Buzzing heard when using acoustic pickup

Hi.

My son invested in an electric pickup to put on his guitar so we can get direct input. Running through Alesis Multimix 8 Firewire. We get "buzzing" on this input. Is there a fix for this or is the pickup a waste vs. using an acoustic/instrument mic to get a clean sound. Debate with son on this. I think the pickup is a waste. Buzz is there when hooked up directly to an amp as well.

Don't spend a lot of time on this guys/gals!

Thanks.
Tom

20" iMac G5 w/iSight, Mac OS X (10.4.4), 1 gb RAM, 250 MB Hard Drive, FCE 2.03, QT 7.04

Posted on Jan 1, 2007 10:11 AM

Reply
2 replies

Jan 1, 2007 11:24 AM in response to Thomas Silver

Any pickup added to an acoustic guitar will make it sound less like an acoustic guitar. Sometimes it can be a useful sound - IF that's the sound you're after, but don't consider it an equivalent substitute for a mic. The sounds are totally different.

As a guitarist myself, the only time I use a pickup on acoustics is when I'm first writing the song as a scratch track. Otherwise, I always use a mic (with rare exceptions).

The buzz may be due to an impedance mismatch, a grounding issue (bad cable usually), or an external source of the buzzing (such as flourescent lights or a dimmer switch). Turn the dimmer switch and/or flourescent light off and see if that makes a difference.

Make sure you're using an instrument input in the mixer. A "regular" line-level input will give you a weak and frequency-limited signal. If there is no instrument input, then you will need to purchase a direct box. Very usable ones start at about $40 and can cost much more for pristine direct boxes. You plug the guitar into the direct box and take a microphone cable from there to the mixer.

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Buzzing heard when using acoustic pickup

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