Acoustic Guitar Central: Add an Internal Mic to Your Saddle Pickup

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Add an Internal Mic to Your Saddle Pickup

By Teja Gerken

Q
I have a Martin HD-35 with an L.R. Baggs iBeam pickup that I’d like to combine with an AKG internal mic. How do I do so—and will I need an outside blender or a splitter? How about a notch filter for feedback?

DENNIS ROBBINS
via email

A
Internal mics are usually wired to the “ring” contact of a stereo ¼-inch jack (the pickup’s lead wire is connected to the “tip” contact) and routed via a stereo guitar cable to a blender/preamp or separate channels of a mixer. In your case, determine whether your iBeam is active or passive. Both let you add a second source, but a passive one might yield “cross-talk,” where the two signals bleed into each other. With most miniature mics you’ll also need an external blender that can provide phantom power.

In my opinion, a soundboard transducer like the iBeam is not as good a mate for a mic as an undersaddle or magnetic pickup because soundboard transducers and mics are quite similar sounding. In general, a mic usually complements a great-sounding pickup, but rarely improves an unsatisfactory one. Regarding feedback, many players use more pickup signal than mic to avoid it, but I recommend having a notch-filter handy to be safe.

TEJA GERKEN
Acoustic Guitar Gear Editor

This article also appears in Acoustic Guitar, Issue #163

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