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Buc’s Sunrise has landed in the UK!


Jinder

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Hi all,

As you may remember, forum legend Buc McMaster recently very kindly offered to send his Sunrise soundhole pickup across the Atlantic to my humble abode here in the UK, to be installed in my Maple AJ.

 

Happily, I arrived back from yesterday’s gig in the early hours of this morning to find that it had arrived-I was excited to get it installed, but tiredness won out as it was 3am, so the install had to wait until today. Removing the factory fitted Baggs Element VTC took some careful fettling, but installing the Sunrise was a cinch-no batteries, no UST, no fiddly preamp wiring...just two wing clamps and an endpin jack. Buc cautioned me about going easy on the wing clamp screw torque, so I just nipped them up enough to snug the pickup down, taking great care not to overtighten them and cause any damage.

 

Job #2 was to reverse the polepiece heights (Buc is of course a lefty), and set them to an appropriate height for the guitar-this took no time at all, but I’ll tweak the polepieces in due course to get the balance dialled in just the way I like it.

 

I haven’t been able to plug in yet as my PA is with my bandmates, but I will collect it tomorrow and let the fun begin!

 

First impressions are that the Sunrise is a beautifully made, extremely solid and absolutely pro product. It feels right in the hand and looks like it belongs in the AJ. Another plus is that the AJ sounds sweeter and more responsive now the UST is gone...very happy with that!

 

Thanks again Buc, your generosity is amazing and very much appreciated. More reports to come soon!

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Having had a few days to play with the Sunrise at home, i’m taking it out for its first gig today...

 

My first impressions are that it blows every other soundhole pup i’ve tried out of the water. The low end is huge but defined, the top end is rich and feathery and doesn’t have that magnetic “ping” that a lot do, and the mids are sweet and nuanced.

 

I’ve found that the Boss AD10 makes for the perfect front end-the EQ (70hz low end cut, bass at midday, mids at 11am, treble at midday and presence at 10:30), compressor (9am) and reverb (long verb, 1pm) really sweeten it without taking the character of the pickup away. Dialling in a spot of the acoustic resonance feature (11:30am) softens the attack transients a little, but to be honest the pickup sounds so good that it doesn’t really require it.

 

I’m really excited to take it out live and see what else I can coax out of it in a gig situation with some looping, delay and overdrive. Super happy with it so far!

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Well that's a good first report.........here's hoping it pans out for you in a live situation! But hey, if it doesn't and you figure it's not the one for you and the AJ, that's okay.....don't be shy about saying so........an honest evaluation from real world application is what we want. And if that turns out to be the case, pass it on to one of your mates and let him/her give it a go.........if not you, someone's gonna love it!

 

(Don't want you to figure I'd take any kind of offense if the Sunrise is not right for you......you're under no obligation here. Follow your joy, grasshopper!)

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Well that's a good first report.........here's hoping it pans out for you in a live situation! But hey, if it doesn't and you figure it's not the one for you and the AJ, that's okay.....don't be shy about saying so........an honest evaluation from real world application is what we want. And if that turns out to be the case, pass it on to one of your mates and let him/her give it a go.........if not you, someone's gonna love it!

 

(Don't want you to figure I'd take any kind of offense if the Sunrise is not right for you......you're under no obligation here. Follow your joy, grasshopper!)

 

 

What a great and lovely thing to do Buc

 

All best to you and yours

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Good to hear, so to speak, Jinder.

 

Short question...what is all this stuff under Sunrise?:

 

 

https://www.elderly.com/acoustics/acoustic-amps-pickups?manufacturer=375

 

 

Not that I am buying another pickup, see! Oh no, no, no...well at least not until payday after paying tax and all the bills and no, I am NOT ...ha. But really, I may as well try a Sunrise - I have read some good things.....err..NO, no, no NO!

 

 

 

BluesKing777.

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Good to hear, so to speak, Jinder.

 

Short question...what is all this stuff under Sunrise?:

 

 

https://www.elderly.com/acoustics/acoustic-amps-pickups?manufacturer=375

 

 

Not that I am buying another pickup, see! Oh no, no, no...well at least not until payday after paying tax and all the bills and no, I am NOT ...ha. But really, I may as well try a Sunrise - I have read some good things.....err..NO, no, no NO!

 

 

 

BluesKing777.

 

You are the pickup king, BK-you owe it to yourself to try a Sunrise!

 

Buc, I appreciate your transparency on the fact you wouldn’t be offended if the Sunrise wasn’t for me...if it wasn’t, I’d definitely pass it along to someone appreciative, but as things stand, it isn’t going anywhere!!

 

The gig last night was great-I would say the Sunrise is the best plugged in tone i’ve ever heard for strumming, amazingly sweet and full. Remarkably acoustic sounding...I would say for fingerstyle it’s very good too. I need to play with my boost/fingerstyle settings on the AD10 as I have quite a bright boosted tone set for piezo stuff and it thinned out the Sunrise a touch more than it needed, but that’s just salad...all stuff I can play with and get just so.

