I was talking with Chris at Woodsongs music store in Boulder yesterday, and we got on the subject of acoustic guitar pickup systems… these days, there are often fancy, on-board electronics in an acoustic guitar, which allow better tone control (and feedback control) than the stuff we had back when I was in the Poisoned Squirrels.
The photo is from an acoustic set the Squirrels did in Greeley, CO in the early 1990s- for those types of sets Jim usually just played his hi-hat while standing (as opposed to his full drum set) and Ken would use either an electric or an acoustic (stand-up) bass. Paul and I had dreadnought style acoustic guitars (I don’t miss that body shape)- I forget who made his, but I remember mine was a Yamaha with a plywood top.
Plywood isn’t considered as desirable as something solid (like spruce) but you can find plywood instruments which sound OK, and it’s cheaper. Another advantage of plywood is that if you try bizarre experiments with it you haven’t risked much, and the stuff might stand up to it better. Case-in-point: while Paul’s guitar had a piezo pickup mounted under the saddle (a common setup) mine had a speaker from an old set of headphones glued to the top (you can see it just below my right hand in the photo) which I had wired for use not as a speaker, but as a microphone type pickup… wait, what?
OK, well, some of you probably know that speakers and many microphones work on the same principal- magnet + wire coil + moving paper or plastic element. The moving element in a microphone is much smaller than one in a speaker, but a speaker element can create a signal the same way a microphone does, though it’ll sound a bit different when amplified. When I scavenged my speaker experiment, I got lucky and found one with a solid metal back, so the paper inside was protected from damage while the guitar was played or moved. I drilled a small hole in the top for the wire, since I had to connect it to the speaker on the outside- the wire ran from the hole through the inside of the guitar to one of those strap holders which contain a jack for guitar cables.
How did it sound? Not stellar, but it had more low frequencies than under-saddle piezo pickups had at the time, and it was less “tinny” sounding as well- I think it sounded closer to an acoustic guitar (something those piezo setups never managed). I’m guessing the speaker’s solid metal back also cut down on feedback, but I still had occasional issues. Experiments like that were fun, but I can definitely say that acoustic guitar pickup systems work pretty well these days, and I no longer feel the need to glue a speaker onto my guitar.
Peter Stokes 