Sound Hole Mount System Troubleshooting
No Output
If your pickup system has no output of any kind, follow these steps:
Cause | Solution |
The system master volume is turned down. | Turn the volume all the way up |
The preamp is not turned on. | Make sure you are using a mono (Tip-Sleeve) guitar cable, Make sure you are using a good battery. (Brand new deffective batteries are supprisingly common. Try multiple batteries before concluding it is a different issue.) |
| The preamp output mute is enabled because of a very low battery voltage. | Replace the battery. |
Your amp or other piece of gear in the signal chain is not functioning. | Verify your signal chain with another guitar. |
If none of these solutions work, please contact us.
Output Noise
If your pickup system is making a screeching noise but no signal is coming through, follow these steps:
Replace the battery. The battery voltage is so low that the output mute cannot function properly.
Ground Hum
If your pickup system is making a constant 50/60Hz hum, follow these steps:
- Remove the strings. They will remain off for the entire troubleshooting process.
- Remove the preamp from the inside of the guitar using these steps.
- Mount the preamp on the top of the guitar with the balancing mount according to steps 1 and 4 here.
- Plug the preamp into an amplifier.
- Touch the black part of each Saddle-Pickup cable. If touching one of them makes the hum worse, that cable is damaged and needs to be replaced.
- Confirm this by removing the strain relief from the end of the preamp, then remove the suspect cable from its connector on the preamp. The hum should go away completely.
- Replace the cable with the spare that came with the pickup system.
To connect and disconnect the cables see the instructions here.
If your pickup system is making a 50/60Hz hum only when you touch the strings, or only you are not touching the strings, please contact us.Dead Strings
If one or more of the strings is not producing output, there are four possible causes: a bad connection between the Saddle-Pickup and preamp, a failed Saddle-Pickup, a failed cable, a failed preamp. The following procedure will help you to identify which of the failure modes has occurred.
- Make a note of which strings are not working.
- Prepare for the troubleshooting procedure by setting up the preamp for string balancing as shown in Step 4 of these instructions.
- Remove the strain relief from the end of the preamp.
- Swap the Saddle-Pickup cables so that the cable from the 1-3 connector is now in the 4-6 connector and visa versa.
- If the same strings are not working, continue with troubleshooting. If different strings are now not working, the preamp is defective. Please contact us.
- Replace the cable that is carrying the signal of the strings that are not working. Reconnect the cables into the correct inputs on the preamp.
- These steps will show you how to remove the Saddle-Pickup from the bridge and how to disconnect the cables from it.
- If replacing the cable did not solve the problem, then the Saddle-Pickup is probably defective. Please contact us.
Distortion
In some rare cases, users may experience distortion. Follow the below steps to determine the cause:
- The distortion may be caused by a dying battery.
- Check to see if the low battery LED is on, if so replace it.
- If the below cause is not the issue, replace the battery anyway.
- The distortion may be caused by overdriving the device the pickup system is plugged into.
- Turn down the master volume and see if the distortion goes away. If so, the output of the pickup system is too loud.
- Try adjusting the gain staging of your signal chain so that there is no distortion with the pickup system at full volume.
- If this does not work, you can turn down all of the string volumes with the string volume pots. Follow these instructions to do so.
Microphone Volume
The microphone signal is added to the Saddle-Pickup signal and the blend is controlled by the Microphone Volume control. If the microphone volume at the maximum volume setting is too much or too little, you use the string volume pots to control the volume of the Saddle-Pickup relative to the microphone volume.
Follow these instructions to balance the string volumes.
Microphone Feedback
If you are experiencing feedback issues with the mic, use standard microphone feedback stopping techniques such as:
- Reversing the phase of the signal chain
- Adjusting floor monitor placement
- Notch filtering on the floor monitor EQ
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