TRANCE AUDIO Amulet True-Stereo Guitar Pickup System Owner’s Manual

TRANCE AUDIO Amulet True-Stereo Guitar Pickup System

Warranty

This warranty covers all defects in materials and workmanship for a period of one year from the date of purchase by the original owner. Cases may arise where our Service Department or one of Trance Audio’s authorized service centers will ask for a copy of your sales receipt to facilitate warranty service. Please keep your purchase receipt in a safe place.
Trance Audio does not cover:

•  Damages due to improper or inadequate maintenance, accident, abuse, misuse, alteration, unauthorized repairs, tampering, or failure to follow normal operating procedures as outlined in the ownerʼs manual.

•  Deterioration or damage of the cabinet.

•  Damages occurring during any shipment of the product for any reason.

•  Any product that has been modified by anyone other than Trance Audio, Inc. Limitation of Implied Warranties No warranty is expressed or implied. Trance Audio specifically disclaims the implied warranties of merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose.

• Exclusion of Certain Damages
  Trance Audioʼs liability for a product found defective is limited to repair or replacement of the unit, at our option. In no event shall Trance Audio be liable for damages based on inconvenience, whether incidental or consequential, loss of use of the unit, loss of time, interrupted operation or commercial loss, or any other consequential damages. Some states do not allow limitation of the duration of implied warranties or the exclusion or limitation of incidental or consequential damages, so the above limitations and exclusions may not apply to you.

• How To Obtain Warranty Service
  All Trance Audio products are manufactured with the highest standards of quality. If you find that your transducer or preamp does require service, it may be done by an authorized Trance Audio service center. Please contact Trance Audio at 831-688-9699. We will either refer you to an authorized service center or ask that you return your transducer or preamp to the factory. When returning a product to the factory, you will be issued a Return Authorization number. Please label all cartons, shipping documents and correspondence with this number.

THE AMULET™

First of all, thanks for purchasing what we feel is the finest acoustic guitar pickup system available today. As you use your Amulet, we’re quite sure you’ll feel the same way. The Amulet system is designed to be the perfect compliment to the Acoustic Lens transducers. The Acoustic Lens delivers crispness and accuracy, coupled with incredible warmth and presence. The Amulet preamp system perfectly complements this incredible transducer. Super-wide dynamic range, low distortion and low noise were the primary design goals behind the Amulet preamp. Stereo pickups allow you to adjust the bass and treble balance of your guitar without using any EQ whatsoever. Together, the Acoustic Lens and Amulet system let you hear your acoustic guitar as you’ve never heard it before. The Amulet system consists of 3 primary components:

•  Acoustic Lens Transducers

•  Stereo Preamp (inside the guitar)

•  External Controller (blue box)
  The on-board stereo preamp is designed to perfectly compliment the Acoustic Lens’ unique requirements and to amplify the low level signals from the pickup as soon as possible. The stereo signal that leaves your guitar through the special five-pin cable is high level, low impedance, and most of all, high quality. The Amulet external controller supplies power to the in-guitar preamp and provides a platform for the stereo outputs and volume control. The output signal presented to your mixer or power amp is the true sound of your guitar, in microscopic wondrous detail. From here, the signal can be routed to a mixer, effect unit or power amplifier, and then to a high quality speaker system. Our goal at Trance Audio is to further state-of-the-art, acoustic guitar music. The Amulet provides the true sound of your acoustic guitar and is designed to interface easily with any audio device

• Acoustic Lens
  Acoustic Lens pickups are mounted with a special adhesive to the underside of the soundboard – one for the bass strings and one for the treble strings. Adjusting the relative volume of the two pickups adjusts the bass and treble balance without the use of EQ!

• Internal Stereo Preamp
  Attaches inside the body of the guitar with Velcro. The audiophile direct coupled stereo preamp boosts the signal to a higher level and outputs a low impedance signal which is much more resistant to noise and hum.

• Endpin Jack & Cable
  A custom endpin with a five-pin jack provides balanced power to the internal preamp and carries the two audio channels back to the interface module through a high-quality Mogami™ cable. The cable lies flat on the floor and preserves the integrity of the audio signal. Because the cables are polarized (just like microphone cables) you can connect two or more of them together without adapters to increase your cable length. Because the signal is low impedance, you can use extremely long cables lengths if you wish, without any loss of signal quality.

• Amulet External Controller
  The external controller (blue box) supplies power to the internal preamp from two nine-volt batteries or an AC adapter and provides the final gain boost to bring the signal up to line level. Its small design allows it to fit easily into most guitar cases. The stereo outputs have a maximum output of +16 dBu. Connect these outputs to the channel inputs of the mixing board, to the inputs of an equalizer or effect unit, or directly to the inputs of the power amplifier.

  •  Plug into the Left/Mono output when connecting the Amulet in mono. The two pickups will be internally summed.
  •  Plug into both outputs when connecting the Amulet in stereo. Each output will carry the signal of one pickup.

• Amulet Low Cut Filter (inside the external controller)
  The low cut filter can be turned on and off via the small slide switch located inside the external controller at the top left of the battery clips. When the switch is in the forward position (towards the volume knob), the low cut filter is off and the output of the system is unaffected and full-range. When the switch is in the back position (towards the output jacks), a very high quality low cut filter is activated to limit the extreme low end of the system (below 40 Hz). Although the extreme low end response of the Acoustic Lens pickups can add impact and sensitivity to larger speaker systems, this may overpower smaller speakers and amplifiers, as can playing very percussively around the bridge where the pickups are mounted. This filter has been carefully engineered to leave the low end response of your guitar intact, even when tuned to far below mormal pitch. Try both positions to determine which will best suit your playing style and amplification rig.

