CBG w. Amp Inside- Tips For Less Feedback Please?!!

[Glenn Kaiser]

Been messing w. this a bit- for busking, etc.. I already know positioning speaker far away from pickup, placement of sound-hole and the like, but any OTHER ideas outside of these to killing feedback? Thanks, -Glenn

[David L.]

Hi Glenn,

I have used onboard amps in a few of my previous box guitars and not had a problem so long as I used a magnetic pickup (piezo discs would feedback if the volume was cranked up so these never sounded much louder with the onboard amp than just playing acoustically).

I always avoided gluing the speaker to the soundboard and instead fixed them to the back of the box. I used to use a 3.5W amp module made by Kemo based on the LM386 that is used in the pocket sized Smokey Amp that gets the volume by overdriving the signal. Adding a preamp would give greater volume overall and also give more headroom for a clean sound before the overdrive sound kicked in.

The volume I obtained was okay for bedroom playing and gave a good electric guitar sound.  Not sure if it would be good enough for busking with background noise though.

On more recent CBGs I moved the speaker to the side so it faced me when I played.  These worked well.

[Glenn Kaiser]

David, big Thanks for your experience sharing. I have thought placing speaker on top side of box a good option. Will have a go at it with standard pup. Thx again!

-Glenn