http://www.uli-boesking.de/rebo/
rebo@uli-boesking.de

Features:

• A two-piece electromagnetic humbucking pickup.

• Freely adjustable.

• Allows adjustment to the individuallities of the instrument like form of bridge and position of strings.

• Very low risk of feedbacks (means: sympathetic feedback like on electric guitar - absolutely no nasty piezo feedbacks).

• Does not touch neither bridge nor body of the instrument:

• Does not prejudice the acoustic quality of a traditional instrument.

• The system delivers an output signal that can be processed by conventional musical instrument amplifiers and effect pedals on one hand, and on the other hand by mid- impedance line inputs of mixing consoles or soundchips .

• The pickup delivers a substantial balanced sound without preamplification and equalization. • Finger and bow noises are reduced to a minimum.

• The pickup allows silent playing with a strong mute and at the same time listening at high volume through headphones.

• Installation on traditional, semiacoustic and solidbody instruments possible.

• Perfect for all musical styles: Classical-, Folk-, Jazz- music, Metal …

Violin data:

Output Voltage
Violin: 25 mV RMS, 100 mV peak
Viola: 30 mV RMS, 120 mV peak

DC resistance 8 kOhm

"Some time ago I had a job as a stage musician at a german opera house for a modern dance theatre piece. I had to play wireless because I had to move about on stage. My instrument had to sound in turn "classically", without any amplification, and on PA with a lot of overdrive and effects. I could not change instruments.

I could not use the piezo bridge I was accustomed to for 20 years, because the piezo is built into the G-string part of the bridge, which results in an audibly muted acoustic sound. With a clamp-on microphone the risk of feedbacks was too high.

Todays most pickup systems for string instruments are attached to the bridge, the soundpost or the body, which will always result in a muted instrument.

My idea of a solution was a magnetic pickup, which touches neither body nor bridge of my instrument. A one-piece, fingerboard-shaped pickup was the emergency measure in these days. Unfortunately with such an unflexible system the output of the strings is not balanced.

The shape of the bridge and the resulting position of the strings vary. With a one-piece, fingerboard-shaped electromagnetic pickup the position of the strings defines the distance to the magnetic coils and this way the amplified volume of the strings. With such a model the G-string has the lowest output, the other strings are gradually louder.

Every violinist, viola player, cellist or doublebass player who amplifies his instrument, has an individual conception of its electric sound. So an adjustible electromagnetic pickup is desirable. With the REBO we have fulfilled this desire."

U. Bösking, 2005