Pickup Wireing Question For Electric Resonator

[matthew bryan]

I am going to make an electric resonator. It will be in the shape of a tele. I want to use a schattern pick up like this.....

http://www.schattendesign.com/resonator.htm

The RG-03 is the one I am looking at. Also I want to install a neck pick up as well. I would like to have two volume controls so I can blend them how I want. I am not sure if I want a stacked pot for the two volunmes, or two seperate posts for them, or stacked pot for both volumes and a master volume. I really depends on the room I have. There is not much area to fit electronics.

Do you have any guidance for me to do this? I really do not want to use an active system due to the room situation (or lack there of). If there is a schematic that would be great. I have looked at the blend systems as well....bulky and pricy.

Thanks for any info.

Matthew

[Tim37]

i am asuming that the neck pickup will be a magnetic style pickup if so you will need to add some electronics to mix it will the peizo pickup

[matthew bryan]

Yes the neck pickup will be magnetic. The reason I picked this piezo is because it 'claims' to not need a boost to sound good....according to the site. I was hoping to just either put in a blend pot with master volume and/or the combinations I listed above with no active preamps on the guitar.

[Davgor]

Matthew, I am building pretty much the same guitar you have in mind. Last winter I bought a pawn shop tele(Samick), routed out the body, installed a buscuit bridge resoator cone. I was amazed how this thing sounded with no electronics.Now it's torn apart again for wiring.About the only difference in mine is I went with an active pickup (fishman) on the resonator and the stock single coil neck pickup. I'm definitely open to suggestions regarding the wiring. I want to use a blend pot and either 1 or 3 volume pots. Should the blend pot be 25K or 250K ? What will result if I use the wrong one ? Don't know much about electronics but I've been reading. Ican't wait to hear this thing!

[matthew bryan]

If you go to the fisman website they have a lot of info on how to wire this pickup with others using their active onboard preamps that go with this pickup.....this includes volume controls as well. Just look around and the installiations instrucions show what you are looking for. My goal is to have a passive system that is as resistant to feedback as possiable. Passive because I do not have a lot of room to put all the controls necessary for the active systems. Minimal feedback cone pickup because in my reading I understand that resonators are feedback machines. I understand that are very hard to control under loud and or live situations. I have changed my mid on the origional pickup that I listed in the origional post....I can not fit it on the cone the way I want. So I am still searching.

Edit....look at their Powerchip on the fishman website.....It is the exact thing you are looking for in your set up. You can use a master volume with it as well.

Edited December 20, 2010 by matthew bryan

[Mattia]

You'll want an active system for this. Even piezos that will drive an amp without preamping invariably sound better if they do have some sort of tone contouring/preamplification/impedance matching going on.