another project - acoustic 12er (a/e conversion)

[clearerphish]

So we're working on album 2 of the instrumental space rock freakout band, and things are coming along well, cause I'm unemployed and have tons of time. Anyways, I traded my little Fender champion 600 that i hated even-steven for a super-cheapo Carlo Robelli (sam ash) 12 string acoustic. Why would anyone do that? Well, we want some 12 string on this album and I ain't got one. Until now. Plus the whole unemployed thing.

I can't keep my hands off this guitar - not since I got it - first thing I did was start learning David Lee Roth's "Damn Good" and I'm just super happy with the trade and the way this sounds. It's probably the novelty of it, I've never owned a 12 string but I might have to build that doubleneck electric kit I keep thinking about. 'I'm having too much fun given the suggested retail value of this thing. Here's a stock pic. Looks the same except for a few dents/chips. Nice and seasoned, if you will.

So anyways, I ordered a #1 extra-special super-fine chinese preamp/tuner/piezo unit from good old ebay for a whopping $13. It should be here any day now, and I'm going to do surgery on this 12 string with my dremel and make it a little nicer/more versatile, then send it over to my luthier pal who'll set it up all nice and greasy for me.

I'll post pics as they happen once I get the preamp. Probably be a 20 minute job as long as I don't get to froggy.

 

[clearerphish]

Parts arrived. Good thing I know wtf I'm doing here because what you see is what I got, no templates, instructions or anything. If you're planning on doing this yourself, watch a youtube or something. I'll probably get to all this this weekend (gotta run out and get new set of strings), obviously pics to come once I get to it all.

 

[clearerphish]

OK, I finished. Can't tell you how it sounds yet, as it's 1AM here, but I'll probably post some clips up in a day or two. It's a POS guitar, so I was very comfortable winging along - put a couple careless dremel marks on it. Nothing crazy, but I probably wouldn't do this to a Martin.

Step 1 - before cutting, make sure your el cheapo electronics work:

then de-string it:

pull the saddle and mark where the piezo comes to - it's going to live under the saddle so you'll have to sand the difference out to keep the action right:

I then made templates for the electronics using the pizza box from dinner. Let your preamp rest on the side of the guitar to find where the curve works - then you'll know where to place your template. If you're within a couple millimeters, the screws will help hide any non-conformity:

I scored around the template with a steak knife then cut the area out with a dremel (see my hasty mark top right?):

 

[clearerphish]

Another pizza box template, score, and cut for the tail electronics:

 

[clearerphish]

Time to put the piezo in. Drill a hole in the saddle slot to pass your piezo wire through, set the piezo in, replace the saddle (don't forget to sand it down to the right height). Pull the wire through the soundhole and add the little sticky wire clip. Apply the sticky clip to the inside of the guitar near the preamp.

All done! Looking good Billy Ray!

That was fun!

 

[Cagey]

Monster balls, that's what you got. I'll do damn near anything to an electric, but not acoustics. Somehow, in my world, they're off-limits. Don't know why. Weird, I guess. Either that, or I don't have the proper pizza box templates or expendable steak knives. Probably should call StewMac and clue them in <grin>

"Looking good, Billy Ray!"
"Feeling good, Louis!"

Nice job. I'm a little envious. My Taylor isn't plug-inable, and I sometimes wish it was. Someday before I die, I'd like to learn to play "Layla" in the manner Eric did "unplugged".

 

[clearerphish]

haha! Like I said, I wouldn't do this to a Taylor, but a $75 guitar, worth a try for an $88 12 string a/e. You should get you a cheap craigslist acoustic, a $13 ebay preamp/pickup, a steak knife and a pizza, son!

 

[Cagey]

Sounds like a good plan. I don't suppose the supplier of your pickup/preamp/EQ dingus is a regular presence on eBay with an address and so forth?

 

[clearerphish]

sure, most of them come from china however I used someone who specified "US STOCK" and there's no way it came from out of the country cause it got here relatively fast. all you've got to do is type "acoustic guitar preamp" and choose your weapon. You can get a more expensive one (with a soundhole mic AND a piezo) or a cheaper one (not backlit, less eq bands, no display, etc) depending on how froggy you're feeling.

 

[Cagey]

I'm sure it still came from China; you just found a stocking US distributor. There's no way it was made here and sold at that price. I saw recently where if the iPad (which is made overseas for Apple) was made in the US, it would cost you something like $14,000 to get one. Government regulations, insurance, taxes, wages, benefits, etc. in this country are out of control, which is why so many companies are moving production off-shore. It's not that they're greedy and want to make more money (although we could argue Apple is very much in that mode), it's that they'd like to stay in business and wouldn't be able to otherwise. They couldn't compete.

 

[clearerphish]

oh, I definitely knew it was still made in china, I just didn't want to deal with the hassle of waiting for international shipping (a lot of them have free shipping, I just didn't want to wait)

I plugged it into my interface here so I could hear it with headphones and it sounds great. Two thumbs up, or in my best Borat: GREAT SUCCESS!

 

[DangerousR6]

"Looking good, Billy Ray!"
"Feeling good, Louis!"

I loved that movie, watch it ever time I see it on... :icon_thumright:

 

[Patrick from Davis]

Some of the pre's also have a notch filter in the 1K range to suppress feedback.  Another fun thing to do with twelve strings is to tune them to D.  Since there is so much extra high end string freq, you can drop the tuning and get bigger strings to try and even the bass/treble out a bit.  They sound huge when you do this.  You have to play a lot less because of all the sound you create.  Leo Kottke really likes to tune like this, he says the guitar just works better and uses a capo when he needs to be in E.  Very cool project.  Nice job on a project guitar.
Patrick

 

[clearerphish]

"Looking good, Billy Ray!"
"Feeling good, Louis!"

I loved that movie, watch it ever time I see it on... :icon_thumright:

Also love the scene in Coming to America where Akeem gives the sackful of money to two bums and they're Randolph and Mortimer.  :hello2: