I have a Strat knock-off with a pickup on the bridge springs to create a spring reverb type sound. The only problem is the spring pickup level is considerably lower than the other pickups, so if I switch it on with another pickup, the regular pickup's volume is essentially halved. Is there some type of preamp setup I could use so that switching the spring pickup on would just add a low level reverb sound on top of the regular pickup sound?
i'm not sure what you are talking about.
1. you put a pickup inside the back of the guitar over the springs that put the tension on a tremolo bridge?
this is not how spring reverb works, a spring reverb sends the signal through the springs. if this is what you did i don't see right away why the signal would drop unless you wired the pickup into the guitars circuit in a odd manner.
2. maybe you wired one of your pickups in series with the tremolo tension springs. not sure how well those springs would work for reverb i would imagine that they are too short. too thick and under too much tension but something could happen. if this is the case then yes, you need an input buffer to keep from loading down the rest of the guitar, a reverb driver and a recovery/mixer stage to recombine the signal with the guitar. could be done with 3 or 4 jfets or 2 opamps and a nine volt battery. basically you want a boost pedal between the designated reverb pickup and the springs (if the pickup is in series with the springs) and something like an effects mixing pedal that has gain that sums the output of the springs and the rest of your guitars circuit.
obviously easier to get a reverb pedal but maybe you are after something different which i respeqt.
🙂
pzung
take a picture or draw up something to show what you are doing and post if you really want help.
1. you put a pickup inside the back of the guitar over the springs that put the tension on a tremolo bridge?
this is not how spring reverb works, a spring reverb sends the signal through the springs. if this is what you did i don't see right away why the signal would drop unless you wired the pickup into the guitars circuit in a odd manner.
2. maybe you wired one of your pickups in series with the tremolo tension springs. not sure how well those springs would work for reverb i would imagine that they are too short. too thick and under too much tension but something could happen. if this is the case then yes, you need an input buffer to keep from loading down the rest of the guitar, a reverb driver and a recovery/mixer stage to recombine the signal with the guitar. could be done with 3 or 4 jfets or 2 opamps and a nine volt battery. basically you want a boost pedal between the designated reverb pickup and the springs (if the pickup is in series with the springs) and something like an effects mixing pedal that has gain that sums the output of the springs and the rest of your guitars circuit.
obviously easier to get a reverb pedal but maybe you are after something different which i respeqt.
🙂
pzung
take a picture or draw up something to show what you are doing and post if you really want help.
There's some kit preamps that you can wire in to the control cavity though might have to do a bit of work re-orienting the wires to accomodate the spring pickup, taking in to consideration the previous post would aid this.
For clarification, I know that's not how amp spring reverb works. When I play this guitar unplugged I can hear the springs echo inside, so I figured why not suspend a pickup over them so I can hear it when plugged in too. The vibrations of the springs are relatively small and produce a really low output, so combining them with a regular string pickup reduces the total output.
Ill try that buffer set up.
Ill try that buffer set up.
Interesting.
I'd try an acoustic conductive pickup stuck to the guitar body near the springs.
By that I mean a piezo pickup, you're not going to get much output from a conventional pickup excited by the springs, so even with amplification the reverb signal may have a lot of noise (hiss).
Even then you will still need to balance the outputs from the conventional pickups with the reverb. You could do this by bringing out the reverb to a second jack and blending the signals using an external mixer (not ideal for gigging), or by building 2 mixer channels into the cavities in the guitar and presetting the levels so that the final output level is unchanged from the original.
You can probably do this with an op-amp and 3 preset pots, one for each pickup and one for the feedback loop (google opamp summer), but you need a dual-rail power supply (2 x 9V batteries) if you want to keep it DC coupled, and then the guitar won't work without batteries unless you make the switching more complicated...
w
I'd try an acoustic conductive pickup stuck to the guitar body near the springs.
By that I mean a piezo pickup, you're not going to get much output from a conventional pickup excited by the springs, so even with amplification the reverb signal may have a lot of noise (hiss).
Even then you will still need to balance the outputs from the conventional pickups with the reverb. You could do this by bringing out the reverb to a second jack and blending the signals using an external mixer (not ideal for gigging), or by building 2 mixer channels into the cavities in the guitar and presetting the levels so that the final output level is unchanged from the original.
You can probably do this with an op-amp and 3 preset pots, one for each pickup and one for the feedback loop (google opamp summer), but you need a dual-rail power supply (2 x 9V batteries) if you want to keep it DC coupled, and then the guitar won't work without batteries unless you make the switching more complicated...
w
Thinking about it, seconds on the piezo idea. Spring reverb works by direct transduction anyway so it'd be a similar process
I was on the same thought path and love the idea. Ive searched and searched trying to find people who were talking about this. I like to play my electric at night but 3 am is too late to plug in, so as i'm playing this slightly bad 'acoustic' i hear that reverb sound created by the springs. What i want to know is how can i take those springs and add them to an actual acoustic guitar. Will it add reverb? any thoughts on this?
🙂
🙂
I tested it long ago and it "works" sort of.
Didn´t dig deeper, just a curiosity.
Suggest you first put a regular pickup near the springs, kludge some type of support for it and plug it into a regular guitar amp, then give it a thorough listening session.
For now do not plug the regular pickup under the strings, you already know how it sounds 🙂 , the idea is just to check whether you actually like the spring reverb sound, or not.
If not, it´s not worth going further; if you like it, then it´s worth going on.
You will go active on the spring pickup, if anything to raise its signal level, you might add a small preamp for it OR go the full Monty, and build new full electronics, part dedicated to regular pickups, part for "reverb".
Maybe put the piezo pickup on the steel plate that the springs hook on to in the 'body end'?
Myself I hated the sound of the springs resonating that could also be heard using the normal pickups with high gain/distortion, so I added a lead weight to the bridge, and put o-rings in the springs to dampen the ringing. The lead weight actually improved sustain a bit too.
Myself I hated the sound of the springs resonating that could also be heard using the normal pickups with high gain/distortion, so I added a lead weight to the bridge, and put o-rings in the springs to dampen the ringing. The lead weight actually improved sustain a bit too.