Tweet
Hey all!
I installed a Lyric in a Red Line Advanced Parlor guitar last week, and I thought that I'd share my notes on it. Hopefully this will help anyone looking for information on the Lyric in smaller bodied guitars.
The guitar itself had a surprisingly good bass response for a parlor guitar, which was odd to me because of it's shallower body. The mid's were nice and powerful, like you would expect from a parlor or 0-body, and the highs were bright and chimey. Overall, it was a very pleasant guitar to play.
(Pictures Below)
The bridgeplate was smaller, as I expected that it would be, but there was sufficient space enough to mount the Lyric mic without hitting the bracing or bridge pins or hanging off of the front of the plate. After installing the battery and the rest of the wire clips, I plugged it into a Venue through our PA system here in the shop. My previous experience with the Lyric in smaller guitars (OM through parlor) gave me a pretty good idea of what to expect- my expectations were actually right on. The sound was very mid-heavy and even a little boxy. Turning up the presence control helped, but it really only masked the honky mids. So I put the guitar back on my work bench in order to de-string and re-position the mic.
The next place that I would naturally try on a smaller guitar would be in front of the bridgeplate, directly to the top. However, there wasn't quiet enough room between the x-bracing and the plate to fit the mic. So I re-positioned the mic and put it behind the plate, directly to the top, centered between the 3rd and 4th bridge pins. This position sounded slightly more balanced than the previous, but there were about 3 different frequencies that stood out as being pretty un-natural to this specific guitar's unplugged sound. After doing some EQ'ing with the Venue, the sound was better, but I was not able to get a sound that really did the guitar justice.
As a final attempt before reverting to my original placement and changing the mic's horizontal placement (along the length of the bridgeplate), I decided to move the mic towards the treble side of my last position. This put the mic parallel with the bridge plate, on the top, as far as it would go towards the treble side, before bumping into the X brace. This placement was not something that I had tried before, but I thought it may be worth the effort if I could get a better tone. The results of this placement were excellent. The tone was similar the last position, but with a much more accurate mid-range. Now the bass and mids were taken care of, and after a simple adjustment to the Presence control, it was set. If I was going to play it live I might do an additional cut around 300Hz, just for my own preference. In the end though, the sound from the Lyric was an accurate representation of what was heard unplugged.
You can see from the attached picture that there was not much room to work with. The picture of the mic is the final position that I ended up on.
If anyone has questions, feel free to ask or comment.
I installed a Lyric in a Red Line Advanced Parlor guitar last week, and I thought that I'd share my notes on it. Hopefully this will help anyone looking for information on the Lyric in smaller bodied guitars.
The guitar itself had a surprisingly good bass response for a parlor guitar, which was odd to me because of it's shallower body. The mid's were nice and powerful, like you would expect from a parlor or 0-body, and the highs were bright and chimey. Overall, it was a very pleasant guitar to play.
(Pictures Below)
The bridgeplate was smaller, as I expected that it would be, but there was sufficient space enough to mount the Lyric mic without hitting the bracing or bridge pins or hanging off of the front of the plate. After installing the battery and the rest of the wire clips, I plugged it into a Venue through our PA system here in the shop. My previous experience with the Lyric in smaller guitars (OM through parlor) gave me a pretty good idea of what to expect- my expectations were actually right on. The sound was very mid-heavy and even a little boxy. Turning up the presence control helped, but it really only masked the honky mids. So I put the guitar back on my work bench in order to de-string and re-position the mic.
The next place that I would naturally try on a smaller guitar would be in front of the bridgeplate, directly to the top. However, there wasn't quiet enough room between the x-bracing and the plate to fit the mic. So I re-positioned the mic and put it behind the plate, directly to the top, centered between the 3rd and 4th bridge pins. This position sounded slightly more balanced than the previous, but there were about 3 different frequencies that stood out as being pretty un-natural to this specific guitar's unplugged sound. After doing some EQ'ing with the Venue, the sound was better, but I was not able to get a sound that really did the guitar justice.
As a final attempt before reverting to my original placement and changing the mic's horizontal placement (along the length of the bridgeplate), I decided to move the mic towards the treble side of my last position. This put the mic parallel with the bridge plate, on the top, as far as it would go towards the treble side, before bumping into the X brace. This placement was not something that I had tried before, but I thought it may be worth the effort if I could get a better tone. The results of this placement were excellent. The tone was similar the last position, but with a much more accurate mid-range. Now the bass and mids were taken care of, and after a simple adjustment to the Presence control, it was set. If I was going to play it live I might do an additional cut around 300Hz, just for my own preference. In the end though, the sound from the Lyric was an accurate representation of what was heard unplugged.
You can see from the attached picture that there was not much room to work with. The picture of the mic is the final position that I ended up on.
If anyone has questions, feel free to ask or comment.
Comment