 

I just want to get out there more and more with it now...lots of tonal possibilities to explore!

 

I’m considering buying one of the Sunrise buffer boxes with a return option-I’m intrigued to see what kind of extra sprinkles of magic they purportedly add.

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I would say the Sunrise is the best plugged in tone i’ve ever heard for strumming, amazingly sweet and full.

Cool beans. [thumbup]

 

The Sunrise preamp/buffers are nothing more than that: a preamp for signal boosting and an impedance matching device........which I figure one of your outboard gadgets is already. But hey, what do I know? Go on and plunk down yer Euros and get another gadget! [flapper]

 

BK: Didn't like the weight nor the appearance of the Sunrise in my guitar. Yeah, silly, I know........should have remembered that from my first go-round with one many years ago.

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Thanks Jinder, glad you are enjoying the pickup....

 

They certainly get a good rap. Oh no. And...a buffer box?

 

I’ll have to turn my garage into a pickup station! And perhaps sleep out there if...you know...

 

And I wonder why Buc ditched it?

 

 

 

BluesKing777.

 

Haha I love the idea of a pickup station!! Might be worth having a camp bed or two for other players who also befall the fate of “...you know”!!

 

Buc would no doubt be best placed to say why it didn’t suit his tastes. It’s certainly a very specific sound, and isn’t as woody as something like a K&K. It’s not bigger as such, sonically, rather...wider. It’s hard to explain! I don’t know how it would jive with other guitars but it certainly sounds terrific with the AJ.

 

This is my second AJ, the first being a standard Rosewood example and this one being Maple. The first one sounded great unplugged but was horribly hard to amplify well. I tried a Baggs M1A, a DiMarzio Angel dual source system, a Fishman Matrix Natural I, a JJB Prestige and finally a Dtar Wavelength Dual Source. The Dtar was the most acceptable but the guitar was just a pig to amplify.

 

The Maple AJ came with the stock Baggs Element VTC system, which didn’t suit it at all...I was worried I’d been hit with the curse of the impossible AJ amplification once more, but the Sunrise is a very good fit indeed, it would seem...looking forward to getting to know it more as time goes on!

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Haha I love the idea of a pickup station!! Might be worth having a camp bed or two for other players who also befall the fate of “...you know”!!

 

Buc would no doubt be best placed to say why it didn’t suit his tastes. It’s certainly a very specific sound, and isn’t as woody as something like a K&K. It’s not bigger as such, sonically, rather...wider. It’s hard to explain! I don’t know how it would jive with other guitars but it certainly sounds terrific with the AJ.

 

This is my second AJ, the first being a standard Rosewood example and this one being Maple. The first one sounded great unplugged but was horribly hard to amplify well. I tried a Baggs M1A, a DiMarzio Angel dual source system, a Fishman Matrix Natural I, a JJB Prestige and finally a Dtar Wavelength Dual Source. The Dtar was the most acceptable but the guitar was just a pig to amplify.

 

The Maple AJ came with the stock Baggs Element VTC system, which didn’t suit it at all...I was worried I’d been hit with the curse of the impossible AJ amplification once more, but the Sunrise is a very good fit indeed, it would seem...looking forward to getting to know it more as time goes on!

 

 

 

 

 

Guitar Pickup Station Consultant, Jazz The Wonderdog says all the pickups sound the same! [smile]

 

 

S7XRAcuh.jpg

 

 

 

BluesKing777.

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Another update...I’ve spent the last week on the road with the AJ and Sunrise combo, schlepping up and down the country to gigs far and wide. I’m so smitten with this pickup in the AJ that I haven’t picked up any of my other guitars. I’ve tweaked the settings on my AD10 to even out the boost EQ and the articulation for fingerstyle playing is astounding. The top end is sweet and defined and the bottom end is strident and clear, far better note separation and clarity than any pickup i’ve used before.

 

Two sound engineers commented that at times it sounds like two guitars playing at the same time (definitely a compliment to the instrument/pickup combo, not my fingerstyle playing!) and I’ve had various compliments at the merch stand from audience members too.

 

It’s buttery and terrific for strumming and flatpicking too, a real all-rounder. The only thing it does less than perfectly is aggressively flatpicked blues-it seems to hit a dynamic ceiling for that style, but it just requires a slightly less feisty right hand to rein it back into the sweet zone.

 

I think the sound engineer from my Friday’s gig summed it up best when he said “that’s the easiest mix I’ve had to do in a long time, the more I turn the guitar up, the more expensive everything sounds!”

 

I explained to him that the pickup was a gift from a friend and fellow picker on the other side of the pond, and he replied “that’s so cool...I need friends like yours!”

