I mounted a K&K sound Big Twin internal transducer on a Raj Musicals sitar by Joël Van Roode (Alpacas Collective – Flugzeug Music Art Design). Since it is not always obvious to open a tabli, we chose to do an external mount. That is, the transducers are mounted on the outside (top) of the tabli. An advantage of this installation is that it is easy to look for an optimal positioning of the elements to obtain a good and balanced sound.

The disadvantage with this kind of rather simple set-up is that the jack connector connection is usually very sloppy and not very reliable. Therefore, I gave it some thought and opted to mount the jack connector on the taardaan (tailmount). This way, it is very firmly attached and there is also a very good grounding with the strings, which greatly reduces possible interference signals. The complete assembly is therefore relatively easy to do with this.

First, I drilled a hole in the taardaan and then drilled through into the tumba accordingly. Then a small hole was drilled in the tabli to route the wires to the connector.

Finally, the two transducers were glued in place, the retaining wires routed through the holes and soldered to the connector, the taardaan put back in place and the strings put back on. Done!

Here is the result. Joël is very happy with it!