Anthem SL + Magnetic Soundhole Pickup

[Dave_]

Hey all,

New here and have hopefully an interesting questions for you all!

So I have recently installed the Anthem SL into my Eastman e20D and whilst being a great pickup and sounds fine (if not a little bright for my taste) to my ear there is a very noticeable loss of volume & tone caused by the UST. The guitar just feels a little damp and less responsive with it in. Now some people might be ok, with that however I play 90% unplugged and just want the pickup for occasional open mics etc at this stage and really relish a lively guitar at home.

What I would like to do is use what I have at hand to solve this...

I have at my disposal a Dimarzio black angel magnetic soundhole pickup, which has heaps of low ened. So I would like to keep the Tru-mic part of the anthem, remove the UST and then use the soundhole pickup for the low end in its place. Does anyone have experience with removing the UST from the anthem wiring chain?

I would then mix the remaining Tru-mic and soundhole pickup outboard with two different cables and EQ separately.

I know some people have combined the Baggs lyric mic with a mag pickup, however I'm trying use what I already have.. which is an Anthem SL and Black Angel soundhole pickup.

Thanks in advance!

[Caleb_Elling]

The Anthem preamps are designed pretty specifically around the output level, impedance, and frequency response of the Element. So in my experience, changing the Element for any other pickup typically results in a pretty unimpressive sound. I've done it a few times with different pickups, but the Element has always ended up sounding the best to me.

Adding a mag to the Lyric is a lot easier, but it's stereo-only and requires a bit more outboard gear.

[Dave_]

Thanks for the reply Caleb and I see what you mean regarding the pairing of the element and tru-mic.

As an update I've been playing the Eastman for hours every day and it seems the Adirondack top is become a bit looser and more responsive. I just re-installed the Element pickup and there is a much less noticeable difference in tone and volume loss than when I first bought it. So it seems the Element pickup was affecting the very stiff/new acoustic top and now it has been broken in somewhat (a month of heavy use) it is a much less noticeable difference.

As an aside, I have got the EQ dialled in using the Baggs Venue DI and I'm overall really happy with the set up now. Looking forward to gigging with it tomorrow night!

Hope this info may help others! Sometimes a little patience with a new guitar is required for things to settle in place before changing anything.

[Caleb_Elling]

Thanks for the update! That's great info.