Electronics Question - Pickups too sensitive

[Dieppe]

This is a question that might be good for electronics or sound people. Some time ago I had the $200 dual mic pickups for my concertina. They worked great, though if I got too close to the monitor could give feedback. Somehow I accidentally ripped off one of the tiny mics though, and that was disheartening.

 

So I had an idea. I got a cheap guitar pickup with piezo pickups that stick inside. I drilled a hole in my Stagi (EC), because I'm not drilling holes in my antique concertinas! Installed the plug, put the pickups inside on both left and right. Honestly it all just barely fit. I figured one spot sort of on the front/top that didn't interfere with the reed blocks, and blank spots inside just barely with enough room to put each pickup on. The wires are long enough that I can extend the bellows without the pickups coming off.

 

I don't have a variable resistor on it (no room), but I can plug a 1/4" jack in and I'm ready to be amped! 

 

So the only problem is this. It's toooo sensitive! I can hear the bellows sound (just barely), but definitely hear clacking of my fingers on the buttons. The clickety-click can be turned down on the gain with a good sound person, but for the most part they never are.

 

My question is this. Would there be an easy way to lessen the clicky sounds on the pickup? A resistor or something? I don't have much more room in the Stagi to put a lot of equipment, and I don't really want to put something battery powered in there. (We find we have to open our concertinas far too often sometimes. If you play a lot, you know what I mean.)

Any electronic suggestions?  Thanks!

 

Patrick

[Steve Schulteis]

My opinion is that this is also an acoustics question and not just an electronics question. You might be able to use a filter circuit to reduce the unwanted noise (if its frequencies don't overlap with desirable noise), but it's far better to just not pick up those sounds at all. Being inside the box might make that tricky though. One thing to try is isolating the pickups from the box - concertinas don't produce their sound by vibrating a sound board, so there's no benefit to being in direct contact with the wood, which will transmit more button noise.

[ttonon]

Dieppe, I'm curious how much you like the sound from the surface piezo mics because the major part of the sound of a free reed comes from the pressure pulses the tongue vibration creates in the air, and little of the sound is transmitted by way of the wooden structure the reeds are mounted on. And since the piezos amplify the vibrations in the wooden structure, it's not too surprising that you hear so much mechanical noise. 

[Dieppe]

17 hours ago, Steve Schulteis said:

My opinion is that this is also an acoustics question and not just an electronics question. You might be able to use a filter circuit to reduce the unwanted noise (if its frequencies don't overlap with desirable noise), but it's far better to just not pick up those sounds at all. Being inside the box might make that tricky though. One thing to try is isolating the pickups from the box - concertinas don't produce their sound by vibrating a sound board, so there's no benefit to being in direct contact with the wood, which will transmit more button noise.

Yeah, I'm definitely getting sound from the sound board. I worry if I have mics in there all they will pick up is air, or maybe only sounds from one direction? I'll just have to look into it more I guess.

 

[AndyNT]

I think the piezo mics are the problem, as Ttonon said.

 

I've used small tie clip mics inside a melodeon bass end and got minimal button noise. But they do require a small pre amp circuit to boost the signal.

[Steve Schulteis]

20 minutes ago, Dieppe said:

Yeah, I'm definitely getting sound from the sound board. I worry if I have mics in there all they will pick up is air, or maybe only sounds from one direction? I'll just have to look into it more I guess.

 

There is no sound board. The wood in a concertina is not particularly involved in producing/transmitting/amplifying the sound. You can remove a reed from the concertina, pull air through it, and it will be pretty much just as loud.

 

I'm not sure what you mean by picking up "only sounds from one direction".

 

Rather than speculating what might happen, you should try it and see. The proof is in the pudding.

 

I agree with the others that piezo pickups are probably not ideal for your use case.

 

4 minutes ago, AndyNT said:

I've used small tie clip mics inside a melodeon bass end and got minimal button noise. But they do require a small pre amp circuit to boost the signal.

 

Did you have any issues with overdriving the mics? Any specific mics that work well?

[Steve Schulteis]

Dieppe, I'm curious to hear a recording of your current setup.

[gcoover]

A lot of Chemnitzers have internal microphones, suspended within the bellows by elastic bands (if I'm remembering correctly). Perhaps a Chemnitzer player can weigh in on how this might work in a much smaller concertina?

Gary

[AndyNT]

On 8/2/2025 at 6:21 PM, Steve Schulteis said:

Did you have any issues with overdriving the mics? Any specific mics that work well?

It was an experiment as I couldn't find Microvox mics to use with my anglo. They were just cheap ones from a local (UK) electronics supplier, which terminated in a 3.5.mm mono jack plug. I then used a jack/RCA adaptor to plug them directly into a spare Microvox pre-amp/psu with volume control. I attached them to my anglo just above the hand rest using neodynium magnets. 

No sound problems, with minimal action noise. However the magnets limited which concertina I could use them with.

 

I now use Myers Feather-2 mics, clipping them to the hand straps.

 

 

[Al.]

I would second the tie clip mic idea.  I got one with a built in preamp, from Amazon for amplifying my Bodhran for which it works very well. Piezo mics have a reputation for emphasising treble frequencies which will not help with your button clicks.