Preamp stopped working!!

[matthew]

Hi there!!
I am looking for a replacement preamp: I own a Godin Multiac duet nylon strings that I purchased in the mid 90'. Serial number is 97242531. Unfortunately, after almost 20 years of great service, the preamp stopped working. Preamp was built in 1995. Do you have some of those available as replacementsl? If not, do I have other options?
Thanks,
Matteo

[Bryan McManus]

Hi Matteo,

Thanks for your inquiry. I would be very interested in knowing more details.

Did the entire system appear to stop working? Does it produce any sound in response to the strings?

Please clarify the extent of the issue.

[matthew]

Hi Bryan, thank you for your reply.
No sound at all come out from the guitar. From the very beginning I had an issue with the battery slot: a metal part was detached from it and I used tape to keep it attached to the battery. This worked for nearly 20 years. Connected to the phantom power the guitar always worked perfectly.
Now: with just the battery on I have no signal and no light. Connected to the phantom power the red light turns on but no sound at all.
Hope you can help!

[Bryan McManus]

Hi Matteo,

I spoke to our testing office and they suggested the best course of action would be to receive the two circuit boards and connecting cable. The pickup and microphone would need to be detached from the output jack board.

Even though we have not made that version of the system for over 10 years, we may be able to repair it. If not, we can look into an alternative.

If you'd like to arrange to send those circuits to us for testing, please send your contact information to [email protected]

[matthew]

Bryan!!
It would be great if you could repair it. I will send the 2 boards as soon as possible. How much would that cost me, roughly? Thanks.

[Bryan McManus]

Please send your contact info [email protected] and I'll reply with a reference number and the address to send it to.

[Billy]

Bryan.

I also have a Godin Duet Ambience Grand Concert, although mine is a newer model that doesn't have the Baggs pickup. It instead uses what I believe to be a single under saddle transducer that goes into an Fishman Aura chip and then to the output jack. I'm very happy with this system except for the fact that they saddled these darn things with cedar tops, and as such, they have no bass end to speak of. Cedar has a natural compression on the bass. No matter how hard you hit the 5th and 6th strings they don't get much louder at all. I was thinking about adding a Lyric pickup and attaching it under the bass side of the bridge area. There's a strut running between the bass and treble halves of the top, so the pickup would have to go on one side or the other of it anyway. Then I could run both pickups to a stereo output jack to a Y-cord and into separate inputs of my mixer. The Lyric of course would not be going through the Aura, and that's fine. I just want to mix in enough of it to give me a little more volume from the bass strings. Do you think this would work?

Thanks,

Billy

[Billy]

Just bumping this one up.

[Bryan McManus]

Hi Billy,

I'm not sure the Lyric would do what you'd want it to. There are at least two factors working against it. First is that the Lyric preamp is designed with its own built-in compression for the low frequencies. Without it, the Lyric would be far less resistant to feedback. Secondly, the shallow body of the instrument further impacts the guitar's bass response.

You may be better served by a contact sensor pickup such as a classical iBeam(if applicable to the guitar design) - http://www.lrbaggs.com/pickups/ibeam...-guitar-pickup

[Billy]

I was thinking about a stick-on piezo too, so thanks for suggesting that. It's a shame. The guitar sounds so wonderful except for that lack of volume on the low strings. Using a compressor helps even things out a little but not enough. I'm about to experiment with some Thomastik-Infeld Classic S strings. The bass strings are quite a bit bigger than the treble strings in this set, so I'm hoping they'll be louder too. If that doesn't work, I'll try some Pro Arte Composite strings on just the 5th and 6th. I have a Yamaha classical from the 70s that sounded great except the 3rd string was kind of soft and lifeless, and using a composite third brought the volume up quite nicely and made it more robust. SOMETHING has got to work!

Thanks for your time.

[matthew]

Problem solved!

Bryan, I am writing just to say that the problem was solved. I was not aware of the existence of the second board, the one next to the endpin jack. When I opened the guitar down there I found out that one of the connectors was unplugged.
Thanks for your help!
Matteo