Howdy Gents and Ladies,
I am awaiting the delivery of my new Fishman Ellipse Matrix Blender system for installation on my beloved D30. My saddle is 3/32" and I ordered the transducer in that size as well. However, I have never installed an undersaddle transducer before and am a little unsure about what possible challenges I might face. my understanding is that the Fishman transducer is quite thin so, rather than use a router inside the saddle slot to deepen could I merely shave the necessary height from the bottom surface of the existing saddle to compensate for the added depth of the transducer?
my D30 is "PERFECT" with regard to action right now and I want to keep it that way (my first choice was to find a system with the three disc transducers that attach to the bridge plate from within the guitar's body, avoiding any alteration of the existing saddle height alltogether.... unfortunately, I just didn't find a system that incorporated all the elements I wanted from any manufacturer except Fishman and their transducer is a saddle slot type....drat. At the moment I am using a GHS Miniflex microphone inside the guitar body but it is prone to feeding back at any volume and doesn't reproduce all the frequencies of my beloved D30's voice (and she sings sweetly, indeed).
It seemed as if the Fishman unit's preamp/blender for combining both transducer-friendly and mini microphone-friendly frequencies and voicing the output sans the low frequency feedback would give me the truest reproduction of my D30's voice. (on my D25, which I tune to open "E" and use exclusively for slide guitar, I use a Dean Markley in-hole pickup that gives me a very "bluesy" Elmore James tone. the D25 doesn't need to sound like a beautifully-voiced acoustic instrument as does the maple-backed D30 because they fill different niches in my performances.)
I have built solidbody guitars and been doing repair work on my acoustics, semi-acoustic, archtop and other electric guitars for many years--primarily in electronics but I have also roughed-out and installed new nuts and am very comfortable with bridge and neck adjustments and intonation. So, I guess my question is have I taken on an installation job that is beyond my abilities? Are there any pitfalls or traps lurking in the background which I have not anticipated? Just how important is it for the saddle slot to completely flat (a point made by the Stew-Mac folk, but maybe they made it to sell routers and bits?)? I would really prefer to use a rasp/file to adjust the existing saddle to re-mate with slot changed by the addition of the transducer strip.
I have a very good guitar tech available if I end up shooting myself in the foot but I would rather not use his services if I can avoid it--it isn't about the money. Rich is very reasonable in his rates. my hang-up is that I am a working musician and I really can't afford to wait his usual two- to three-week turnaround time. I have many electric guitars as substitutes when one of them must go into the shop but I am not so fortunate when one of my two acoustic guitars is taken out of service. one of my working bands is my acoustic blues trio (Robert Garrett Trio) and we are enjoying numerous bookings over the next three months and I can ill afford my main stage axe taking three weeks off to have her innards worked over....
any advice, encouragement, dire warnings? thanks, cats
ce blues
I am awaiting the delivery of my new Fishman Ellipse Matrix Blender system for installation on my beloved D30. My saddle is 3/32" and I ordered the transducer in that size as well. However, I have never installed an undersaddle transducer before and am a little unsure about what possible challenges I might face. my understanding is that the Fishman transducer is quite thin so, rather than use a router inside the saddle slot to deepen could I merely shave the necessary height from the bottom surface of the existing saddle to compensate for the added depth of the transducer?
my D30 is "PERFECT" with regard to action right now and I want to keep it that way (my first choice was to find a system with the three disc transducers that attach to the bridge plate from within the guitar's body, avoiding any alteration of the existing saddle height alltogether.... unfortunately, I just didn't find a system that incorporated all the elements I wanted from any manufacturer except Fishman and their transducer is a saddle slot type....drat. At the moment I am using a GHS Miniflex microphone inside the guitar body but it is prone to feeding back at any volume and doesn't reproduce all the frequencies of my beloved D30's voice (and she sings sweetly, indeed).
It seemed as if the Fishman unit's preamp/blender for combining both transducer-friendly and mini microphone-friendly frequencies and voicing the output sans the low frequency feedback would give me the truest reproduction of my D30's voice. (on my D25, which I tune to open "E" and use exclusively for slide guitar, I use a Dean Markley in-hole pickup that gives me a very "bluesy" Elmore James tone. the D25 doesn't need to sound like a beautifully-voiced acoustic instrument as does the maple-backed D30 because they fill different niches in my performances.)
I have built solidbody guitars and been doing repair work on my acoustics, semi-acoustic, archtop and other electric guitars for many years--primarily in electronics but I have also roughed-out and installed new nuts and am very comfortable with bridge and neck adjustments and intonation. So, I guess my question is have I taken on an installation job that is beyond my abilities? Are there any pitfalls or traps lurking in the background which I have not anticipated? Just how important is it for the saddle slot to completely flat (a point made by the Stew-Mac folk, but maybe they made it to sell routers and bits?)? I would really prefer to use a rasp/file to adjust the existing saddle to re-mate with slot changed by the addition of the transducer strip.
I have a very good guitar tech available if I end up shooting myself in the foot but I would rather not use his services if I can avoid it--it isn't about the money. Rich is very reasonable in his rates. my hang-up is that I am a working musician and I really can't afford to wait his usual two- to three-week turnaround time. I have many electric guitars as substitutes when one of them must go into the shop but I am not so fortunate when one of my two acoustic guitars is taken out of service. one of my working bands is my acoustic blues trio (Robert Garrett Trio) and we are enjoying numerous bookings over the next three months and I can ill afford my main stage axe taking three weeks off to have her innards worked over....
any advice, encouragement, dire warnings? thanks, cats
ce blues