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eddie1261
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eddie1261
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....is not amplified. I need it to be. Dobro people here, do you mic or do you have a pickup in your instrument? If you have a pickup, what model do you have? I tried a mic at rehearsal yesterday and it barely registered. Of course, it was a Shure 57, which may be the wrong kind of mic entirely. Also, I aimed it at the small resonator hole rather than the hubcap.
How do I get this thing to the PA?
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Eddie, Here's my friend Mike Auldridge stealing an extra Dobro break on "Out Among The Stars" with The Seldom Scene. http://youtu.be/JaojfdxYsK4He's getting great sound out of his Dobro with a Shure SM57 pointing at the approximate center of the spider and about 6 inches away. The vox mics are SM58s. Mike could afford any professional mic made yet he's using the SM57.
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Eddie, go back and try pointing that '57 at the spider, think the same as mic'ing a small amp with a single 12 or 8 inch speaker, meaning place the bidness end of the mic towards the outer part of the cone, about 1/3rd of the way in from the edge.
Of course, if you are trying to play the Dobie with an electric band, you may just have to go the pickup/preamp route to be heard over that.
--Mac
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I INSTALLED ONE OF THESE: http://www.fishman.com/products/view/classic-series-active-resophonic-pickup(they also make a passive version of the same thing, but it requires a preamp) I'm pretty happy with it. It retains the dobro sound, and makes the instrument much easier to record. You WILL have to drill a hole in the instrument in order to install it. (Maybe two, depending on where you place the battery.) If you get one, when you unpack all the parts there will be a little clear plastic washer that is easy to miss. Make sure you have it... without it the pickup will short and then it doesn't work. (Don't ask how I know this.)
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eddie1261
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I have one specific song that has a dobro intro. I have a dobro but it is 100% acoustic. For electric/acoustic guitar I would just use my Ovation. I also have a lap steel. This song needs dobro, not an approximation. If you are doing a tribute, you need to be authentic, thus the hole in my wallet....
I will try putting the mic over the hubcap as Mac suggested, but I have a feeling Mr Fishman will be seeing my credit card number soon when I buy his pickup as will my guitar guy Dennis when he installs it.
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I didn't really want to buy a pickup for the dobro... I tried using a mic, but holding it on my lap while playing, I couldn't maintain a consistent distance between the mic and the resonator. Its a fairly quiet instrument to begin with, and I had a hard time getting the mic loud enough to capture the dobro without also picking up every other transient sound in the room or getting feedback. Noise to signal ratio was never good for me, and you know how that works out. Also my picking hand was in the way about half the time. The pickup solved all of those problems. I researched all the options before buying that one. Its not the best one available, but I felt like it delivered 80% of the best one's quality at about 50% of the price this website has instructional videos for sale and quite a few free demo videos to watch. The guy is a BIAB user too, so its nice to support the brotherhood. http://www.lessonswithtroy.com/dobro_lessons/DOBRO-BASICS-VOLUME-1.html
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by the way... is there an instrument you DON'T play??
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Jerry Douglas uses the Fishman bridge pick-up on his Weissenborn guitar too. The recorded sound your hearing here is likely being pumped through the Aura pedal that bears his signature.
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eddie1261
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by the way... is there an instrument you DON'T play?? Well, at the moment, dobro....  WHOLE different technique than slide guitar and I am just now learning it. ALL THIS for the intro on one frickin' song..... buy a used dobro, get it ready to play at the volume it needs to be..... Monday morning I try moving the mic like Mac suggested, but I have a feeling that I will end up electrificating (my own word!) it to be heard.
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Jerry Douglas uses the Fishman bridge pick-up on his Weissenborn guitar too. The recorded sound your hearing here is likely being pumped through the Aura pedal that bears his signature.
in fact look @ 1:05 in the video above... you can clearly see the volume and tone pots as well as a Tele/Strat blade switch.
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Eddie, another inexpensive pickup is the Signal Flex SF20, http://www.acousticcabin.com/Signal-Flex-SF20-p/sf20.htmIt is a Piezo Transducer pickup that is attached to your instrument via a suction cup, thus you can place it anywhere on your dobro. It’s only $12 but it does a very nice job. I have one that I have used on acoustic guitars, mandolins and banjos. In fact I have both recorded and played through an amp with those instruments and the pickup added no noise to the signal, which of course surprised me, as it’s main purpose is a mic for tuning acoustic instruments. What I really like about this pickup is that you can place it anywhere on your instrument. That way you can find the sweet spot for the sound you want. Also it does not attach permanently to your instrument and it leaves no residue behind when you take it off. It does come with a very short chord so you will need to purchase an extension chord for it.
