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Joined:
March 2012
Posts: 5
| Hello everyone, I'm silverguitarist from Taiwan. I'm a BIG fan of Ovation guitars. Things are same here: Ovation guitars just don't get the respects they deserve. There's few information about Ovation in my country. So I'm really appreciated the existence of this site. Let me thank you all first 
I own an Adamas 1687-2 (1995) and an Ovation 1719 30-CM Custom Legend (2004, commemorative model). They are both excellent guitars.
I had owned an Ovation 1997 collector's. And an Ovation Pinnacle (Made in Japan), an Applause AE-36 and two AE-38.
I came here with one question which I never get a professional answer locally.
I play fingerstyle guitar with lots of percussive technic (like Preston Reed). The original Ovation pickups sound full and good, but they just don't pickup the body sound clearly enough(They do better than many third-party under-saddle pickups, but still not enough). So I'd like to add a second pickup, possibly a soundboard transducer or internal mic. To fit the endpin jack, normally we drill a 12mm hole on the "End block" in wood acoustic guitar, which is 3/4 inch thick generally, and most endpin jacks are designed to "clamp" on a piece of thick wood like it. However, Ovation's round back eliminates the need of end blocks, which makes the whole body uniformly---thin. I'm not sure if those third-party endpin jacks can fix tightly on Ovation body?
And I don't know what's the best way to drill a second endpin jack hole. I do have a 12mm tapered reamer, and have many experiences drilling holes by myself, but that's all about wood acoustic guitar. Should I drill with tapered reamer or a common drill bit? A drill bit for wood? For metal? For concrete....(I bet not..)?
Or does the original out put jack has stereo capability? It can be modified to add a second pickup without losing sound quality?
Hope you guys can answer me so next time I go to a fingerstyle gig, I don't have to sadly leave my Ovation at home anymore  |
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Joined:
December 2001
Posts: 7222
Location: The Great Pacific Northwest | Hi silverguitarist, I upgraded your account and moved this to the general forum so more folks with knowledge on this could answer.
The first thing that sticks out to me is that many percussive players choose Ovation specifically because of the pickup system and to my knowledge one those players is Preston Reed, along with others like Kaki King. You mentioned "The original Ovation pickups sound full and good, but they just don't pickup the body sound clearly enough" which if anything my experience has been that people have to be careful with Ovations because sometimes the sensitivity of the pickup to sounds on the body (tapping, or strap movement) can be a bad combination with some players habits.
Especially in the case of the Adamas, I'm wondering if something is wrong with the system in place, but others will be able to help with that better than I. |
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Joined:
March 2012
Posts: 5
| Thank you Mr. Ovation.
Actually Preston Reed DOES had added a second pickup on his longneck adamas guitar to enhance picking up his hitting sound. In an interview, he mentioned it is a Seymour Duncan soundboard transducer.
I've also ask Ovation web service, and they gave me the same answer.
And of course, Kaki King did this, too. Just don't know what kind of 2nd pickup she added, though.
Most of the under-saddle pickups (Ovation included) acclaimed that their product "not only sense strings pressure, but also respond to top vibrations." Well, yes they did. Ovation OCP-1 especially. But after all it is still an under-saddle pickup. In terms of picking up top/body vibration, they have following drawbacks:
1.Position.
Because the pickup is seated directly under strings, strings vibration is MUCH MORE STRONGER then top vibration to it. This means strings volume will be MUCH MORE LOUDER than top volume. This is a shared characteristic among all under-saddle pickups.
2. Fixed Ratio.
In my opinion, the Ovation OCP-1 signal is consisted of 80% of strings sound and 20% of top sound(while other third-party under-saddle pickups may only has 10~15% on top vibration side). This is a perfect blend for normal playing style, because it helps battle feedback while preserving acoustic guitar tone. However it is definitely not enough for percussive playing. Because you can't adjust the ratio(strings/top blend), you can't get enough hitting volume WITHOUT turning strings volume way too high. It's simply not practical.
