Jonathan Livingston’s Sister Gets An Upgrade!

I am off to a wedding later today so I will be brief!

Last week my friend lisa had the first loud jam in the new space!  Despite our apprehension about getting into a loud space it went swimmingly! However I basically had to play almost everything on Chester the Gretsch. I am not complaining cause I heart Chester, but some things just need to the acoustic tone. Now Jonathon Livingston does come equipped with a pizo bridge pickup but I have to say that it is about the worst sounding thing that I have ever played (not that i have played a lot) I am working on different ways to make that better (things like tossing it though a new preamp or possibly installing a LB6 but these are all topics for another day.) but in the mean time we basically didn’t have a real great acoustic solution other then getting quieter and that was sort of against the point :)  So after about a year and a half  of research I decided that getting an Lr-baggs M1 would be a decent idea, and while at L&M the other day the opportunity presented itself with a cheaper open box M1 Passive! Super great pickup, you can swap it in and out of any guitar you want, there is a tonne of info and reviews out there about this pickup so I am not going to get into a huge review about it or or anything. I like it and think it sounds great. Full stop.

After playing with the cable hanging out of the sound hole for a day or so I decided that I should probably install the end jack in something.  Jonathan Livingston’s sister Seagull had no pickup of any kind so she seemed to be the likely candidate! The problem was that being that she had no pickup installed of any kind she was missing the holes to install jacks and what not so surgery was going to have to be performed.

Basically I needed to drill a 1/2” hole in the bottom of the guitar and screw in an end pin jack. Doesn’t sound all that complicated but to be honest the fear of ruining a nice guitar was running a bit high! After double and triple checking every thing I fired up the drill with the biggest drill bit I have.

Next was weaseling my hand in through the sound hole to install the end pin. Not an easy task when you have big hands!

Next add the actually pick up itself.  You can get this in & out with the strings on with ease.

Then a fresh new set of strings!

Because I took all the strings off at the same time I will have to adjust the neck a little but all in all it was easy and I ruined nothing! Sound sample to come! :)