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Hey folks, hoping to get some opinions on the following.

I’m part of a group of acoustic musicians that gig in our community. My friends have always been casually interested in my builds (I’m a hobbyist), but over the last few years have wanted to purchase. I’m prompted to a change in perspective from building for the pleasure of it, to “customer requirements”. These guys want gigging instruments. I was actually reminded by a friend this morning (who’s also interested in building) about putting in electronics.. thus in my thoughts again.

I sold a guitar to a friend, who then told me he would have a piezo-based pickup installed. I advised that the saddle was too thick for it. My choice was informed by the Somogyi and Gore books, which advocate for thick saddles, where the piezo elements would seem to require a standard 1/8”. Somogyi talks about better contact as the strings wrap around more surface area (though it sounds like a sitar until you get the shape right), Gore basically does all the compensation in the saddle with an no slant in the slot. All that said, I kind of want to avoid an element between the saddle and the bottom of the slot – I know it’s commonly done, and of course have instruments with this, but philosophically it seems to work against precise contact between materials.

This prompts a few questions:
- Is this saddle thickness business a meaningful choice, or is it arbitrary, in your experience?
- Knowing I can research the pros and cons of different designs and brands of acoustic pickups – is there a product you generally prefer? (As a musician I have experience with different ones, as a builder not at all.)
- What other design choices are informed by pickup choice? For example, looking at pictures of the LR Baggs Anthem, I see it’s designed to fit over bracing – which I’m guessing may not always work well depending on the guitar. But, I don’t know. Do things of this nature influence design choices?
- And – though I’m not to this point yet – does / would anyone install these things during the build before you close the box? Just thinking it through, I can see an advantage of putting in a bridge-plate based pickup while having access, but then you’d lose the ability to adjust placement, and could perhaps damage the unit while drilling bridge holes. I’m asking without knowing much about it.

Idk, some of these may be basic technician questions, so I appreciate your thoughts. I’m aware that this is some folks’ training and profession, and these hobbyist questions may seem obtuse.

Thanks!

So far as I know an under saddle P/U doesn't know or care how wide the saddle is, so long as it's not narrower than the P/U. What matters is that the bottom of the slot and the bottom of the saddle are both flat.

Are you sure Gore doesn't make the saddle slots angled? I've been using his compensation methods with a slanted slot and it's fine.

Rick Turner advocated that saddles should be tilted backward, as seen from the side. Ideally a saddle that bisects the break angle of the strings will feel no tipping force: that's how they get away with the tall skinny bridges on bowed instruments. It's also an advantage on instruments wit an under saddle P/U. Those things work better when there is more down bearing, and tipping the saddle back maximizes that. Turner advocated for nine degrees of back angle, which, he said, automatically corrected the intonation if you raised or lowered the action by changing the saddle height.

Note that more down bearing force does not produce more sound acoustically. Once you have 'enough' down bearing (about 15 degrees or a bit more) more doesn't 'transmit more sound to the top', and contributes to the tipping force trying to split out the front of the bridge.

I've seen Gore's discussions on 'wrapping' the strings around the saddle. It makes at least some sense, although it would be really nice to have data. I don't like a sharp saddle top myself. I use a 1/8" thick saddle on six-strings, and try to keep the break point far enough forward to allow for some roll off behind. I can sort of envision a string that rides on a single sharp point rocking around that point as it vibrates up and down, so that it's not still behind the saddle. It seems to me that could mess things up. No data yet, of course...

I use a 3/16"minimum width for the saddle on a 12-string, to allow for enough depth to properly compensate both the regular strings and the octaves. Aside from the extra mass I've seen no effects. I haven't put a piezo under one though: I could see that causing problems if the saddle slot was not deep enough and fitted well, where the saddle could rock back and forth on the P/U.

'Way back I was using 1/4" wide piezo ceramic strips for pickups. On one guitar the 1/4" wide saddle caused a problem because it was so stiff. Under string load the top pulled up, the bridge flexed a little, and the two E strings would drop out from lack of pressure from the saddle.

Most of the folks I deal with prefer top transducers instead of under saddle units. Make sure there's a large enough flat area on the bridge plate.