In Dong Young's acoustic guitar pickup comparison website ( http://www.dougyoungguitar.com/pickuptests/ ) he had recorded a clip of Ovation pickup sound with some hitting technic. We can easily notice the hitting sound is not clear, not loud enough, compared to other companies' dual source pickup products.
Personally I have owned several Ovation models with OCP-1 pickup, and when it comes to picking up top vibration sound, they all sounds the same...so I think it couldn't be my system's problem.
Thanks for quick reply, anyway  |
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Joined:
March 2012
Posts: 17
| Well I'm new here, but will give you a thought.... how well bedded is the pickup to contact the top surface? On mine anyway, the pickup is under the saddle in a plug-n-play component that goes into a slot in the bridge. String tension then pushes it down against the top surface. Can't easily change the sound transmission characteristics of the plastic case of the pickup module, but for a start, you'd think that you would want to have as smooth and flat a fit between the soundboard and the bottom of the pickup assembly as possible.
Would need a luthier to chime in on materials.... but my initial thought would be to polish the bottom of the pickup assembly, put a thin coat of something like the glass bedding compound used in gunsmithing on the wood contact surface, put a thin coat of antisieze on the pickup, install it, and string up the guitar to act as a clamp. Something along those lines anyway.
Basically the thought is to optimize the contact area of the top to pickup junction.
If you have shims in there then you would need to add them into the bedding equation as well. My guitar came with some plastic shims, and one of them was anything but flat when I measured it. If using any shims, I could well imagine making up a single shim from something like brass or stainless shim stock of the proper thickness. Something that conducts better than plastic anyway.
There is a little play around the circumference of the pickup assembly in the slot as well. By lightly shimming that you could perhaps get some more surface conduction to the unit as well.
To go all out, you could imagine making a new casing for the pickup assembly from something more conductive than plastic too. My first thought there would be to mill a piece out of something light and conductive, like 7075 or 6061 aluminum. I don't have an extra pickup to dissect, so I'm none too sure how simple or complex that shell is on the inside to replicate and retrofit.
Anyway, those are some thoughts that came to me when I read your post.
Edited by Comedie 2012-03-29 11:15 PM
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Joined:
March 2012
Posts: 5
| Thanks bro. I'll take a look at what's going on under the saddle next time I change strings. But I still think this may be a rather minor factor.... may improve the "ratio" I mentioned from 80/20 (80% of string sound, 20% of top sound) to 79/21, I guess. For percussive playing, you need 60/40 , even 50/50 to make your hitting sound PUNCHY. Add a second pickup may be a more practical idea...  |
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Joined:
December 2001
Posts: 7222
Location: The Great Pacific Northwest | I think what's key here is you are looking for a sound similar to Reed. We need to find out what he's using. Someone must know. |
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Joined:
March 2012
Posts: 17
| May not be so minor either. Certainly I would expect more than 1%, regardless. Quantification depends on what you find going on under there.
Other than purely to pickup body percussion, I could also expect what I was talking about to result in more top vibration. Would seem reasonable since it is basically getting a better junction between the top and the saddle. Louder acoustically, unplugged? That sure seems a possibility.
From your description, a second pickup is probably the best solution tho, too. And if you want that other piezo pickup to be rather pure in dedication to percussive work, then you might NOT want to improve the junction between the saddle pickup and the top at all, since that would cause the strings to vibrate the top more, and thus add that input to the second pickup. Going down that path you would almost imagine have the percussive piezo pickup mounted under the top near where you tap and away from the bridge, with a potentiometer inline so that you can adjust it's output relative to the saddle pickup.
From what I can see looking thru the hole in mine, it looks like the stock pickup plug is a simple RCA jack. If so, you could perhaps just use a 2 into 1 adapter and feed the output of both pickups into the onboard preamp.
Looks like finding a pickup would be easy enough too. Just poking around, I saw several. For example: http://www.d-tar.com/soundspots.shtml . |
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Newbie question-how to add a second pickup for my Ovation guitar?
