Resonator guitar pickup

[Sock Puppet]

Hi,

A handy friend of mine has built a telecaster resonator guitar (sorry no photo yet but a really nice piece of kit).

He has a lipstick single coil in the neck but is disappointed that it sounds so "electric" when it's plugged in.

There's little room in there for active electronics so I wondered if anyone had a wiring diagram for something like the Tanglewood Bluesound Resonator (TBS-500-STR) or the Eastwood Delta 6 which has a piezo under the biscuit bridge and a conventional wound pickup in the neck position with a blend control to complement the volume and tone.
I've heard the Tanglewood and you can dial in a range of useful sounds.

I would really like to try this passive way as it the easiest way to see if he can get the sound he's happy with.
I know active electronics can be small and there'll be many who don't think it can be done well passively, well I might be one of you, so fire away. Any advice welcome.

Cheers,

Rob.

[Magnut]

The key is to underwind the pickup. That should get the acoustic characteristic out of it. I looked at building one of these myself and most pickups are underwound.

Edit* had to cut message short due to emergency. ...

I am not so hot on active pickups in what would normally be a very acoustic type instrument and I can't really impart any useful information about them. I do think if you had an underwound pickup the guitar would work much better. If you can alter the existing pickup that would be a good place to start.

[bramley]

Did he build a biscuit or spider style ? If it's a tele I'm guessing biscuit. The Eastwood & Tanglewood are spider type and use a plain ol' peizo strip under the saddle & a simple passive two volume one tone circuit.

I have built my share of electric resonators and use a $3 Radio shack buzzer peizo element under the National biscuit style cone , share a stereo jack with the neck pup and use an external preamp if required. Two outs running into separate amps makes a big difference, but if a single mixed out is what he wants the peizo will need some form of eq.



The best tip I have to get " cone tone " is a raw mic capsule ( this is an old Audiotechnica) strapped above or below the cone on a separate output. Mixed in it takes the " zing " of the peizo sound.

[Sock Puppet]

Did he build a biscuit or spider style ? If it's a tele I'm guessing biscuit. The Eastwood & Tanglewood are spider type and use a plain ol' peizo strip under the saddle & a simple passive two volume one tone circuit.

Thanks for the info.

You're right, it's a biscuit bridge. I'm not sure where I should steer him with this - the microphone looks to be the best bet.
If it was my own, I could see many weeks of experimenting with piezo discs/undersaddle transducer or even a small magnet on the cone with say a relay coil or a linear hall effect sensor (just a thought, don't know if that'll work.).

Magnut, the neck pickup is a 3.5k s.c. and doesn't sense much of the "tin can" sound, possibly due to the solid body, I don't know.

As the sound is a very personal thing, this is looking like one of those Douglas Adams "Someone Else's Problem"

Thanks again,

Rob.

[Sock Puppet]

Just an update and pics.

He finally went with a small piezo on the biscuit and a twin depletion mode FET buffer mounted above the cone. Outputs are mixed using twin volume controls, each with separate tone.