it might not look like much, among the hundreds pictures of glorious vintage beauties. itās a Yamaha SLG-200S meant to serve as acoustic slash travel guitar. but, beyond its appearance and the appointments of a well-made and neatly designed, affordable instrument, itās been and itās being quite a rewarding project.
the flat, black pickup at neck position isnāt part of the original experience. itās been added on purpose, after a long and tedious search: thereās hardly more than 5 mm headroom available betweenĀ ātopā and strings at the end of the neck, which narrowed the choice down to reallyā¦ well, one candidate, in the end, this one.
itās a National Slimline pickup that iāve attached with double-sticky foam, after having discarded all sorts and varieties of floatingĀ ājazzā pickups that simply didnāt fit in the space available. itās been devised as a collaboration between National Guitars and Villex Electronics, which I remember as a daringly clever pickup researcher and manufacturer from my Chapman Stick days.
technically itās a humbucker pickup, which is good because thereās hardly a chance to shield a non-solid-body design, if you want to reject and keep clear of interference (just count the DSP-based effects on my table, at only a few centimetres from any guitarās pickups).
but, although a humbucker, it not only has body and strength, but it has shine, too, and sparkle, with plenty of life in its tone, and itās quite microphonic at that, which is exactly what you need to amplify a resonator guitar; here, it makes for a clever combination with the built-in, factory-installedĀ acoustic system.
the way itās been patched and put together, National pickup goes its own way, same as acoustic output, which ideally would grace the notion of an acoustic guitar amp (for the acoustic guitar output) and an electric guitar amp (for the National pickup output).Ā
but as Iāve not been using amps of any sort for a long time, i saw a chance to play around with separate inputs onto a bass preamp that i had here, idling in a drawer:Ā enter the EBS MicroBass II.
the Swedish-made preamp-in-a-stompbox has a dual audio path. itās been conceived to process and blend the magnetic output of an electric bass, with the piezo output of whatever add-on you may have installed on it; both circuits run parallel, if you so wish, until you want to a/b them, which then makes it aĀ āthis, or thatā proposition that seems to suit the gigging musician iām not. or, alternatively, you can sum both paths with either one, or two different inputs, and route a sidechain (with blend control) through it, too.
itās solid, built with no expense, and itās dead silent, butĀ flexible and then more flexible againā¦ seems to have been born for exactly this project, and actually makes for the other half of the picture into a versatile, nice sounding (and almost unexpected) one.
thereās still some room left, on the guitarĀ ātopā, for another pickup, which might go midway between neck and bridge, or simply bridgeā¦ but thatās a next episode in the never-ending saga of tweaky-the-tinkerer,
