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Pickup the World piezoelectric film oud pickup- tests/results

eliot - 4-9-2010 at 05:05 PM

Last week I received a Pick Up The World piezoelectric film oud pickup and preamp, which was of great interest to me as I've never had success with ceramic element piezos in the past, but have heard pretty decent results with violin pickups made with piezo film. I also got a battery-powered preamp from them (the PUTW Line Driver), which according to the owner/maker was ideally matched to the pickup and would provide reliable, realistic sounding results.

After considerable experimentation, I found a pickup placement which I believe works best with this particular technology (at least, the best for external mounting - subtly different results might result from internal mounting) on my Ramazan Calay oud. I've made recordings of the pickup straight into a Grace Audio 101 preamp (through the DI input), the pickup into the PUTW Line Driver into the Grace DI, and for comparison, the oud recorded with a Josephson C42 small diaphragm condenser mic placed 1 foot away from the oud. Unfortunately, I couldn't make all 3 at the same time, but the mic recording and the sound of the PUTW Line Driver feeding the Grace DI were tracked at the same time.

Here are pictures showing the placement of the pickup on the oud:

And a picture of the Grace preamp and the PUTW Line Driver

Here's technical details about the recordings:

1. PUTW oud pickup-->Monster Cable 500 series (10') guitar cable-->Grace 101 preamp (50dB gain)-->Mogami cable-->Lynx 2 soundcard (24 bit, 44.1khz)

Attachment: ebates_beyatiSazSemai-pickupNoPreamp.mp3 (950kB)
This file has been downloaded 573 times

2. PUTW oud pickup-->Monster Cable 500 series (10') guitar cable-->PUTW Line Driver-->Planet Waves guitar cable (2')-->Grace 101 preamp (35dB gain)-->Mogami balanced cable-->Lynx 2 soundcard (24 bit, 44.1khz)

Attachment: ebates_beyatiSazSemai-pickup-Preamp.mp3 (932kB)
This file has been downloaded 502 times

3. Josephson C42 SDC mic-->Blue "Raspberry" mic cable (15') -->API 512 mic pre-->Mogami balanced cable-->Lynx 2 soundcard (24 bit, 44.1khz)

Attachment: ebates_beyatiSazSemai-josephsonc42.mp3 (932kB)
This file has been downloaded 450 times

The attached files have no eq/compression/signal processing and are 96kbps mono mp3 files.

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Comments on the pickup and preamp

A couple details I wish to point out about the pickup. When set at optimum gain for recording, I measured the noise floor at -54dB on average, and estimate the S/N (signal to noise ratio) to be about 50dB. I found that the PUTW Line Driver didn't noticeably color the sound, but also didn't provide a ton of gain. I was able to get about 20dB of gain with it (what you hear above is set a bit lower than that), but the output is not line level, so depending on what you need to plug into, you may need to run the output into an active DI.

Also, this kind of pickup is very susceptible to handling noise and is sensitive down to 1hz (well below human hearing). It is imperative that you use a HPF filter to remove everything below 40hz or so (I did not do this for the mp3s). It is less sensitive in the 8000-20000 range than microphones, and has a worse S/N ratio in the very high frequencies. I was able to get more of the definition in the highs one would expect with a condenser mic by applying a high shelf filter at 10khz, but doing so brought the noise up. This is not really an issue in most live situations, but would be noticeable if you tried to use this for recording.

Oh, and the piece of music: the 1st hane and teslim of the Beyati Saz Semaisi by Kanuni Ömer Efendi. Apologies for the sloppy playing!

Kelly - 4-10-2010 at 09:16 AM

Hi Eliot

Interesting comparison
From my hearing the pick up with pre amp as compared to mic sounds a bit thin/dead on wound strings. missing resonance I guess. I have used combination in live situations (with bouzouki) of pick-up and mic and this seems to bring a more rounded tone . What is the sound like when you mix the two? Where did you have he mic in directed to on the oud?

Enjoyed your playing by the way.

eliot - 4-10-2010 at 10:52 AM

Quote: Originally posted by Kelly

Hi Eliot

Interesting comparison
From my hearing the pick up with pre amp as compared to mic sounds a bit thin/dead on wound strings. missing resonance I guess. I have used combination in live situations (with bouzouki) of pick-up and mic and this seems to bring a more rounded tone . What is the sound like when you mix the two? Where did you have he mic in directed to on the oud?

Enjoyed your playing by the way.

Thanks, Kelly...

The mic was pointed straight at the "upper" small soundhole (the one furthest from the floor, beyond the bass string choruses). I agree with you about a comparative thinness - if you take the mp3 of the pickup and add a high shelf boost at 8 or 10k (+3dB) you'll notice much more "presence," but also that much more noise.

It's possible to blend the two - if I can get Mike to post the file, I do have a mix of the two to demonstrate what that sounds like. There are certain frequencies where the two signals phase cancel, and a few where due to phase differences they exaggerate a few frequencies, but it wasn't bad, and overall, the blended sounds more "more" than the pickup by itself. You could use a Little Labs IBP Phase Junior phase alignment tool to try to find the optimum phase relation between the 2 tracks, but that adds even more expense into the picture.

fernandraynaud - 4-11-2010 at 01:11 AM

I think the question is whether this sort of pickup works for live playing and multitracking. And it does. Sounds as good as any of them. And each type will sound different. And each oud will sound different and also depending on position of the sensors etc.

I don't think anybody would want to do critical oud recording with a pickup. Any sort of pickup unless you're sitting at the console and just want to "do it now". The pickup is designed to get rid of part of the sound, all the room sound, the ambience. For multitracking you might not care if the oud sounds "real" as long as it gives you something to work with. It's great for that, the mic is impractical at times, like on stage, with voices where you need separation.

But no question the mic sounds much better.

paulO - 4-11-2010 at 11:54 AM

Hi Eliot,

Thanks for doing the comparison -- the PUTW line driver really works well for removing some of the artificial 'contact pickup' sound. You've got a pretty nice setup their with the Josephson/API combo -- pretty darn natural dude. Take care, oh -- before I forget, Nice sounding oud ! Take care.

Regards..PaulO