How do performers connect an amplifier to an acoustic guitar? Is there a little microphone within the guitar body, I WAG? Since the sound is produced mechnically, I’m not quite sure what device is used to change this to electrical energy.
Thanks,
Jinx
Damn, dude…can’t you use Google?? Half the questions you ask here can be answered with 10 seconds of Googling or less.
Thanks, now I’ll hire an EE to interpret into plain English…
- Jinx
As it probably says in Q.E.D.'s link, a piezo pickup is most often used.
Rarely, a traditional single-coil pickup is mounted onto the soundhole.
Good luck. Somewhere around the time we start taking field theory in college our ability to communicate in plain english usually completely disappears. Haven’t you ever seen the engineer’s recipe for making cookies?
Anyway, if you happen to stop by a guitar shop sometime you’ll notice there are combination acoustic/electric guitars in there. You’ll also find clip on pickups (like Joe mentioned, both the little dot ones and the larger coil ones). Quite often though they are amplified by simply sticking a microphone in front of the guitar. This requires the performer to sit for the entire performance. If they want to move around then they have to use a clip on pickup or a guitar with a built in pickup.
I once had one that suction-cupped to the outside body of the guitar! It wasn’t very good though.
I now have a Washburn with a built-in pickup that seems to work just fine.
Simplified overview:
A pickup under the bridge, usually factory-installed or luthier-installed. Typically with a jack fitted into the guitar body. Sometimes with controls (volume, tone, etc).
A (very small) microphone inside the guitar body, sometimes fixed into place, installed as above; sometimes removable, thus inserted when desired by the user, and with a connecting wire hanging out.
Some highly regarded factory-installed systems combine the above two types.
A soundhole pickup, inserted when desired & wire hanging out.
Those are the most common approaches, but a number of variations using the above devices or other devices are possible.
Piezo: It turns out that there are certain crystals that just magically transform motion into electricity. We take them, install them into the bridge of the guitar and bingo! The waves of sound passing through the crystal produce electric pulses. Typically it doesn’t sound quite as good as a top-quality microphone, but most players would rather be able to move a bit while they play, so they’re willing to compromise the sound some.
I read an interview with someone–I think it was David Crosby–about how they had recorded a recent album. He was saying that the new pickups in their guitars sounded BETTER than using a microphone. I said to myself “I gotta get one of those”–it turns out they cost about $6000. Sheesh.