Electrified my Washburn

[KrisH]

That WD-46S that I bought in 2006 (with its problems that brought me to the forums in the first place) now has an upgrade. I installed a K&K Western Mini earlier this evening, and it worked out pretty good. This guitar has had its problems with volume and depth of tone, but has always had good sustain and plays really nice. Acoustically it's been my least desirable guitar. So I didn't mind trying my first install in it. I can't say the installation wasn't totally without incident, but at least I didn't do any damage. And it works! :bravo: The amplified sound seems pretty accurate to the guitar's natural sound, and I can adjust the tone around to suit me. So it adds a new element to the guitar (feedback? :D ), and if I ever decide to bite the bullet and take a guitar to an open mic -- this is the one.

One downside, though, is finger noise on the strings. I noticed this when I put the peizo on my upright, too. Must be the nature of putting a pickup like this on an acoustic instrument. I guess it's finally time to put that last set of flat-top D'Addarios on that I bought a while back.

[pie_man_25]

sounds nice krish! can you explain a little more about this mod? did you have to damage the body any? where did you find parts? etc..

[wingsdad]

Kris, besides D'Add Flattops or something like Elixir Condom-Wrapped strings, try rolling back the Treble and/or hi-Mids a bit on your preamp and/or amp to reduce the finger squeaks. Piezos inherently tend to emphasize those frequencies, so you've got plenty of room to compensate without giving up natural tone.

[KrisH]

You can get the pickups directly from K&K Sound online for about $100. I ordered on a Saturday; they shipped Monday and the package arrived cross-country on Wednesday. There are three small transducer disks, each maybe as big around as a pencil eraser, very thin and connected together with wires and attached to a 1/4" jack assembly. They give you the materials to make an installation jig, and basically, you super-glue the transducers to your bridge plate right under the saddle, one each in the spaces between the E-B, G-D and A-E strings. Then you drill out your end pin hole to 1/2" and attach the jack assembly there. That's it. I was a little concerned at first because I have a brass "Plate Mate" attached to my bridge plate, but the pickup fit in the remaining space fine. The peizos put out enough signal to run into an amp without a preamp, but I ultimately run all my instruments through my pedal board in order to get more tone control and a hotter signal.