The Steel Guitar Forum

hi there, i'm hoping that a few of you forum people can give me some up-to-date advice, as the pickup world changes so fast!, i'm looking to install a pickup in my recently acquired weissenborn, about to go with the k&k pure mini (the one with the three "spots"). just wanted to find out if anyone had any thoughts/experience on the d-tar sound spots. also i will be using it in conjunction with a nice microphone, and no, i don't want a magnetic pickup like the seymour duncan ! thanks for looking , chris

Hi Chris,

I know we have always discussed this privately but I thought I would post here for the benefit of other players and hopefully a continual refinement of sound.

Traditionally, Weissenborn instruments have always been fitted with sound hole mounted pickups because the wire saddle setup (which is at the heart of the traditional design) wont work for a classic under-saddle transducer. There are a number of choices, the original favorite was the Sunrise, which Lindley and Harper used to define the Weissenborn as a 'post Hawaiian' instrument. Since then both have moved onto the Seymour Duncan Mag-Mic for both clean and dirty tones.

So the sound hole mounted pickups were always the most popular but more recently Steinar and others here have made the K&K (which is an "under-bridge" transducer) a very popular option. And for good reason, as a transducer they work well in live situations and there is no need to modify the instrument. But the idea that these don't color the tone of the instrument in the way that magnetic pickups do is not strictly correct - of course they do, but it's a different kind of tonal color.

One side project I have been working on with a client is around this very issue. We have been looking at the Seymour Duncan Mag-Mic and wiring that with the D-Tar Soundspots, and externally splitting the signal using a Y cable that runs to a multi channel preamp such as the D-Tar Solstice. That way, you can blend the two, or up to four sources, and you are impedance matched for each part of the system - pretty cool.

This could also be an option with just the transducer and mic, there are a number of good options.

hey tony thanks again for that! it is amazing that they can put a man on the moon and not make a pickup that doesn't colour sound

In the acoustic guitar world, D-Tar are going a pretty fine job!

Christiaan van der Vyver wrote:hey tony thanks again for that! it is amazing that they can put a man on the moon and not make a pickup that doesn't colour sound

Yeah, any pickup will color the sound, even different types of microphones, and especially microphone placement, will do that, so there's no avoiding it.
What I've done, whenever practically possible, is to use both a mic and the internal K&K pickup, sending the mic signal to the PA, with as much pickup signal as the engineer finds helpful blended in, and the internal pickup to the monitors.

One of the reasons I stopped using soundhole pickups, besides preferring the sound of the K&Ks, was that they just don't look right to me in such a classy instrument as a weissenborn. It's like putting a mustache on the most beautiful woman....

It's like putting a mustache on the most beautiful woman....

Ha! I thought that was traditional in Norway, Steinar?

Tony Francis wrote:

It's like putting a mustache on the most beautiful woman....

Ha! I thought that was traditional in Norway, Steinar?

Only my own mustache...

Steinar Gregertsen wrote:

Tony Francis wrote:

It's like putting a mustache on the most beautiful woman....

Ha! I thought that was traditional in Norway, Steinar?

Only my own mustache...

I don't normally "LOL" online, but I just did.

I know what you mean Steinar...
Like an old E-type-jag with a carbon-fibre wing.

For those of you that have mounted a sound hole pickup in your Weissenborn-style guitars, do you ever have a problem with the string height being too high and the PU poles not being tall enough to get close to the strings? (like on a Baggs M1 or a Sunrise PU)?

The L.R. Baggs M1 works fine on my Goldtone Style 4 Weissenborn. In fact, I had to lower the poles on the first 2 strings because they were too hot..

Andy Fekete

On my Superior Weissenborn I have two pickups.
A Sunrise sound hole pickup and a Baggs I-beam under the bridge. They work out great.
I run a stereo cord to a Marshall acoustic amp where I can dial in each pickup via two channels.

Thanks, Erv and Andy.

Damn, I miss Steinar!

Damn, I miss Steinar!

You and me both Andy, and I know a lot of others who would agree. Great sharing individual and a real musical visionary.