One nice thing about planning for a pickup is that you can drill out the tail block for the strap jack before you even close up the box. It's a lot more nerve wracking once the thing is all polished up. You do install the pickups when it's together, though.

As far as pickup choices are concerned. I like the JJB 330.

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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 use the K&K Pure Mini for steel strings and the Pure Classic for nylon string guitars. They are on all of my personal guitars and work great through a sound system with an external preamp (I use a RedEye preamp on stage). I also install K&K Pure's on almost all of my client's acoustic guitars.

Saddles are all 1/8" for 6 string acoustics.

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

I really like the K & K pickups as well and have used them on both flat top and archtops. For small venues, I don't even use the external K & K preamp I have.

Hey guys, thank you for the good information.
Alan, it's what I remember from Gore's book, but I could be wrong, it's happened before.. It's been awhile since I've reviewed that bit, I'll take another look when I get a chance. I've seen Rick Turner's YouTube video on routing the slot at an angle, the logic makes sense to me. Also makes sense to drill the hole as you say.
I'm very glad to get the advice regarding the transducer design, I've seen good things on the K&K and it looks like the JJB 330 is a similar product. Gives some confidence in what I'd half-concluded via internet research.
Thank you all, I appreciate it -

Amazon delivered to me last night a K&K pure mini for my new Martin employee/vendor guitar, CEO-7 being built for me right now at Martin. I install pick-ups for a living and have installed hundreds of them of most brands.

Of course you develop favorites when you have lots of time with them in all manner of instruments from Lowdens to 1937 L-OOs.

My personal preference is the K&K for flat pickers into strong fundamentals. For finger style players I love the various models of the Baggs Anthem. The Anthem will accurately reproduce the lushness of any fine instrument in my experience and a pre-amp is although optional it is recommended if you are really into dialing in your tone.

The Baggs Lyric can take a good sounding guitar that may do flat picking or finger style and be a great choice too.

Wanted to point out certain brands have done certain things that get talked about here and maybe in the books or are promoted by Ervin and some of this can be problematic for the owner when they go to select a pup. For example Lowden's split saddle dramatically limits what pick-up system will even fit the ax.

Wanted to address one of your other questions too. I would NOT build a pick-up into a guitar. Our guitars if using best practices and with some care should last 100 years of more again if taken care of. In my experience I am ripping out 10 year old pick-up systems all of the time and pitching them in the trash after they fail....

With this said the aftermarket pick-up should remain both easy to install and easy to remove they are not reliable over decades of time and when they happen to make it that long compared to today's offerings they tend to suck performance wise.

So my advice to you is to build the best sounding, most serviceable instrument you can and some of the decent pick-ups on the market will be able to reproduce that good tone very well.

Not to stick my finger in anyone's eye and RIP my friend Rick Turner but I'm not a fan of the slanted saddle. It certainly has the value that it's touted for but I question that it matters when the most valuable acoustic guitars in the world never had slanted saddles. There is a serviceability issue with a slanted saddle too in so much as very few shops are jigged up to deal with a bridge with a slanted saddle slot. We are with our Collin's saddle jig but again few others are.

One of the most common pick-up related repairs we have to do is to relevel a saddle slot. It's a piece of cake for us with our Collin's saddle mill even if it's a very rare slanted saddle. But for other shops it's a nightmare at times because of the slanted saddle.

Especially for gigging musicians you play out in places that may have 90%RH or in the winter 14% RH and the domes on your guitars are rising and falling the the flavor of the week in a political Party Primary.... So when we reduce action on a slanted saddle we lower the saddle and this also inadvertently reduces the "speaking length" of the strings and messes with intonation. Likewise raise the action and you just increased the speaking length of the instrument and your intonation is off again.

Granted it's a small amount of change but as someone who tweaks saddles by as little as 0.010" at a time it matters to me and some of my clients how dialed in an instrument is.

Of course the stakeholders here will disagree and that's why I love being in the repair business I'm agnostic to products and building techniques except for one thing - how they impact serviceability.

