Internal Ischell

mikegnik

Hi folks,

I was wonder if anyone can share their experience with mounting the Ischell pickup internally. I love the sound of this pickup but have grown a little tired of the soundboard putty mount.

When mounting internally, is putty still the material of choice? I would think this would be needed as the microphone is suspended just above the wood rather than making direct contact, but this seems like a semi permanent solution rather than a permanent one.

Can anyone shed some light about the installation method or performance of an internal Ischell?

Thank you!
Michael

Buco

I don't know as I'm about to do the same with Jokko's pickup (Manouche Pcks). Yeah I don't want to even start with the outside mount, will just do internal immediately, set it and forget it.

But I found this putty to be much better holding than the blue variety that's usually circling around:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B000FJU290/
It's holds much better on hot days or environments. No finish marks, cleans up easily.

TDog

thinking about getting an Ischell. What is the issue with the external mount - does the putty not keep the microphone in place? thanks

Buco

It holds up just fine. I personally am not the fan of the look, though I'm not the guy to say that with everything I've done to my guitar. But to me it just looks like an acne on a life support.
@Lango-Django is a self proclaimed Ischell evangelist and was gushing about the sound many times. Got me close to getting one but the price always scared me away.

Lango-Django

Hi Mike,

Yes! Do it! As I've often said around here, getting that Ischell pickup mounted internally was the best tech move I ever made!

http://www.djangobooks.com/forum/discussion/15590/finally-took-the-plunge-with-my-ischell-pickup

http://www.djangobooks.com/forum/discussion/16574/ischell-feedback-issues

http://www.djangobooks.com/forum/discussion/15126/ischell-youtube-video-or-audio-anyone

Now, full disclosure, my guitar has a lot of natural reverb, and it's hard to say if the Ischell might possibly be adding to that reverby-ness a bit, but anyway it's a very pleasant sound to me. It fattens up the guitar's natural tone in a nice natural-sounding way, while remaining extremely feedback resistant.

Finding your guitar's sweet spot is important. My guitar tech and I recorded it with the Ischell in a couple of different spots before finally ending up with mounting it directly under the bridge between the A and D strings.

To the best of my knowledge, the pickup is still stuck in there perfectly with double sided tape... I try to remember to put my hand inside the sound hole and check it whenever I change strings.

Good luck!

Will

mikegnik

Thank you all for your input!

Will, I’m curious about your use of double-sided tape. The feedback issue that results from not sealing off the microphone properly with a putty ring is very real and caused me some confusion at first. Considering that and the fact that the mic doesn’t touch the top, but is suspended just above/below it by way of the putty, seems in conflict with the double sided tape.
What am I missing here? The mic can touch the top? Do you use tape tom ount and putty to block excess sound?
Thanks!

Lango-Django

Well, to tell the truth, Mike, when my guitar tech used the double sided tape which I brought him, i completely forgot to tell him to cut out a little donut hole in the middle of the tape, as I probably should have... but I have never had any feedback issues.

The reason I didn’t want to use the putty the company provided was out of fear that on a hot summer day’s gig it might just melt and leave my pickup dangling...

But if you were to use a combination of tape and putty, i think that would be quite fine...and probably using only the putty until you are certain that you have found the sweetest sweet spot would be good, too.

In fact, the more I think about it, you probably don’t even need to use double sided tape at all if you don't want to.

But it worked for me and I feel more secure with it than with the putty.

Let me know how it goes!

Will

juanderer

Lango-Django wrote: »

Finding your guitar's sweet spot is important. My guitar tech and I recorded it with the Ischell in a couple of different spots before finally ending up with mounting it directly under the bridge between the A and D strings.

Did you compare the internal sound sweet spot with the sound of the mic mounted on the front of the soundboard at all, or was your narrowing down of the spot exclusively internal?

Lango-Django

Exclusively internal, because our band record every gig onto a thumb drive on our SoundCraft PA so I already knew exactly how the external mounting sounded.

In truth, I was prepared to accept a slightly inferior sound quality just to get rid of that ugly gummed-on pickup and the little thin cable.

But my fears turned out to be groundless, because in listening back to live recordings of my guitar, it’s impossible for me to tell the difference between the ones made with the pickup outside vs. inside.

I should mention that our bass player/sound man has a great trick that works for me... that is to turn the reverb up on my guitar to just below the point where a listener would be conscious of it. This fattens up the sound and makes it just the way I like it!

Admittedly, I don’t play in an actual GJ band so I don’t know how this trick would work in that setting...

Will

Jim Kaznosky

That trick works in a GJ setting as well.

mikegnik

I’m still surprised that double-sided tape works so well. I thought the Ischell mic wasn’t supposed to touch the top. Curious to know if others have done the same or found another solution.

Thanks again for weighing in folks!