Q) Will the Acoustic Lens pickup work on any
guitar?
The Acoustic Lens pickup was designed and voiced specifically
for the steel
string guitar. It can be installed on most steel string guitars but
because of its mounting
location requirements, it will not
work in some instruments. For more info, please check out our detailed article on the subject here.
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Q) Will the Acoustic Lens feed back?
The Acoustic Lens is designed to accurately reproduce the tone
and
nuance of your guitar at very respectable volume levels without
excessive
feedback problems. Ordinary contact pickups rely on the vibration of the
instrumentšs top and body to sense and create sound. In essence, the
entire
instrument becomes a large microphone, and often tends to feedback at
lower
volume levels. Saddle transducers sense pressure vibration directly from
the strings and either attenuate or ignore completely any vibration from
the body. This provides a much greater immunity from feedback, but a
much
less realistic sound, leading many to declare the saddle transducer's
sound
as brittle, thin or twangy, and bearing little resemblance to the actual
sound of the instrument. Any alternate techniques such as slapping or
tapping
the instrument are greatly attenuated, or ignored altogether.
The Acoustic lens is designed and custom voiced to mount with a
special
adhesive on the bridgeplate inside the guitar, underneath the saddle
area.
This spot allows it to essentially share the best of both worlds, and
provides
a very effective, integrated approach to sound reproduction. It gets
direct vibration from the strings and saddle, allowing it to generate
louder
stage volumes than a standard contact pickup, and it senses the
essential
body vibrations and resonance that elude the saddle transducer and give
a guitar its characteristic voice. Alternative techniques are faithfully
reproduced, much the same as if the instrument were externally miked,
but
without the attendant problems.
It is possible to create conditions where the Acoustic Lens will
feedback;
a loud monitor pointed directly at the instrument (yes, we've had users
do this), a sound system with "hot spots" where certain frequencies are
boosted out of proportion to the rest of the spectrum, and other
situations
of this sort. A decent, full-range flat response system with properly
positioned
monitors will allow you to obtain very respectable stage volumes. How
loud?
Well, not as loud as a saddle transducer, but louder than a system with
an internal or external microphone, and better, more natural
reproduction
than both. To give you a basic idea, Aerosmith has toured
using
an Amulet system with two Gibson SJ200's. If they can use the Acoustic
Lens onstage, then you probably can, too.
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Q) Can I use the Acoustic Lens with other
manufacturers'
preamps?
In a word, no.
The Acoustic Lens poses a unique set of problems to amplify. It
produces
a very low output level and requires a very high input impedance to
accurately
reproduce a signal. Other commercially available preamplifiers, even the
so-called "Piezo" types are designed to work with the output of a
saddle-type
or contact transducer, which put out a signal level typically 10 times
higher than the Lens. Trying to use this type of preamp will result in
a low level, hissy, thin sound which will certainly not do justice to
the
audio quality that the Acoustic Lens is capable of when properly
amplified.
The preamps that we build are audiophile quality systems designed
specifically
to meet the needs of the Acoustic Lens and interface it perfectly to the
rest of your amplification gear.
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Q) Can I combine the Acoustic Lens with another
type of
pickup?
Not with the Amulet M, M-V or M-VT mono systems. The Amulet stereo system, on the other hand, has two completely independent
channels,
and is able to mix or match the Acoustic Lens with other transducers, or to
run two
Lenses as a stereo pair. It can
easily support a magnetic or saddle-type pickup in combination with the
Lens, and the gain trimmers inside the internal preamp allow you to
easily
match the levels of your favorite pickup to the Lens. Some of our
customers
are looking to duplicate a two pickup system such as the one favored by
Michael Hedges, and the Amulet is designed to easily provide this sort
of tonal flexibility with a minimum of equipment and interconnect
problems.
The internal preamp uses gold plated RCA connectors on the inputs, so to
connect your favorite magnetic or saddle-type transducer, just solder an
RCA plug to its connector cable and plug it directly into one channel of
the preamp. The Amulet provides all the gain needed without any other
external
preamps or connections and provides sound and performance that our
customers
say exceeds other commercially available systems.
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Q) How well will the Acoustic Lens work with
lowered and
alternate
guitar tunings? What is the difference between using two Acoustic Lenses
or one Lens and a magnetic pickup?
The stereo Amulet system has one Lens mounted on the
treble
side of the bridgeplate, and one mounted on the bass side of the
bridgeplate.
Between them, they provide a complete, balanced reproduction of your
instrument.
You can pan the pickups to create a stereo image as well, anything from
a subtle widening to a sweeping panorama as you strum the strings.
