LR Baggs M1 Active Installation

[RadioElectric]

This arrived from Hartnoll Guitars on Wednesday but I didn't get around to installing it until gone-midnight on Thursday (well, Friday morning technically). I recorded a couple of samples from it which I deleted at the time but I thought they sounded quite good. Since then though I've tried recording it and I've found it a bit "aggressive sounding". Also, the "body sensitivity" seems to express itself in very low bass "WUMMM" noise more than anything else. I'm wondering whether I've got it set up right. I pretty much installed it as it came, though I have since experimented with uniformly raising and lowering the heights slightly in turn to see what effect that had on the sound. I've got a few samples recorded but only time to upload one now. I think you can hear my biggest "problem" with it here though in that any percussion on the body is translated into a loud bass-less "knocking" sound. I don't know, maybe I'm expecting too much or maybe it needs some decent outboard. I think the rattling you can hear here is due to a 52 low E string being tuned down to C.

http://boomp3.com/listen/c28r0lcbk_2/waitinvain

Sorry Jon

[RadioElectric]

Ok, that first audio player site doesn't seem to be working so here are all of the samples I took now. I feel the need to say that these are very "rough and ready" little clips that I banged out before going off to an open mic night (not playing unfortunately until I'm sure I've got this sorted out) this evening.

Here's the bit of Jon Gomm's Wait in Vain that I mentioned above
http://www.soundupload.com/audio/jpf40khrdg4ogof6

Excerpt of Bert Jansch's Angie
http://www.soundupload.com/audio/gg6isy6aem03todr

Strummed section from Gordon Giltrap's Heartsong
http://www.soundupload.com/audio/cdri94xofe7h2vfs

Fingerpicked section from Gordon Giltrap's Heartsong
http://www.soundupload.com/audio/nwjexdf1akkpjux9

John Martyn's Couldn't Love You More
http://www.soundupload.com/audio/tcknlrcblu7b36qh

The recordings were all done with the M1 Active plugged directly into my EHX 2880 Looper. I then transferred them over to my PC, normalised a couple of them that were a bit too quiet and made them into mp3s. So this is just the raw output of the pickup here. Listening to it now (after an evening of piezo->mixer at the open mic) they actually seem alright. It's possibly that it was just hearing them back after having played them acoustically that made an unfair comparison. I'm still not sure about the percussive effects though.

[mellowsun]

All sounds fine to me. You're going to get a 'flat' sound from a pickup, whatever you do - you won't get the woody sound of the pure acoustic tone.

I've got the same pickup as you - here's a track I recorded with it:

http://www.icompositions.com/music/song.php?sid=95014

It's been EQ'd and has a touch of reverb added, but the overall sound is not dissimilar to the sound you're getting.

It's a great pickup, but don't expect miracles!

[performingchimp]

There's quite a few things I would tweak about that sound.

It is quite a reasonable natural-sounding starting point, but you need to apply some serious EQ. It is lacking sparkle (high treble above 10kHz) and low bass (below 100Hz). You could possibly take out a little bit of midrange but I actually like the warmth of it personally. It's quite odd - normally the M1 is very trebly - have you turned down the treble a lot? Yours sounds actually a little muddy. If so, you have turned down ALL the treble, rather than just the offensive brash sounding bit. You need to experiment with either a good graphic (ideally 20 bands or more) or a parametric EQ.

Also, cut the gain on your preamp or whatever input you are plugging into, or cut the volume on the pickup a little, as it's just starting to overdrive on loud bits.

Those EQ changes will also improve the percussion sounds. However, you can't really get good percussion sounds from the M1 alone. You need to supplement it with an internal mic or some "transducer" body-sensor pickups.

[RadioElectric]

Originally Posted by performingchimp

There's quite a few things I would tweak about that sound.

It is quite a reasonable natural-sounding starting point, but you need to apply some serious EQ. It is lacking sparkle (high treble above 10kHz) and low bass (below 100Hz). You could possibly take out a little bit of midrange but I actually like the warmth of it personally. It's quite odd - normally the M1 is very trebly - have you turned down the treble a lot? Yours sounds actually a little muddy. If so, you have turned down ALL the treble, rather than just the offensive brash sounding bit. You need to experiment with either a good graphic (ideally 20 bands or more) or a parametric EQ.

Also, cut the gain on your preamp or whatever input you are plugging into, or cut the volume on the pickup a little, as it's just starting to overdrive on loud bits.

Those EQ changes will also improve the percussion sounds. However, you can't really get good percussion sounds from the M1 alone. You need to supplement it with an internal mic or some "transducer" body-sensor pickups.

Thanks for replying Jon

The recording was done straight into my EHX 2880 (looper pedal) so it should just be the "raw" sound from the pickup. There has been no EQ applied at all. I do have a cheap Zoom acoustic effects box at home that my Dad gave me once so I might use that to fiddle with the sound a bit.

The only thing that I imagine could have made it less trebly than you expected is the height of the magnetic polepieces. Does anybody have any recommendations on how close these should be to the strings?

[performingchimp]

Originally Posted by RadioElectric

Thanks for replying Jon

The only thing that I imagine could have made it less trebly than you expected is the height of the magnetic polepieces. Does anybody have any recommendations on how close these should be to the strings?

I don't think you should listen to recommendations on that as it's down to taste - it's so easy to fiddle with as you play....

But having said that, it is the one way you can adjust the percussion volume - if you lower the pole pieces the strings will become quieter, so the percussion will be relatively louder.

I'd recommend combining it with a mic though, which will give you the brilliance to the guitar tone, and subby bass if you want too, and bring the drumming to life.