GOACOUSTIC PICKUP SYSTEM
ing on the pickup’ s dynamic range. Shaw illustrates this by imagining an output range from one to ten. In a system without pressure, the string would rest at five, with five units of headroom to move up. But the static pressure of the strings shifts the resting point up to seven, leaving only three units of upward travel before it runs out
■ The“ Barn Door” Upgrade. The PreSonic System is a professional-grade drop-in replacement solution for aging units. Go Acoustic engineered a modern, analog preamp that fits directly into your guitar’ s existing footprint with no wood cutting, no messy modifications, or plastic adapter plates required.
of room.“ You can keep compressing but it’ s not going to yield any more voltage,” he says.“ That’ s just an inherent issue with the way static compression works.” This is why a top-mounted sensor, like a K & K pickup, can sound more open and dynamic at lower volumes: with no static compression, it has more available headroom. The trade-off, however, is that it effectively turns the entire soundboard into a microphone, making it highly susceptible to feedback in anything but the most controlled environments.
McGill adds the part that makes the standard under-saddle system genuinely perverse:“ It’ s like putting your foot on the brake and the gas at the same time. The harder a player hits the
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