Panning
the pickups to the 10 and 2 o'clock position provides the most natural
stereo perspective. Because of the way the Lens senses both string
and
body vibration, the bass side Lens will have no problems with lowered
tunings
on the instrument, often a problem with standard contact
pickups.
When a guitar is tuned down, the top begins to vibrate less, and
the output
from a standard contact pickup drops off accordingly. In the past,
players would often add
a magnetic pickup to amplify the low end
of the guitar when using standard contact pickups in an attempt to
overcome
the low-end deficiencies of these devices. Magnetic pickups sense the
strings
directly, and produce plenty of bass when using lowered tunings, but
provide
a less "acoustic" response, since they pick up very little information
from the top and body of the instrument. These pickups also work much
better
when you use steel or nickel wound electric guitar strings instead of
acoustic
strings. The windings on acoustic strings aren't made of magnetic
material,
so the magnetic pickup only senses the smaller core wire of the string,
providing less output. This poses an interesting dilemma; electric
guitar
strings work better for the magnetic pickup, but sound worse
acoustically
with the contact pickups. It's a double-edged sword, and each side has
distinct pluses and minuses. Some string manufacturers have recognized
this problem, and make strings that attempt to address these problems
(GHS
White Bronze, DR Zebra, etc.) and may prove valuable in these
situations.
Some players have come to enjoy the sound of the magnetic
pickup, and
it does blend well with the Acoustic Lens; each brings something
different
to the party, and the overall sound can be quite pleasing.
When mixing pickup types, the stereo aspect is lost, or at least reduced
in naturalness; since each pickup now sounds somewhat different, panning
them very far apart sounds more effected than natural, although it can
give the suggestion of two instruments playing together in some cases.
The stereo Lens setup does the best job of reproducing the
"acoustic
signature" of the guitar. Players who like to thump their palms
on
the bridge may find a bit more output than they expected, however. Since
the bass
side Lens is mounted in that area, it's kind of like tapping on a
microphone;
tapping lightly sounds good, tapping too hard will start to air-
condition
the audience from the flapping woofers in your speaker cabinets! The Amulet Stereo
External Controller has a switchable low-cut filter (and the Amulet M has this filter built-in) that is designed to
alleviate this problem
without compromising the quality and range of sound. Using
EQ to limit the
lowest range
of your system is another option, and many mixers provide a low-cut
filter for just this
purpose.
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Q) If I use an Acoustic Lenses and a magnetic
pickup on my
instrument,
do I need a separate endpin jack for each?
If you have the Amulet M, M-V, or M-VT mono systems, yes. But if you have the Amulet stereo system, there are some options as to how to work this. You can use one
Acoustic
Lens transducer to pick up only the treble strings of the guitar, and
run the magnetic pickup
through the other channel of the Amulet preamp. In this case, both the
Lens and magnetic
pickup signals will run through one endpin jack, though you do lose
any Lens coverage of the 3 lower strings of your guitar.
You can also parallel two Acoustic Lens transducers together using a
specially shielded Y-cable that we have available, and plug them into
one channel of the
internal
preamp, while the second channel accommodates the magnetic pickup.
This widens the covered range of the Lens channel, and changes the overall tone of the transducers somewhat. There is less
treble response, and increased midrange, which may appeal to some
players.
In this setup, the stereo aspect of the Lenses is lost, as they are now
paralleled together.
If you wish to keep the stereo aspect of the Lenses and use a
magnetic pickup,
a second endpin jack can be added to the instrument
to bring out the signal from the magnetic pickup separately. This adds
more cabling
to the instrument, but increases the tonal flexibility.
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Q) If I want to install the Amulet stereo system on more than one instrument,
do I need a complete Amulet system for each one?
For users who wish to use more than one instrument with our stereo Amulet, we make the
2nd
Guitar Kit available. This kit contains an additional internal stereo
preamp
and endpin jack and one or two Acoustic Lens pickups. This allows you to
share the Amulet external controller and its amplifier connections with
two or more instruments, without the added expense of completely
duplicating
additional systems. As a bonus to our customers, these kits are supplied
at a substantial discount over the price of the individual components.
The gain trimmers located inside the internal preamps allow you to
match volume levels between multiple instruments as well, to make for a
smooth transition from instrument to instrument.
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Q) What type of amplifier/speaker works best
with the
Acoustic Lens?
The Acoustic Lens has been voiced to work best with a flat
response,
full range system. The better the frequency response of the system, the
better the Lens will sound. There are a number of "acoustic" amplifier
combos on the market, some better than others. Better still is a system
like a small PA system, with component mixer, amp and speakers. These
types
of systems will generally have a better frequency response, more dynamic
range and more flexibility. Avoid electric guitar amplifiers, which have
a limited frequency response. These sound fine for electric guitars, but
don't do justice
to acoustics.
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