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Hello all --

I'm doing a few upgrades/repairs to a friend's guitar, including making a bone nut and saddle to replace the old plastic ones. This is primarily a stage guitar, so I ran it through my Radial PZ-Pre to confirm the saddle was in good contact with the UST, only to discover a very inconsistent signal -- the E strings were nice and loud, the A & B weaker, and the D&G were almost inaudible. Interesting. Knowing the bottom of the new saddle was flat and true, I removed the ust in order to level sand the saddle slot. The ust came out easily, but left quite a bit of blue ink on the bottom of the slot. Sanding revealed that the ends of the slot were higher than the center, which seemed consistent with my theory of uneven contact with the saddle.

Reassembled the guitar, hooked it up to the preamp, and was dismayed to hear very little output from all but the low E string. I'm thinking the loss of blue ink may have been the culprit. Knowing the ribbon itself may have been faulty to begin with, I'd told the customer it may need to be replaced. Since I had another pickup I'd removed from an old guitar, I figured it'd be a simple matter of switching out the ribbons. Both have the same type of connector, are the same length, and look basically the same. Of course, not so simple -- hooked up the other ribbon, and got very little output with a whole lotta hum. Apparently, they're not as universal as I'd hoped. I'm guessing the two films have different impedance values? The old system is a Fishman Sonicore, and the new ust came off a B-Band pickup system.

Any insights on this are appreciated, including technical info on the hows and why's, where to get a replacement, or anyone who might have a fishman UST lying around they're willing to part with. Thanks in advance.

Ken

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Mountain Song Guitars www.mountainsongguitars.com

There's all different levels of impedence on UST's. I'd contact Fishman for a replacement. They've been helpful for me in the past.

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I didn't mean to say it, but I meant what I said.
http://www.brackettinstruments.com/