Installation Guide for EPA01 passive volume knob:
- Confirm you have the EPS001K pickup installed in your guitar, or have purchased it along with the EPA01 passive volume knob module. Note, earlier Journey instruments pickup modules, which do not have a socket on the back of the cable jack, are not upgradeable. See the graphic below – if there is heat shrink tube around the 3 wires going into the back of the cable jack, then you’ll need to upgrade your piezos to the EPA001K or other module like EP002, EP003, EP004) If the inside of the jack looks like (C) in this graphic, you need to upgrade to the EPA001.
- Once you confirm you have the upgradeable pickups, then upgrade very easily in this way:
- First select the optimal location for your volume knob around the sound hole. Place the volume knob in the area near the sound hole that does not bump into the bracing. This may be slightly off-center, but you want the wheel to be easily accessible using your thumb or finger while the strings are on the guitar.
- After you determine the volume knob location, then unplug the piezo wires from the back of the guitar plug jack, and plug this back into socket on the volume knob.
- Insert the male connector coming from the passive volume knob into the back of the pickup jack.
- Remove the adhesive from the back of the volume knob module and attach it to the soundboard with the volume wheel next to the soundhole.
- Use the 3M secure clips to secure the lose wire to the side of the guitar so it does not vibrate.
- If the connections are solid you should now be good to go.
Installation Guide for JourneyTek® Passive piezo pickups. (EP001K, EP002K, EP003K, EP004K)
Here’s a great video overview and a downloadable PDF document for guidance on how to install our passive piezo pickups. The video demonstrates installation for EP001K – our passive steelstring pickup with German-made piezos. The process is similar for EP002K, EP003K, and EP004K.
CLICK HERE FOR A COMPANION PDF MANUAL
Note For Ukulele Piezo Positioning: Most ukuleles have three fan braces as shown in the image below.
Position the two piezo elements of the EP003 pickup on either side of the center brace. Because of the size of most ukulele sound holes and the relative distance to the bridge plate, it is sometimes difficult to position the piezos on the bridge plate at the position (1). Alternatively you can position them in location (2). The attachment process is identical to that shown in the above video, with the exception that you will not be using a jig, but will rather hold the piezo in place with your finger until the glue dries.
FOR 12 STRING GUITARS:
Use the EP001K model and position the piezos in similar positions you would for a standard 6 string. Our piezos are wide enough to pick up the signal of all 12 strings with 3 piezo elements.
FOR CLASSICAL GUITARS AND PINLESS BRIDGES:
If you want to position directly under the saddle, or if you’re working with a pinless bridge, you can search on YouTube for “under bridge pickup instal on pinless bridge” and one of the top results show how you can drill into the saddle slot to use a jig for positioning the piezos on a pinless bridge.
For most classical guitar installations, however, our piezos fit perfectly along the bridge plate for most models, and we recommend you use one of these two configurations based on the spacing of the braces on your guitar.
Installation Guide for JourneyTek® EPS001 Dual Source Module
Notes for EPS001 Installation:
- Our very first version of the EPS001 had a design flaw in which the output cable and jack from the preamp module was mono, but should have been stereo. There were only a handful of these first versions, so it’s unlikely that your unit has this issue. To check, you can look at the wire that goes from the preamp “Out” socket to the guitar cable socket. This wire should be a stereo wire as shown as wire “A” (which features two black bands on the male connectors) in the picture below. If your wire has only one black band on the male connectors as shown in wire “B” then you need to replace this cable along with the guitar cable jack connector shown below. You must have a new guitar cable jack along with this internal cable. Simply reach out to us on our contact form and request for the cable and connector and provide us with your address and phone info, and we’ll send the replacements at no charge.
- If you have an earlier Journey Instruments guitar you’re looking to upgrade, you may need to replace the passive pickups in your instrument.To evaluate if your guitar’s pickup is the newest upgradeable version, you’ll need to get a mirror and a phone or flashlight to look into the sound hole. Position the mirror so that with the use of a flashlight or phone, you can clearly see the pickup connector on the inside of the guitar. You can even try to just use a cell phone by using the movie function with the light – if the focus is good enough, this will work as well.The newer upgradeable pickups will have a socket with a 2mm connector that you can remove from the back of the pickup jack. This connector can be removed and re-routed to the active pickup module for upgrade. The picture below shows these as type A (which have no sleeve), and type B (which have a sleeve); both of these can be unplugged and upgraded.The older non-upgradeable connectors (depicted below as type C) have heat-shrink tube where the connector jack and the 3 wires going to the under-saddle piezos connect. This pickup can’t be upgraded because the wires are soldered directly to the pickup connector
- If you’re upgrading to the EPS001-05K or EPS001-15K from the original EP001K, you must be sure to use the new socket provided with the EPS001-05K or EPS001-15K kit. It should look like B in the chart above. If you have an older pickup jack and try to route the “out” to this jack, it will have no signal.