 

Thanks again, Buc...more updates to come. It’s definitely staying with me! I’m now working out which other guitars in the arsenal need to be Sunrisen.

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The Sunrise joy continues...just finished gig no 5 of the week and I’ve used the AJ/Sunrise combo for all of them.

 

I’ve found that it encourages me to soften my right hand attack, so a handy side effect is that I’ve had the same set of EXP 13s on the guitar for the last fortnight and they’re still intact and only just starting to drop off the back end of the tonal curve. I’ve also gone back to the .73mm yellow Tortex picks which sound great, as opposed to the .88 greens which sound a little heavy handed with this setup.

 

An old friend, Al Preston, came to tonight’s gig. He has an SJ200 with a Headway pickup in it which he loves, but he was raving about the sound of the AJ and quizzing me about the pickup and the AD10 pre. Like me, he wasn’t a fan of soundhole pickups in general before, but he said the Sunrise was by far the best live sound he’d heard from any of my guitars, and he’s heard them all over the years.

 

I’m going to have to seek out a couple more of them when finances allow, I need to put one in my J180 and another in the F25 I have incoming next month. Will be super interesting to see how they sound and respond in different guits!

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The Sunrise joy continues...just finished gig no 5 of the week and I’ve used the AJ/Sunrise combo for all of them.

 

I’ve found that it encourages me to soften my right hand attack, so a handy side effect is that I’ve had the same set of EXP 13s on the guitar for the last fortnight and they’re still intact and only just starting to drop off the back end of the tonal curve. I’ve also gone back to the .73mm yellow Tortex picks which sound great, as opposed to the .88 greens which sound a little heavy handed with this setup.

 

An old friend, Al Preston, came to tonight’s gig. He has an SJ200 with a Headway pickup in it which he loves, but he was raving about the sound of the AJ and quizzing me about the pickup and the AD10 pre. Like me, he wasn’t a fan of soundhole pickups in general before, but he said the Sunrise was by far the best live sound he’d heard from any of my guitars, and he’s heard them all over the years.

 

I’m going to have to seek out a couple more of them when finances allow, I need to put one in my J180 and another in the F25 I have incoming next month. Will be super interesting to see how they sound and respond in different guits!

 

 

 

 

Good luck finding more Sunrises! Scarce, unless Buc has some more. Shoreline Music seems to the only ones....

 

 

Did you fiddle with adjusting the pole pieces, Jinder? I was advised to try removing 1 and 2 string pole pieces on my Baggs M80 to stop the strings being too loud and adjusted the other poles right down to get a more woody sound. And I am amazed at the difference. Love it. (depends on the guitar geometry, some soundholes are closer to the strings.)

 

I mentioned it to a friend with the Baggs M1 passive and he has just told me he loves it now....was about to remove the pickup before........

 

 

BluesKing777.

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Good luck finding more Sunrises! Scarce, unless Buc has some more. Shoreline Music seems to the only ones....

 

 

Did you fiddle with adjusting the pole pieces, Jinder? I was advised to try removing 1 and 2 string pole pieces on my Baggs M80 to stop the strings being too loud and adjusted the other poles right down to get a more woody sound. And I am amazed at the difference. Love it. (depends on the guitar geometry, some soundholes are closer to the strings.)

 

I mentioned it to a friend with the Baggs M1 passive and he has just told me he loves it now....was about to remove the pickup before........

 

 

BluesKing777.

 

I removed the B pole from mine , then adjusted the heights so the volume was the same for each string ....:

Is that same approach you took BK ?

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I removed the B pole from mine , then adjusted the heights so the volume was the same for each string ....:

Is that same approach you took BK ?

 

The E and B are out on mine now....depends on the guitar and strings. The other poles are down level with the main pickup top.

 

I have never adjusted any poles before - my other pickups you can’t.

 

I also run the pickup out to my Fishman Pro EQ (old dusty..) - I don’t like the pickup without the Fish. I cut the treble and bass and sweep the doinky middle out.

 

 

 

BluesKing777.

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Maybe ill take the higbE out too then

 

 

You can only try it....don’t lose the little suckers though!

 

 

Ideally all the strings should ring out evenly. Mine currently sounds great on my Blues King and my D18, tending to horrible on others, needs adjusting for each guitar. PITA. Though I can play with the first 2 strings just slightly quieter, I just can NOT have the first string belting out. Also depends on the picking and song.

 

A friend was saying his new amp was great but he didn’t like his 000 Martin with M1 in it, so I mentioned this to him, he removed both, adjusted down and now the guitar is back in his amp!

 

 

BluesKing777.

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I wonder what guitar they use in order to factory set the poles

 

 

It sure wasn’t a Martin OM cause they don’t fit! [cursing]

 

My Lowden O22 sounded great with the factory M80 setup. Perfect. And now I have ruined it. I might have to buy a new one just for the Lowden. I am really surprised by how good it sounded, BBG.

 

 

BluesKing777.

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