The Fishman Concertmaster Violin Pickup System:
The Fishman Concertmaster
The Concertmaster, developed by Fishman Transducers and Mimesis Pickups, is a major leap forward in violin amplification. A natural high fidelity sound, ease of use and versatility were major design considerations.
The system consists of the an injection moulded shoulder rest into which are built two preamps, for microphone and piezo bridge pickup, their associated input connectors, volume and balance controls, batteries and a standard ¼” output socket.
The Concertmaster fits easily and quickly to your acoustic violin, just like any shoulder rest, without compromising tone or playability. It is fully adjustable for height and width to ensure a comfortable playing position, and with a novel feature of the ability to lock or limit the amount of tilt when fitted to your violin.
The microphone is a high-quality hypercardioid design, which rejects feedback and brings out all the nuances of your instrument’s tone. The mic is mounted on a flexible mic arm, with a friction clutch at the connector end to enable fast and secure positioning. The mic arm unscrews from the shoulder rest when not in use.
The Fishman violin bridge pickup plugs straight into the shoulder rest via a Switchcraft minijack system. The bridge pickup can be easily unplugged and left on your violin when the Concertmaster is removed. The pickup preamp will also accept inputs from most other piezo type pickups.
Why two pickups?
Because two pickups gives you, the player, the best of both worlds and adds further options to improve and control your sound. As the preamps, power supply and controls are all built into the Concertmaster no outboard preamps (belt mount etc.) or phantom power for the mic are needed. You can just plug straight into a dedicated acoustic amp or PA system via a standard guitar lead. The preamps are close to the pickup and mic source, which gives much higher fidelity.
The balance control can be panned between the mic and the pickup to give either mic or pickup or any mix in between. Using the mic alone gives a high fidelity natural sound and, because of the feedback rejection of the mic design, excellent volume levels. Using just the pickup gives a tighter more focused sound at very high volume levels.
Using the balance control to mix some mic into the pickup signal opens up the sound, giving it a much more natural quality, while still at high volume levels if required. Use the mono lead option when using a wireless system.
Using a standard ¼” jack TRS stereo lead, and setting the balance control to all pickup, the mic and the pickup signals are split and taken down the output lead separately. With a Y lead or splitter box it is then possible to plug the mic into one channel of your amp or PA and the pickup into another. This gives you greater control over each signal with respect to volume and tone or equalisation (EQ) in sound engineer jargon. Just as important is the fact that you can route the signal in various ways. When playing with a rock band, or even solo playing, an on-stage monitor is often necessary. This is nothing more than your own small speaker system so you can hear yourself play. Microphones at high volume levels do not like to be pointed directly at a speaker or on-stage monitor as this causes the dreaded howl round or feedback. As on-stage monitors need to point at the player, this can cause problems when using a mic. Remember our split signals? Using a PA it is possible to eliminate the mic signal from the monitor and just have the bridge pickup (or just a small amount of mic if required). This eliminates all the feedback problems due to the mic and monitor interacting.
The signal will also be taken to the front of house (FOH) speaker system. This is the one the audience hear. The mic and the bridge pickup can be blended as desired to suit the concert situation. It may be that the audience will hear all mic through the FOH system and you, the player, all bridge pickup through your personal monitor. By splitting the signal you have the option.
Another important advantage is the ability to add effects such as reverb to the bridge pickup only and to use notch filters or even automatic feedback eliminators on the mic. Remember, you don’t HAVE to do this, but the option is there. For most small venues either solo or with other acoustic string instruments, using a mono guitar lead and mixing with the on board balance control is more than adequate. For larger audiences or playing with loud bands, eg with electric bass, drums, etc. the stereo option is a huge advantage.
| The bridge insert pickup element |
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| The microphone swan neck |
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| The pre-amp battery compartment |
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| The adjustable shoulder rest fittings |
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| The mixer controls |
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| Cable connection |
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