Installing a pickup on acoustic and other mods

danishbacon

I have an older Korean Ibanez Talman Intertour TTR30 (only have this lifted photo for now):



It's quite thin, maybe an inch and a half, the back appears to be solid routed mahogany. It has a piezo system installed that I never managed to use / get to work properly, terrible output.

It has three unlabeled controls on the upper bout, lined up in parallel to the neck.

I like the guitar and it would be nice to be able to play it at a jam or open mic as its light, cheap and has a nice neck.
A few things I was considering doing (I've never tried any mods or refins of this magnitude before)

1. Stripping the poly off the body and refinishing in gold nitro
2. Installing a dogear p90 or similar near bridge
3. Removing piezo preamp and circuit, wiring pickup to control knobs on top
4. Some kind of onboard effect, maybe an autowah that could have the level controlled by the third knob

Would appreciate any advice on going forward with this. I'm not against the idea of sending it off to be done properly either if it's going to be a daunting task.

Funkfingers

1. The refinish is up to you. A proper job could cost you more than the guitar itself did.

2. The P90 through the soundboard idea can only work if there is sufficient clearance between the strings and the top of the guitar. A recessed regular "soapbar" P90 would be a better idea. Its height adjustment screws should fasten into the solid part of the mahogany back.

Alternatively, consider a magnetic soundhole pickup. If nothing else, such a modification would be reversible.

Either way, you will probably need to change from phosphor-bronze strings to steel. 

3. I suggest that you leave the piezo system in. At the very least, it will save the time, trouble and expense of fitting a new bridge saddle. 

The three anonymous controls imitate the Taylor way of doing things. They are probably volume, treble and bass. Check the condition of the PP3 that powers the onboard electronics. If you can get to them, inspect the condition of all the solder joints.

4. Onboard electronics are your decision. On acoustic guitars, I prefer to keep onboard electronical gubbins to the absolute minimum.


My gut feeling is that the correct solution is to get the Talman working nicely *as is* and do all of the signal processing business externally with a fancy multi-effect pedal unit.

danishbacon

Thanks@Funkfingers.

1. Point taken, I figured this would be the case. Also concerned with doing it myself would be screwing up the binding. It's already had a dash of paint by my five year old over the soundboard, so I might just take the body off and let him have a more comprehensive go with some acrylics over the poly.

2. The bridge is quite tall as the fretboard sits a good few mm over the soundboard. Not sure a good idea of doing recessed as it would involve cutting into the braces.

3. I've popped it open, first time I'm years. There's a piece of amber leaf packaging holding it together, the preamp would have had a glued velcro or rubber buffer which has lost its glue. This is an easy fix. Board looks ok, all connectors tight and corrosion free.

Loads of green oxidation around jack. I plugged it in to a guiar amp Just now and it's very noisy. Lots of popping when moving lead around. Lots of noise when volume cranked but otherwise it sounds perfectly usable timewise - actually a nice tone (with the Hudson Broadcast in front).

4. Point taken.

If I can get it to sound nice with just a new jack and maybe some contact cleaner on the pots I'll leave it as is. 


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Funkfingers

danishbacon said:

2. The bridge is quite tall as the fretboard sits a good few mm over the soundboard. Not sure a good idea of doing recessed as it would involve cutting into the braces.

So would a "dogear" P90. Its baseplate and polepiece screws project below the lip of the plastic cover.

If the plastic soundhole thing is removable, you might be able to improvise a mount for a P90. Alternatively, consider one of those ultra-slim pickups that is attached by a bracket screwed to the sides of the fingerboard.

It might even be worth trying a Roland GK hexaphonic pickup. This could "drive" modelled sounds from a Roland VG device. If you are willing to go the technology route, it is probably simpler to use the piezo transducer and, then, program your more "electric" sounds in a multi-effect unit.

danishbacon

Funkfingers said:

So would a "dogear" P90. Its baseplate and polepiece screws project below the lip of the plastic cover.

Makes sense, hadn't thought of this, or some reason assumed they were flush.

Funkfingers said:

If the plastic soundhole thing is removable, you might be able to improvise a mount for a P90. Alternatively, consider one of those ultra-slim pickups that is attached by a bracket screwed to the sides of the fingerboard.

It's removable but the soundhole is actually many smaller soundholes so that rules out a soundhole mount unless I cut them all out.

Funkfingers said:

It might even be worth trying a Roland GK hexaphonic pickup. This could "drive" modelled sounds from a Roland VG device. If you are willing to go the technology route, it is probably simpler to use the piezo transducer and, then, program your more "electric" sounds in a multi-effect unit.

I'll try out cleaning the jack properly and see if it makes a difference. Could be that one of the Zoom acoustic units or the Zoom multistomp are a good option.