CONTROLS

Guitar Jack
Connects to the Amulet guitar cable. The locking connector prevents it from being accidentally disconnected.
Volume Control
The volume control is specially tapered to give you the two ranges of gain control. The signal level can be varied from Off to greater than +16 dB. Itʼs always a good idea to lower the volume all the way when plugging or unplugging your guitar cord in order to protect your speakers.
Battery/Power Indicator & Check Switch
The battery/power indicator glows red when power is applied via the AC adapter. This LED also functions as a battery check indicator when a standard mono plug is inserted into the Left/Mono output. The plug insertion is a safeguard to prevent the button from being inadvertently pressed while the Amulet is in your guitar case and possibly draining the batteries.
To check the condition of the two nine-volt batteries: Insert a plug into the Left/Mono output and press the battery check switch. If the LED lights Green, the batteries are OK. The LED will gradually dim as the batteries weaken. When the LED doesnʼt light at all, the batteries need to be replaced. Although the Amulet will still work with weak batteries, it may distort and will not be able to reproduce peak transients produced by your guitar.

12 VAC Power Input

The supplied 12 volt AC adapter allows the Amulet to be used without batteries. When the AC adapter is being used, the front panel LED will light red to indicate power is applied to the unit. Important Adapter Info for Non-U.S. Customers The adapter supplied with the Amulet system runs on 110v. If you buy another adapter locally, it needs to have an output of  12 Volts AC. The AC part is important; many adapters have aDC output, and these will not work with the Amulet. The current output capability (usually expressed in millamps or ma) should be 200 ma or higher (higher current capability is fine, it just makes the adapter physically larger). The plug that goes into the Amulet is a standard power plug with a 2.1mm internal connection.
Audio Output Jacks
The audio outputs are unbalanced mono jacks. Use both jacks when connecting in stereo or the left jack only for a monophonic equal mix of both pickups. Turn the volume DOWN on your mixer or amplifier when plugging or unplugging the input or output cables to protect your speakers from damage. Always unplug the left/mono plug when the Amulet is not in use to avoid unnecessarily draining your batteries.

CONNECTING TO A STEREO MIXER

When you connect the Amulet to a high quality, stereo sound system, you gain several benefits. First, you have separate tone controls, volume controls and panning for each pickup. This allows you to “fine tune” your sound and allows you to position each pickup in the stereo field. Panning the pickups apart creates an almost “threedimensional” stereo effect which changes as you play. A good place to start is by panning the pickups to the 10 oʼclock and 2 oʼclock positions in the stereo field. Furthermore, by adjusting the relative volumes of the two pickups, you can adjust the bass and treble balance of the guitar without the use of EQ! Yet another benefit of using a mixer is that you can connect an effects device to the mixer using the effects send and returns. This helps keep any noise generated by the effect to a minimum.

CONNECTING TO A HOME STEREO SYSTEM

You can also use a home stereo setup for a sound system, provided that the speakers are designed for heavy duty use. Guitar playing can be hard on ordinary stereo speakers (especially using the Amulet system, since it is designed to deliver every bit of energy to the amplifier). If your stereo speakers flap wildly and make horrible grinding noises whenever you strum hard…TURN IT DOWN. With this setup, each pickup will be separately amplified and output from a separate speaker. Recording Because the output of the Amulet is so natural and lifelike, plugging directly into a tape or digital recording system will yield very pleasing results. You can use the mono output or record the left and right outputs separately so you can treat them independently in your final mixdown.

CONNECTING TO A POWER AMP AND EFFECT UNIT

If you donʼt have a mixer, you can plug the Amulet outputs directly to a stereo effect unit and then to the power amp. A stereo equalizer can also be used if desired.

1.  Connect the system as shown above, but leave the amplifier turned Off. Turn up the Amulet volume while playing the guitar and watch the level meter on the effect unit. The meter should peak only on the hardest playing.
2.  Turn off the effect unit and connect to the power amp. Turn the volume controls on the amplifier all the way down. Turn on the effect unit, then the amp. A good rule of thumb: Always turn the amplifier ON LAST and OFF FIRST.
3. Slowly turn up the volume of the amplifier while playing to find the optimum volume level. Enjoy!

CHANGING THE BATTERIES

The Amulet can run for up to 50 hours on a pair of standard nine-volt alkaline batteries contained in the external controller (blue box). When the battery check LED fails to light with the output jack plugged in, itʼs time to change batteries.

•  To Change the Batteries:

  • Unscrew the phillips-head screws from both sides of the Amulet external controller. The top lifts off.
  •  Using your thumbs, push the battery away from the battery clips to remove, and then replace. If the battery clip connections seem loose, you can gently tighten them with needle-nose pliers.

• ADJUSTING THE PREAMP GAIN
  The preamp gain is pre-adjusted for two Acoustic Lenses. If you are using two different pickups, or if you have several guitars using the Amulet system, you might want to adjust the gain of one or both channels of the preamp. Match the gain of both channels so that the string volume sounds balanced when the mono output is used.

• To Adjust the Preamp Gain:

  •  Unscrew the phillips-head screws from both sides of the Internal Preamp module. The top lifts off.
  •  There are four trimmers inside the preamp. The trimmers are small volume controls that you adjust with a small screwdriver. The diagram below shows how the trimmers should be set for various pickup types.

References

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