Monday, August 15, 2011

National NPR Single Cone Resonator

So I've been waiting about a week for my dremel base to arrive, only to find out my mom never put in the order.  Looks like the Uke is on hold a couple days.

In the meantime, Lou recently bought a National NPR single cone resonator to compliment his tricone.  He's been playing a lot of open mics and jams lately, and one of them is electric only and his soundhole pickup just wasn't cutting it.  He bought the best powered piezo pickup on the market for his new National, and asked me to install it.

I only took a few pics, there's not all that much to it.  Just several tedious steps (such as drilling through steel to mount the input jack). 

Here's the mounted preamp:


This would have been much easier if I had a smaller drill/power screwdriver.  I'll have to look into getting one that isn't 15 pounds.  It was also kinda tricky wiring the rca jack, there wasn't a ton of wire to work with. 

New biscuit bridge with piezo:



The biscuit was supplied with the kit, as the pickup is mounted in a routed channel underneath.  Once I got the slots cut, I stuck the cone back in, and strung her back up.  Plugged it into my Hiwatt, and thankfully it works first try. 



I would've recorded a sample to post with this blog, but the neck is gigantic by my standards and I can't get used to the wider string spread.  So I saved myself the embarrassment, and you readers the potential deafness and skipped it.  Also, note the Lou Shields Live album in the background.  You can order copies from him at atomicpossumrecords.com

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