Ian Stephenson plays an NK Forster Model S with RMC midi pickup

Here is Ian playing his new Model S Advanced (a Model S with a few fancy upgrades) Ian is always experimenting with pickups but it seems that for a while at least the search may be over. The pickup is an RMC midi compatible pickup, It consists of six saddle/sensor units. I have to say I was not keen when I first saw the units. My suspicion was they would not do the acoustic sound any good, but I have to say I was wrong. Both the acoustic and amplified sound are very impressive.

I only fit these pickups to my guitars, so sorry to all those who would like me to fit them to their other guitars.

So here is ian explaining the set up he uses on stage with Baltic Crossing and Celtic supergroup Kan.

http://www.myspace.com/ianstephenson
http://www.nkforsterguitars.com/the_book.html
http://www.rmcpickup.com

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• guitar
• rock guitar
• blues rock
• ian
• stephenson
• nk
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• midi
• godin
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• kan
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[WeepingZeeGuitars]

Well-made! Well-played! This is a very cool set up- Is this something Nigel developed and/or is it commercially available? How does it compare with other conventional pickups such as the undersaddle I-beam for example?

[Nkforster]

It is a far better pickup than any other I have fitted, and I have fitted most of them.

[JSCWhistler]

@iancollege I've been wanting to try this for a long time... I've got an LR Baggs soundhole pick-up on my guitar- Would this kind of set-up work, or would it only work with the particular pick-up, preamp, etc?

I've been looking around for a decent octave pedal, but without trying any of them, I'm not sure they'll achieve what I'm after. Not that I want to steal your set-up, I just like the idea of having that low bass sometimes. Mike Galvin also has a similar thing, it baffles me....

[iancollege]

@soup2nuts... watch the video again, and listen to what I actually say on the video... The pedal just mutes the octave sound from the yamaha (or unmutes).

[soup2nuts1]

What are you switching with the foot pedal? Is that an octave divider?

[soup2nuts1]

Nice video - is the octave sound comming from the yamaha, or is that a boss octave devider doing the job? thnx!

[iancollege]

Ian here, the lag you can hear on the conversion is because I've switched off the 'fast mode' of the AXON, ordinarily it's REALLY fast but I found it was too sensitive to producing notes when I was blanking strings with the left hand, mainly because I play so hard when I use this live, I need it a lot less sensitive so this 'fingerpicking mode' tends to ignore very very short blanked notes which is an advantage, and I can deal with the slight lag, no bother, a small price to pay!

[digitalreb]

Nice, I like 

[SoupySalesNmyFly]

Tite! :) I'd like to see other videos of midi experiments with this setup!

[capoman1]

There seems to be a tiny lag on the conversion. Very nice though. Great playing too!