Good on you for asking and anticipating a requirement down the road. As someone who started out as a builder with some success there and now has repaired a lot of guitars for approaching two decades I keep coming back to the idea of the conventionally designed acoustic guitar. There are very good reasons why Martin builds as they do - it works and it serves the most amount of people with the greatest value over the longest amount of time. This is opinion of course but an informed, experienced opinion.

With all of this said build for what the pick-ups are designed to go into and you will have the most choices and that has to be a good thing. And pick-up choices should also, also be a function of how someone plays and even what they play at times if you really want to go for 100% satisfaction.

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Ann Arbor Guitars

I installed many K&Ks in my St Louis repair days. I also tried to remove some of these later on as player's taste changed. I could never remove them cleanly. And working by feel with a straight edged razor was anxiety producing.
I also am not a fan of leaving behind CA residue on the bridge plate assuming one could remove the discs cleanly.
I'm not trying to dis folks who like K&Ks and have learned the subtleties of their use. If you like them and have confidence in them then carry on!
I'm not a fan of USTs of any stripe. They do affect the acoustic sound of my guitars. Probably not significant with a polyester finish on the soundboard however.
I always use Trance Audio Amulet with volume control. The 2 sensors are stuck to the bridge plate with a proprietary double stick tape and can be removed easily and cleanly should the need arise.
And the Amulet is the best sounding pickup to my ear.

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Stay with the happy people.
--Reynolds Large

Oh yeah, saddle width is not a factor with soundboard transducers like K&K or Amulet. Another + in their favor.

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Stay with the happy people.
--Reynolds Large

What we don't like about the Amulet or any transducer that is held in place with tape it will not hold up to the rigors of the many gigging musicians that we service their axes for. I've seen taped on transducers come loose dancing in space in the box and if that happens in a gig everyone is SOL.

Amulets are much more expensive too than a K&K and although we don't sell any pick-ups or anything for that matter no one asks us about them, brings them to us to install, etc.

If the transducers on a K&K have to be removed they are destroyed in the process but when the entire pup is $109 from Amazon it's not a big deal or hasn't been to the very few we have been asked to remove. Fortunately the approval rate of the K&K in our experience is 100% in so much as we have never been asked to remove one that we recommended or installed. We have removed a few that other people selected without discussing with us.

Leaving CA residue on the bridge plate is not something we do. Again we have only had to remove a few ever and they were recommended by someone else not us. CA residue is easily removed with a razor blade and some sand paper.

For the record I freshen up the bridge plate before I install either an adhesive mic like the Lyric or CA on transducers. For transducers I wipe the plate with a paper towel with accelerator on it first and that speeds up greatly the grab of the transducers. By the way Lyric/Anthem mics do fall off I reattached one last week, adhesive again.....

Sure K&K is not for every one and that's what I said above it depends of styles, types of music, etc. But I would never tape a transducer in place and expect it to stay there. After all the entire thing is vibrating to beat the band, hopefully.

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Ann Arbor Guitars

That’s a nice tip about wiping accelerator on the bridge plate first. I will definitely do that next time. Thanks, Hesh.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

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- I am able to satisfy my intonation requirements on all scales with a 1/8 saddle slot. 4mm slant over 71mm. Sorry for the mixed metrics but it is what it is…

- My go to is the Schatten Designs HFN Passive. Easily installed without CA and easily removed as well, and lighter than the K&K, which makes a difference in some styles of building. Sounds like the guitar, not the pickup.

- If building for pickups you need to be careful to design your bridge area so that if a customer wants an under saddle pickup, the ends of the saddle slot do not overlap the x braces. I’ve seen plenty of guitars where the installer just assumed it was designed that way and the hole for the PU went right through an x brace.

Also make sure there’s enough space in front of the bridge pins on your bridge plate to accept pickups like the K&K, Amulet, Schatten, Lyric etc.

