Rehearsal was a real blast tonight. We ran through a bunch of new material for our upcoming recording sessions next week. My favorites tonight were “Light from light,” and “Las Cruces.” My pal Leland just installed a K&K Pure Classic pickup into my Yamaha CG100A and I took it with me to the studio. I also tried a Fishman Loudbox which was a lot cleaner than my old tube Fender Concert. The passive K&K pickup has four transducers, lower impedence and quiet output. So I ran through a BBE Acoustimax preamp which made a world of difference. The Sonic Maximizer’s Lo control and notch filter especially. The footswitchable mute was handy. Leland’s opinion was that an undersaddle pickup like a Fishman Matrix may have less feedback than the tranducers on the soundboard of my guitar. So he installed this with double sided tape for me to try. If I keep this pickup he’ll reinstall it with superglue which will give me a clearer response without the tape. I thought about a Schertler Dyn G system, which would be the the priciest pickup I could get. But with classical pickups intending to work with solo players I think I’d have some feedback trying to play with Kyle and Anks. I’ll work with this pickup through the recording session next week and see how I like it.

I’m basically relearning my approach to singing. After a few years rocking full blast and singing over it I’m wanting to sing a cleaner style. Maybe I’m getting old. Maybe the heritage of Westwood Music is influencing me. It could be all the Tom Petty and Flying Burrito Brothers we listened to on tour.