DeArmond 260 acoustic pickup, any info out there?

[RTZ]

I wasn't really sure where to post this but figured this would be the best place.

I'm more or less looking for any kind of info on the the DeArmond 260 pickup. I know this particular style pickup came in a few varieties, all number designated. This link is a good list of those pickups.



From that link is this on the 260.
"This pickup is unique in being the only DeArmond pickup with two separate sensors - a set of humbucking coils and 'DeArmond's exclusive Piezo-Magnetic Sensor (PMS)' which both operate together."

I'd specifically like to know about the construction of the pickup itself. What kind of magnets were used, how the piezo is implemented, and all those finer points. Yea I know it's a long shot.

I emailed Fender but as I thought, they have no info on it, as it was produced well before they acquired the company. I've also slowly been trying to locate the patent on it but am coming up empty handed. I suppose if I had the patent number, that would make it easier to find hah.

As always others experiences and thoughts on this pickup are welcome

[newey]

RTZ-

Your link is busted. You need to remove the quotation marks and everything in between them.

I have a DeArmond 130 soundhole pickup which I love. But it doesn't have the piezo feature of yours, it's just a HB. And I don't have any more info on it, so no help to you, sorry!

The one problem with mine (and I assume yours is the same) is the cable hanging out of the soundhole. I very seldom remove mine, and the cord kept getting in my way while playing. But I didn't want to modify the DeArmond unit, and I wanted to keep it removeable.

So I mounted an endpin jack in my Yamaha acoustic, wired another jack to that so that I had a female-to-female setup inside the guitar, plugged the Dearmond into that, and used a velcro strap inside the guitar to secure the excess cable so it wasn't rattling around inside. Works like a charm!

Here's a photo of mine before I modded the cable. I think it sounds better angled a bit- quite a bit, actually!:

[VintAxe]

The link is fixed.

[RTZ]

Thanks for the reply and thanks for fixing the link. I had cut and pasted this post from another forum and didn't think to check the link.

I actually don't own one of these at the moment. I had borrowed one a while back from a friend when I was performing more acoustic material. I really liked it and sort of wish I had offered to buy it at the time. I've been watching them on eBay for a bit and they seem like they've been going up in price lately.

Do you think it would be safe to say the coils between the 130, 230, 240 and 260 are more then likely the same, or at least very similar? The whole piezo element is the main reason I'm interested in the 260.

newey - You're pickup wouldn't happen to have a patent number anywhere on it would it? Have you ever ran the 130 with steel strings? I ultimately want to pick up a few of the 260's and had the idea of mounting one in a regular solid body electric. I have a feeling they'd make an excellent neck pickup. Well at the very least an interesting neck pickup hah.

The reason I'd like the patent or gut shots is to see how difficult it would be to run separate leads for the piezo and the magnetic parts. Either for switching or vol./tone controls. I'm also just plain interested in how the coils/magnets and what not are arranged/set up.

[newey]

Hmmmm. RTZ, your inquiries led me to take a closer look at my pickup. And it seems mine may be even less like your desired model than we thought.

The link you posted calls the 130 a "Humbucker", and I had always assumed that was the case, if only based on the fact that it's a HB size and is pretty quiet (although not completely so).

But I have the original packaging, including the warranty card and instruction sheet, and the box itself-all of which I've posted below for any help it may provide anyone.

But, hand-written on the inside of the packaging, was a pricetag "$81.95" and the notation "single coil".

Plus, the product sheet claims the pickup is "our unique full-range coil" (note the singular) and nowhere does it say there's two coils. So, I fired up the trusty DMM and read 7.81K Ohms, which is more in the range of a hot SC (which the literature claims it to be), than in the range of a HB. Although a HB could certainly be made in that range, so not really conclusive as a test.

And, "130" is exactly half of "260" . . .

And, so I plugged it in just now and listened more critically. I hadn't ever considered it before, thinking it was a HB, but I'm now pretty convinced it's a single coil.

No patent nos. that I could see. The back of the pickup has a printed (not stamp or embossed, just ink printed) number, printed over a white painted background. The number is 1290068, which is probably the serial no. or product no.

I don't know how successful you would be modifying these for use in an electric. The mounting tabs and spring are riveted/welded to the back of the pickup, and I can envision that the surgery to remove the mount might well damage the pickup.

And, without taking it apart, my guess would be that the coils are probably solidly lodged in a big blob of epoxy- and the piezo connection will likely be buried somewhere within . . .

Anyway, here's the goods on this thing:









I'm not a fan of bronze strings, right now I have my Yamaha strung with "Silk n' Steel" acoustic strings, not sure what brand they were. I've used electric 12s in the past as well with the 130. It does fine with any and all.

Compared to a piezo system, which can sound a bit brittle to my ears, the mag pickup gives a nice warm tone with plenty of low end.

So, that's absolutely all the info I have for this thing. Best of luck on your quest.

[RTZ]

Wow, thanks a ton for all the pictures and input. Your 130 could very well be a single coil. in the link it says the 130 was made in both a single and humbucker form.

"Model 130 Attachable Humbucker, roundhole flat-top guitar. Model 130-SC Single-coil version of Model 130 humbucker above"

I'm assuming the "SC" portion of the name was never actually written on the pickup itself.

Would you be able to post any pictures of the pickup you have? Particularly how the cover and base plate are assembled. I was guessing the same thing as you, that the coils are all epoxy encased. These pickups are thinner then your standard humbucker correct?

At the very least if I really really wanted it mounted like a normal pickup I was figuring I could just cut off the 3 mounting arms and JB Weld it to a regular base plate. Granted I still have to cut the pickguard around the attached cable. Not the most elegant solution but do able.

It's nice to know it has good balance with steel and nickle strings. I'm curious if it's one bar magnet inside or separate poles. I know DeArmond had produced some of their sound hole pickups with buried G and B poles.

I guess for now I'm just going to keep my search up, at least until I get my hands on one of these again. Thanks again for the pictures and what info you could give. It's very much appreciated.

Edit - There was a 260 on eBay that was advertised as be a little over 10K ohms. I suppose this could be due to it being a full humbucker as opposed to a single coil. But I'm curious about the piezo thing still. How that would factor into to the resistance. Don't most acoustics that use a piezo also have a preamp/eq so the output isn't crazy hot when plugged in. I wonder how the 260 gets around this mismatch between the magnets and the piezo. If it gets around it at all.

[newey]

[RTZ]

Any chance you got some pictures? If not it's cool just curious. I'm more the likely going to buy one of these pickups soon anyways, if only to use on my acoustic.

[newey]

No pix other than the one I posted above. I can certainly take more if there's some specifics you want to see on the thing.