Official Luthiers Forum!

I'm part way through my first acoustic build, and before I glue the back on, I want to make provision for some sort of pickup. I know the traditional way is to have a combined socket/strap button, but I was wondering about placing the socket on the rib, in a similar position to many electric guitars. Are there any disadvantages to this method? Does anybody know of any builders who do this? Obviously I would need to reinforce the area where the socket would be, so I need to consider if this will have any acoustic impact. Any thoughts please...

I doubt it would have any acoustic impact at all.

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The name catgut is confusing. There are two explanations for the mix up.

Catgut is an abbreviation of the word cattle gut. Gut strings are made from sheep or goat intestines, in the past even from horse, mule or donkey intestines.

Otherwise it could be from the word kitgut or kitstring. Kit meant fiddle, not kitten.

I've done it several times, works fine. I usually glue in a cross grain patch from the rib material before drilling the hole, and use a backer block to reduce tearout.

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A man hears what he wants to hear, and disreguards the rest. Paul Simon

I'm sure it won't bother the acoustics.
Maton acoustics have their jacks in the rib.

Well if it's good enough for Mr. Emmanuel...

The aspect of the tone that comes from the soundhole works best when the soundhole is the only opening. The air in the box and the soundhole interact to resonate around a low tone. It is easy to make a small airtight container around the back of the jack so that when no cord is plugged in the 1/4 inch hole is not an air leak. I've made them using plastic pill bottles. This is quite a fine point. If you love that gutsy bassy kick on the attacks of the notes it is one more small step that should help. My observation of guitars with side holes and multiple sound holes is that either they are all close to each other or the guitar is missing something in the low bass. Not that they can't have a beautiful versatile tone, but I believe that one hole guitars Have the highest Q of the soundhole resonating system.