Although I personally cannot recommend the Baggs transducers with their soft mounting foam. If you build a sufficiently responsive instrument, they will suck the tone out of a good guitar. Much like putting moon gel on your snare drum to kill the overtones. On a Gibson you probably wouldn’t notice…

- I install afterwards. Having dangling wires during the building process is more of a PITA than installing the pickup once the instrument is done IMO. But, it is installed before final voicing. I always ask at the beginning if a customer needs a PU. If so, I want to install it myself to account for the weight. If I carefully voice a guitar to make sure the main resonance of a top lands precisely between scale tones, adding a Schatten/K&K etc has enough weight to drive that resonance down to land pretty much precisely on a scale tone causing a wolf note. Which instantly defeats a lot of careful work.

I have tried an under the saddle Fishman pickup and did not like it. I also do not like the K&K Pure Mini pickup. Both of those feel very unnatural to me. I have a hard time adjusting to playing live with them. I much prefer the Dazzo pickup. To me, it sounds like the guitar and feels like the guitar when I play live. I also do prefer to build with a wider saddle. I am using 5mm with saddle now.

Dazzo Demo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOTY_bmf_AY&t=82s

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EddieLee

Yeah that came from Dave Collins and it was huge to me. Now in addition I use medium CA and a drop in the middle of the transducer only about 1/8" across. I find my fingers don't get glued inside the box this way.... I count to ten too holding my finger on it before releasing.

We have a new jig Dave came up with for locating the transducers and this is newer than the last new one... that was vacuum clamped on a C clamp. I may post a pic.

Also for a K&K and this is a tip from my friend Link Van Cleave who was Jim Krenov's apprentice and Link taught woodworking at the Redwoods School, had his own TV show too. Link was also our apprentice a few summers in a row. Link puts a loose knot in the K&K cable in the box and adjusts the tightness or looseness of the knot so the transducers can still be cleared maybe an inch clear of the sound hole to put that 1/8" diameter drop of medium CA on the transducer bottoms one at a time. This way the cable remains suspended in space in the box and will not hit the top or back even with a lot of acceleration and inertia of the body. No cable ties required making this a very fast install maybe 15 minutes tops.

I'll add with the K&K and again I don't sell a thing but with the K&K the single most common issue with pick-ups in acoustics, the battery coming loose doesn't happen there is no battery required to stress over before a gig, etc.

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Ann Arbor Guitars

We've never found a pick-up to be the source of a wolf note. In all the stuff we've chased that's never been one of them and this is all we do day in and day out for decades now, thousands of pick-up installs.

Also the weight of a K&K is mouse nuts, one of the lightest pick-ups on the market. Ideally using an external mic is one way to keep your box unadulterated but that just doesn't work for many musicians.

It is a good idea to make sure that the X will not intersect the saddle slot end especially with Baggs installs since you do not want to the bend the transducer 90 degrees if you don't have too. We tuck the tips in the other end of the slot and slot the through side at an angle and that brings the X leg closer. But I've never seen this as a problem in a Martin or other major brands. But yes check before drilling, always. I have pretty good hand to eye so I I can tell from feeling around inside the box what I have to work with.

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Ann Arbor Guitars

Sure we all like what we like. I have never heard of these and just checked them out. Pretty pricey and again you have transducers that need to be attached to the instrument preferably with glue in our experience.

So for us just as you like this pup Eddie we install what people buy and bring to us on their own, we don't sell pick-ups. We have never had anyone bring us one of these and we likely install several pick-ups a week, I have one to do tomorrow a Fishman I think.

So again K&K is my recommendation for a good sounding instrument that is going to be flat picked, great for bluegrass, classic rock, blues. It's not my choice for a finger stylist or instruments where you want lush overtones. That's where an Anthem is a lot more versatile especially with a preamp. But look at the price difference with the preamp $500 or so vs. K&K at just over $100.

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Ann Arbor Guitars

Generally, I don't slant the saddles:



As Alan already knows, you can slant the saddle if you want, but all the saddle compensation for a nut and saddle compensated guitar will fit on a 5mm saddle without any slant.


I can't recall writing about "wrapping" the strings around the saddle, but I think Somogyi did. I prefer minimal "wrap". The more wrap you have the more the string approximates a "clamped" end condition with the string having to bend as it vibrates rather than a "pinned" end condition where the string rotates at the end. It makes a difference to the string damping and the intonation.