The bumper sticker said "I'm a veterinarian, therefore I can drive like an animal".
Suddenly I realized how many proctologists are on the road.
64 bit Win 10 Pro, the latest BiaB/RB, Roland Octa-Capture audio interface, a ton of software/hardware
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Hi Eddie.
I've never had a lot of success using a Dobro live with a mic. It works in the studio, but I've always used a condenser on it which isn't really going to work on stage, particularly if you're moving about at all.
Also, remember that as soon as you drill a hole in any acoustic guitar you run the risk of changing the sound of it.
Mario's suggestion looks good to me. I've not used that particular model, but I've used similar things in the past with quite good results. I like the fact that it's not a permanent fixture and that there's no need to modify the guitar.
ROG.
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Hi Eddie.
Also, remember that as soon as you drill a hole in any acoustic guitar you run the risk of changing the sound of it.
Not with the Dobro, as the only place that actually vibrates is the spider itself, which is in effect a speaker cone attached mechanically to the back of the bridge. You've got the entire rest of the guitar body where you could drill holes, add bolts, whatever, without risk of changing the sound of that cone (spider). --Mac
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Eddie, another inexpensive pickup is the Signal Flex SF20, http://www.acousticcabin.com/Signal-Flex-SF20-p/sf20.htmIt is a Piezo Transducer pickup that is attached to your instrument via a suction cup, thus you can place it anywhere on your dobro. It’s only $12 but it does a very nice job. I have one that I have used on acoustic guitars, mandolins and banjos. In fact I have both recorded and played through an amp with those instruments and the pickup added no noise to the signal, which of course surprised me, as it’s main purpose is a mic for tuning acoustic instruments. What I really like about this pickup is that you can place it anywhere on your instrument. That way you can find the sweet spot for the sound you want. Also it does not attach permanently to your instrument and it leaves no residue behind when you take it off. It does come with a very short chord so you will need to purchase an extension chord for it. I may need to buy one of these for piano tuning - I have a clip-on piezo but often times, I can't find a good place to mount the clip on the piano. What I really need to do is just break down and get a full-on Peterson strobe unit. But I can see where this thing could be very handy, (have you had to EQ the signal much?).
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Scott, no I don’t use a lot of EQ when using this pickup. At times I have moved the pickup to a different stop on those instruments to get a better sound for the particular song that I am working on. Of course on some songs I have used a little EQ and compression but for many songs I add nothing. But YMMV as they say.
The bumper sticker said "I'm a veterinarian, therefore I can drive like an animal".
Suddenly I realized how many proctologists are on the road.
64 bit Win 10 Pro, the latest BiaB/RB, Roland Octa-Capture audio interface, a ton of software/hardware
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Eddie, another inexpensive pickup is the Signal Flex SF20, http://www.acousticcabin.com/Signal-Flex-SF20-p/sf20.htmIt is a Piezo Transducer pickup that is attached to your instrument via a suction cup, thus you can place it anywhere on your dobro. It’s only $12 but it does a very nice job. I have one that I have used on acoustic guitars, mandolins and banjos. In fact I have both recorded and played through an amp with those instruments and the pickup added no noise to the signal, which of course surprised me, as it’s main purpose is a mic for tuning acoustic instruments. What I really like about this pickup is that you can place it anywhere on your instrument. That way you can find the sweet spot for the sound you want. Also it does not attach permanently to your instrument and it leaves no residue behind when you take it off. It does come with a very short chord so you will need to purchase an extension chord for it. wow, what a great idea! the flexibility of being able to use it with more than one instrument makes it worth having... and the "price is right for the tight" too. Thanks for posting.. I had never seen this product before. ---update----- bummer, they don't take PayPal. I woulda bought it if they did.
Last edited by Pat Marr; 08/06/13 10:17 AM. Reason: they don't accept PayPal!!
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eddie1261
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eddie1261
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I am going to try one of the suction cup types and see how it works. Worst case I lose 12 bucks. Best case it works.
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