The mission: Try as many pickups on as many on as many stringed instruments (mandolins, acoustic guitars, banjos and you-name-it) as I can.
The time schedule: Unlimited. This is a never-ending project, and I'll keep testing and posting new combinations whenever I can.
The test objects: A rag-tag collection of boxes with strings on (most of them rather inexpensive, and almost all of them a little bit weird in one way or another) and a number of (mostly relatively inexpensive) stringed instrument microphones and transducers.
The environment: most of the tests I'm doing at home, some are experiences from various gigs.
The test equipment
The live test have been done in various conditions with different setups.
For the tests I do at home I use a Yamaha MG16/6Fx mixer and a Yamaha MSR100 powered speaker. I've also occasionally done some tests through a Yamaha GA-10 mini-gutar amplifier, but I'm not sure if I'll post these here, since they may not be that relevant.For the home tests I use no effects and try to keep all equalizers and tone controls flat. There are lots of things that can be done to pretty up the sound on any pickup, but what I want to know is how it sounds without cosmetics.
Live I do whatever necessary to optimize the result of course.
Since there's no way I can try permanent installments of all these pickups on all those instruments, I'm using a lot of tape and "piezo transducer putty". This does effect the sound of course, but I'm trying my best to take that into account.