Guitar Pickup died... what now?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Noxey
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Noxey

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Hi guys,

I've recently gotten into live recordings of an acoustic guitar and vocals, and everything seems to be going wrong. The pickup inside my acoustic guitar has just died on me, and does not work at all. The input jack is still in-tact, but the actual pickup system itself is fried.

I have a Senheiser e835 that I bought to use for vocals. I really want my recordings to be live, so I need to find a new way to record my guitar at the same time as I record vocals.

I may consider buying a new pickup, but I really don't want to be spending a lot of money considering I'm saving up for a new guitar. That's the other issue too. In roughly a years time I plan to purchase my first Martin guitar which will then become my main recording guitar. The one I'm buying doesn't come with a pre-installed pickup, so that's something to keep in mind.

I guess the question I'm asking, is would it be better for me to record with a Pickup or with a second Mic. If I buy another pickup, I'll have to worry about the same thing when I buy the martin, but the Mic is probably a more expensive solution.

I also have to consider that I may be doing some live performances (coffee houses, etc). I'm really lost as to what to do, and I'm trying to save the most money I can while also getting good results.

Thanks for the help guys. Any suggestions are appreciated. If you have actual suggestions in terms of gear, I'd like to see that too!
 
Everyone will tell you that if you want to get a true acoustic sound, you need to record it with microphones. My basic technique is to mic my almost-40year-old 6 string, and use a pickup that pops into the sound hole, recording that onto a second track at the same time. I then blend the two sources, keeping the pickup one softer, but ading a little more brightness. This is a newer version of the pickup I use. It's passable live, but nowhere near the definition and fidelity you get from a good built-in pickup system.

If you are planning on doing live performances that are amplified, then you really want to think about getting that Martin with an installed pickup system.
 
You've checked the battery, right? ;)

Buy a reasonable SDC to record your non-pick up guitar as the main mic (when you get your newbie axe) and use your Sennheiser as a second mic on it. Exact locations will have to be worked out, but you'll definitely get a usable sound that way and the Sennheiser will add value to the equation..
 
He wants to record vocal and guitar at same time - doing both with mics is going to have a lot of bleed. Much better to track each one separately.
 
Missed that... good point. I never get this "live" need that people seem to have...
 
check the battery and then the wiring.
P'ups in acoustic gits don't 'fry'.
The problem is almost always something to do with the preamp part of it but very often it's just a bad battery
 
I want live recordings because I'm not recording for simply audio purposes. I'm not looking for a heavily mixed, multi take recording that has been refined to sound absolutely perfect. I'm looking for a raw demonstration of my abilities as if I were playing in front of someone live. Youtube will act as my live audience.

As for the battery, I should have mentioned it's a passive pickup. I brought it to a local guitar shop and he told me it looked like it was cut up or something. He told me my input jack was functioning perfectly, but the pickup itself was not working.
 
What I've done on some acoustic recordings (and don't see why this wouldn't work live) is...
with my one mic... an LDC...
I'd set it up in front of the singer, angled upward more towards vocals to where about 65% of the sound was vocals, the rest was picking up the guitar.
It took a little tweaking but I ended up with a very nice, well balanced recording.

hmmm...just went back and read you have the e835. Not sure if this will work that well with that mic. Yeah, it's a condenser but it looks like a SDC.
Ya might need an LDC for this to work.
Worth a try tho.

Or just buy another mic and mic both. ;)
 
Recording one guitar take and one vocal take hardly falls into the category of a heavily mixed multi track recording refined to sound absolutely perfect - you need another mic, essentially, it will be difficult to position a dynamic mic (WTF are you talking about Dogbreath!) like your Sennheiser to get good enough vocal and acoustic guitar signals.

Seeing what you're aiming for, I'd borrow or steal another decent dynamic (I'm assuming you have preamplification sorted) for the guitar and see how that goes. Using a condenser on the guitar and a dynamic on the voice, depending upon what you're actually playing, and the voice/guitar volume ratio, could give you massive bleed issues.
 
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