Hi to all,
My name is Ben. Newbie here. I am building my first acoustic and hope to become a productive and active member of the forum.
I will get onto my guitar build in the appropriate forum soon.
Thought I would chime in here as I have been recently doing some work with a bloke in the US, goes by the name Teddy Randazzo.
He used to work for Arnie Lazurus at FRAP (Flat Response Acoustic Pickup). The FRAP was a piezo pickup developed in 1969 and used with great success by Neil Young and the late great Michael Hedges on many recordings. Whilst the FRAP is now gone, many people have tried to produce a relatively cheap piezo sensor pickup to fill the whole left by this popular transducer, with varying degress of success. I hear Trance Audio do a good system in the Amulet 3D lens transducer system, but this one can be very expensive and problematic to install in "The sweet spot" without specialist assistance from Garry Hull at Trance, or Neil Young's guitar tech Larry Cragg at your immediate disposal.
Enter "The Dazzo":
http://www.dazzopickups.com/www.thedazz ... lcome.html
Disclosure! Whilst I am sounding like an ad here, I have 1 Dazzo and was blown away when compared to other piezo contact pickups.
On my first post I would hate people to think that I am a "spammer", this is not the case, I believe in this pickup - it speaks for itself.
I am not being paid for my opinion, I was sent a Dazzo for free to trial. In return I have provided a recording of an original song that appears on the Dazzo site. "After the fire" as named by Michael Hedges good friend, Randy Lutge.
To be fair, this recording does not do the pickup justice, it was experimental, but ended up posted on the site anyway.
I used 1 Dazzo (they should be used in pairs) cellotaped to the outside of my 1972 Maton CW80/6 (totally incorrect install, I know) together with the Bill Lawrence magnetic pickup. I blended the two signals into 2 mic channels of a cheap mixing desk and straight off into my PC for recording. My song on the site is the result of this haphazard arrangement...
Check out the events page on the Dazzo site for an independent guitar magazine review on the pickup.
Teddy has come up with a remarkable piezo sensor here, I have blended it with my 1970s Bill Lawrence "Silencer" magnetic Humbucker with great success. Michael Hedges used to use one FRAP glued under the treble side of his bridge in his D-28, blended with a magnetic "Silencer" and later a "Sunrise" magnetic pickup. A much sought after tone, but largely misunderstood signal path.
Before he was tragically killed in a car accident in 1997, Michael Hedges was working with Teddy and the remains of FRAP to resurrect the FRAP tone he and others so dearly loved. Teddy has taken all his skill, innovation and own knowledge to completely re-invent a design approach to piezo pickup construction. A pickup that you can "aim" at the soundboard, you really can dial this thing in by ear at home with great success.
Teddy recommends using a pre-amp with 10 Megaohm input, L.R. Baggs for instance.
I have not tried this yet. They are available in several different Bass responses and cost US$75 each, hard to beat.
Teddy is always willing to guide anyone through the install process with pictures, gluing tips and advice on the self-install.
A crazy man! With an excellent pickup.
Check it out!
Cheers, Ben.