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Trevor Gore, Luthier. Australian hand made acoustic guitars, classical guitars; custom guitar design and build; guitar design instruction.

http://www.goreguitars.com.au

Focused only on additional recommendations for pickups: I am very impressed by the combination of the James May Engineering Ultra Tonic pickup, paired with a Tonedexter preamp. The Ultra Tonic is basically a K&K type contact transducer strip that superglues to the bridge plate right under the saddle location, but it has another sensor that sits a bit further away and is wired out of phase. Some dip switches attached to the end pin jack (adjusted prior to the jack installation) allow for tweaking to minimize thumpiness and feedback. Alone it sounds pretty good, but the Tonedexter gets this thing super close to the sound of an acoustic guitar. Warnings: You have to do a good job of installing the pickup, and you have to do a good job of modeling the sound for the Tonedexter. But if you get both of those right, it is the most realistic acoustic guitar sound I have heard from a pickup (a real pickup, not a microphone) in 45 years. I have one installed in one of my builds for when I need a pickup (as opposed to a microphone), and it does a great job.

Speaking of microphones: In my opinion, acoustic guitarists use pickups in more settings than they need to. In a loud place with drums and bass? Sure, you need a pickup. But in a quiet environment (like a church group or solo, with no drummer or bass player involved), a good microphone through a good sound system, handled properly, will sound sooooo much better than any pickup. Just something to discuss with players, if/when they are open to hearing it.

On all the related topics dealt with above, I defer to the experts and have no comment, other than my general distaste for the sound of under-the-saddle transducers. I just don't like how they sound, no matter how you process the signal, so I actively discourage their use.

Ever considered doing a workshop on your technique? Sign me up!

Best, M

Everything useful I know about voicing guitars can be found in the Gore/Gilet books, lol. That said, you’re welcome to drop by the shop any time and I’d be happy to show you my particular quirks…

I know I’ve asked about this before - I’d really like to take you up on it this time. Things open up for me in March. I’ll pm you and see if we can find a date that works for you.

Cheers, M

Sounds good!

I looked at Dazzo for a minute or two. At the time he was using epoxy to glue the transducers to the bridge plate and brake fluid (!) to remove them. Yikes.

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Stay with the happy people.
--Reynolds Large

Really appreciate all this information, thank you all for the responses - lots to digest.

Your welcome and how this thread evolved or devolved reminded me of one more consideration.

I just bought and received a 12" speaker from a very small, boutique speaker maker. It's damaged right out of the box, had been dropped and improperly packaged to deal with the inertia of its weight.... So now I have to wait for the producer to manufacture and "break-in" another one and I am out of the water until that happens.

Again we don't sell pick-ups but there have been recommendations here for at least four pick-ups are that not off the shelf items that can be had at the usual suspects or even Amazon with same day shipping and an assurance of availability going forward.

For the gigging musician this is not satisfactory at least not for the musicians who are my clients. They need a next day replacement available and that really narrows the possibilities in my book to more mainstream, major manufacturer choices.

With this said and for this reason and likely others on a case by case basis we're not looking to promote anything that is not available for replacement very quickly and easily. With some of the bigger names like Baggs, K&K, Fishman, etc and with Amazon it is possible in some zip codes to get a same day replacement. Remember the show must go on if you sell to gigging musicians.

As some one who will try to fix pick-ups at times I know all too well that they do fail, they usually require board level replacement (major assembly replacement) and simply replacing them is often what ends up happening.

Or, in other words the level of support and distribution channel of a pup system if I was looking to attach my good building fortune or a store's good name to a pick-up manufacturer would be important to me too.

But getting back to your original questions if I was building again the only thing that I would consider in respect to the addition at a later date by the steward of a pick-up system is the saddle slot. I would not want it split like a Lowden or too narrow, or located over the X-brace and again I would not be keen to slant the saddle rearward because leveling the bottom of the saddle slot is at times needed for UST balance issues.

Keep your saddle slot substantially similar to say Martin who builds 150,000 quality instruments annually all of which can be fitted with an aftermarket pup and you should be cool.

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Ann Arbor Guitars