a new biscuit (with two saddles) and the pickup is already imbedded into the underside of the biscuit.
I bought one and really didn't like it - so sent it back.
It had good string balance and a strong output BUT it had no National resonator characteristics to it at all - it sounded somewhere beteen a regular non-reso acoustic ..... and a nasal Dobro !!! (hence the "Nashville" name, I suppose !!).
Last year I got into discussions with the Headway pickups/preamps guy, based in England.
They make pickups for all sorts of instruments - and have a "National Steel" pickup.
I bought some of their pickups, have done a lot of experimenting - and plan on doing some videos of it soon.
Headway use their own coaxial piezo pickup (so did Highlander) and it is installed into a slot routed out into the (near) perimeter of the underside of the biscuit - just like Highlander pickups did. The rest of their "standard product" design is conventional acoustic guitar preamp'd piezo derived - ie. an internal preamp built into a barrel-type combi jack socket & strap pin, installed into the end of the guitar, where the strap pin would be.
What Headway still can't seem to understand (after lots of emails back & forth with them) is that this barrel type preamp CAN'T be fitted into the strap pin area of a National, as the neck stick, inside the guitar, is totally in the way.
You could drill a hole in the side of the guitar to install the preamp elsewhere (eg. in the traditional lower bout, treble side, side of the guitar body) - but then it will have a strap-button type jack-socket sticking quite far out of the side of the guitar (certainly more than necessary anyway).
I prefer a pickup jack-socket being mounted on the front of my Nationals (in the small round hole, which is part of the F-hole design) but I know not everyone do.
Mounting the jack socket there means that no holes need to be drilled into lovely vintage National guitars. For some people, that's a necessary evil.
To be fair, I don't have any qualms drilling a hole into the heel of a neck to install a 2nd strap button - although have resisted the temptation of two of my Nationals.
Their preamp barrel jack-socket thing is too long, length-wise, to fit into the F-hole (ie. sideways through the guitar, from front to back), as it is longer than the depth of the guitar. I asked the Headway guy how long was their preamp barrel - and he said about 8cm long. I said that it won't fit into my guitar, as it's only about 7.2cm deep between the F-hole and the back of the guitar.
He then said "I could shorten the preamp to about 7.5cm - would that do ? "
Eh, duh, it's still too long - so, no !!!!!!!
I should state that the body-depth issue I'm talking about, is with a vintage 12-fret neck National. Their bodies are perhaps about 1/4" less deep than 14-fret neck Nationals AND modern NRP guitars. This Headway pickup MIGHT fit into the F-holes of NRP guitars (but not MM guitars, as those follow vintage National spec/dimensions quite closely).
So, this company markets a pickup for a National steel single-cone guitar yet seems to know and understand VERY little about these type of guitars !
I've managed to get Headway to make me a custom version of their preamp, that can be mounted onto the neck stick, inside the guitar - and you can either use a 9V battery inside the guitar (and use a standard mono jack-to-jack), OR via a stereo jack-to-jack cable, you can power the preamp from an external 9V battery box (like Highlander did) , or you can use a Headway external acoustic preamp/DI box, that can send 9V down a stereo cable. That gives you a few more options than the Highlander pickup system did.
As for installing, into a National, their "stock" pickup system has all the parts hard wired to short cables - and this makes their product difficult to install. And that is the reason, I would think, that Highlander chose to have the pickup part seperate from the preamp part. The pickup and preamp can be connected / disconnected to/from each other via a RCA phono connection. I managed to get Headway to do the same for my custom-build pickup system - BUT it took a LOT of persuasion from me to custom build it like that !!
The Headway pickup does NOT come with a new biscuit, with the a routed out slot for the pickup (like Highlander did).
They expect you to get a luthier to route out the perfect slot.
Unfortunately, unless you get the slot just right - a consistent tight fit, and the right depth into the biscuit all round, the overall pickup tone & signal strength will not be right. I'm still trying to get this perfect.
I have urged them to provide "perfect" biscuits with their pickups so their pickups will always sound as best they can - yet they just can't understand the need for this.
If you mount the pickup wrong in the biscuit, you will think their pickup sounds rubbish !
They could control this if they supplied a pre-slotted "perfect" biscuit with their pickups.
Despite this, I think battling with them & their pickup system is worthwhile.
The Headway pickup is sounding pretty good so far - nice sustain, sounds good with a slide up the neck. I'm hearing a good bit of National resonator tone.
I can very comfortably play bare-fingered, or with fingerpicks and still get great sound.
The dynamic range from loud to the most delicate playing with a slide, comes out really well, much more I think, than with Highlander pickups.
I did a bit of busking last weekend (first time ever !) with my National and this Headway system installed, plugged into a Bose S1 Pro speaker (battery powered mode) (I had a vocal mic too). It performed really well.
The only hurdles left with my pickup experiments is that there is an unpleasant piezo-quack at times, when plucking the strings hard.
I think I might be able to reduce this by experimenting with some more biscuits, trying the routed-out slot in the biscuit in slightly different positions - closer or further away from the edge of the biscuit (and cone), or deeper into the biscuit (or not).
I was thinking that this piezo quack was going to be a limiting factor - until I then compared it with my Highlander pickup equipped National, and I actually found the same issues with it ! So, the issues are no worse, I think, than with the Highlander - and thus maybe not that bad really. I've maybe been getting too critical ?? !!!
I need to plug into a system that I can alter the input gain, and still have a seperate volume control.
I think the Headway pickup/preamp signal is a bit too strong - so lowering the amp's inputgain night reduce the peaks that create that harsh piezo quack.
More experimenting required BUT I think this pickup might just be the new Highlander !
More to follow in due course.
