Best acoustic pickup?

Talk about your Burstbuckers and Seymour Duncans....

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mr_sooty
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Best acoustic pickup?

Post by mr_sooty »

In my quest for the perfect acoustic guitar....well at least one that sits right with me in terms of tone/budget ratio, I've found a very nice all solid mahogany short scale Alvarez parlour to give me lovely tone at a ridiculously low price. But it has no pickup. Actually this is one of the things I like about it, because a lot of the guitars I've liked acoustically have had pickups I didn't like, and when they have a great big hole cut in the side for a preamp, it's hard to modify. So I need to find the best pickup I can to capture the natural sound of the guitar as much as possible at a decent volume.

I'm impressed with the Fishman Aura+ pickup system on the Martin Retros, but the guitars don't do enough for me to justify forking out $4K plus (or even the wholesale price). I really liked the LR Baggs Element on the Gibson Keb Mo.....I really liked that whole guitar actually, but 4K is a bit of a stretch and I can't get that one on wholesale. I also like the idea of a dual source pickup rather than a straight peizo, although the Element did sound bloody good on it's own. I have a K&K on my Dreadnought but I find it very boomy and there's no control at all. At the moment the front runners are LR Baggs Anthem, LR Baggs Element, or Fishman Elipse Blend. The Fishman is the most expensive, but I can get it at wholesale, the Baggs stuff I can't, because they're Rockshop exclusive nowadays. (Unless someone from RS wants to hook me up!).

Who's used these pickups, and what did you think?

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Re: Best acoustic pickup?

Post by SimonHirst »

I have a fishman Infinite I think it is in my D35. It sounds great. Very clear and I hardly EQ at the desk. Two small controls are mounted in soundhole so no modifying required and I never touch them. I put a Baggs in my Dads Lowden and I think it would be best described as very natural. Was a bit boomy and lacked a bit of clarity when set flat but sounded ok with a bit of time spent EQing at the desk. Some of that boom will just be due to that fact that it's a jumbo.
Last edited by SimonHirst on Wed Apr 01, 2015 6:21 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Best acoustic pickup?

Post by rickenbackerkid »

I've tried darn near everything and settled on the Baggs Lyric. It's a mic that sticks onto the bridge plate.

The Anthem is similar, but you can blend in a undersaddle as well.
I'm not a fan of undersaddle pickups so I didn't bother paying about extra for it, but I probably should have.

That downside to the mic-only lyric is that it tends to feedback easier than a piezo pickup. It would nice to have both, so you can use the UST if the mic won’t work. But mine has been fine at every gig, in church bands, acoustic stuff, recording and so on.

I also use the Bagg M1a for slide guitar. great products.
Last edited by rickenbackerkid on Wed Apr 01, 2015 6:23 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Best acoustic pickup?

Post by rickenbackerkid »

Some clips of my Lyrics (I have 3) :

https://soundcloud.com/ben-brunskill/acoustic-3-ways - strummed part is the Lyric with no EQ

https://soundcloud.com/ben-brunskill/decision - all acoustic guitars are the Lyric

https://soundcloud.com/ben-brunskill/lyric - strummed part is Lyric, Lead is a SDC mic

https://soundcloud.com/this-little-orch ... nging-tree - Live clip, Gibson LG0 with Lyric pickup

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Re: Best acoustic pickup?

Post by Slowy »

Sunrise
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Re: Best acoustic pickup?

Post by rickenbackerkid »

Sounds good, but doesn't really sound like an acoustic guitar, going from clips. Sort of fat and slightly metalic like most sound hole pickups. Actually one sound hole that kills is the Seymour Duncan Magmic.

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Re: Best acoustic pickup?

Post by robnobcorncob »

Pros and Cons:

Sunrise: Metallic sounding yes, killer on Weissenborn/Hollow neck. If you play roundneck/fingerstyle ('Normal acoustic guitar') it sounds best if you blend it with something else like a K&K or perhaps a Lyric like Ben Suggested (Michael Hedges blended his with a K&K and a FRAPP I believe, or was it an Amulet?). The Sunrise is expensive when you consider the technology and it is physically heavy, passive and you will need an external preamp with +20db of gain to give your soundguy (or guitar amp) any usable signal. I have used a DTar Equinox preamp for this purpose with great results.

Seymour Duncan Magmic: These are great. These were designed to be a Sunrise but in Humbucker form with a built in condenser microphone. 2x internal preamps (one for mic, one for magnetic) and can run on either 9volt battery on the inside of your guitar OR watch style battery on the underside of the pickup. Readily available and not hard to install. Sounds great and without the metallic harshness of the Sunrise.

DTar Wavelength multi-source: Piezo undersaddle and condenser microphone. 2x AA batteries on board. Soundhole controls are master volume and mix. Preamp unit itself is connected to the jack input on the guitar (but on the inside of the guitar so you can't access it. It's only controls are mini pots for bass and treble adjustment). Sounds great and easy to control in a live situation. Have used many times with great results.

L.R Baggs Anthem: Similar to DTar Wavelength, Anthem has mini-jack plugs to connect different parts of the assembly together and these can be troublesome if the connections give up on you (especially during a gig!).

L.R. Baggs M80 soundhole magnetic pickup. These sound killer. Very 'natural' sounding and they don't really sound at all like a soundhole/magnetic pickup. Sounds great in my old Kalamazoo.

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Re: Best acoustic pickup?

Post by Vince »

bbrunskill wrote:Some clips of my Lyrics (I have 3) :

https://soundcloud.com/ben-brunskill/decision - all acoustic guitars are the Lyric
That's awesome. Great sound!
"Vince, have you ever tried playing an expensive bass?" - Polarbear.
"And isn't that the finest acoustic bass guitar feedback solo you've ever heard?" - Billy Moose.

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Re: Best acoustic pickup?

Post by Starfire »

bbrunskill wrote:Some clips of my Lyrics (I have 3) :

https://soundcloud.com/ben-brunskill/acoustic-3-ways - strummed part is the Lyric with no EQ

https://soundcloud.com/ben-brunskill/decision - all acoustic guitars are the Lyric

https://soundcloud.com/ben-brunskill/lyric - strummed part is Lyric, Lead is a SDC mic

https://soundcloud.com/this-little-orch ... nging-tree - Live clip, Gibson LG0 with Lyric pickup
These sound excellent. :thumbup:

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Re: Best acoustic pickup?

Post by MattH »

Ace sound Ben! Impressed!

Well, for my money I'd say it depends entirely on your playing style - more so than the guitar to be honest.

I've got a Lyric in a Simon & Patrick dread, an iBeam in a Yairi dread and a Fishman Matrix in a Martin 00.

They all behave very differently.

Plugged in, the Martin (with the Matrix) is a good solid plug and play, with a good, high signal. Easy to control, no feedback - best for playing with the band.
The Simon and Patrick (with the Lyric) is OK, but lacks signal. Not bad for finger picking or strumming, but just a bit quiet.
The Yairi (with the iBeam) is the most natural sounding of the lot. Absolutely glorious sound. I played it onstage last weekend and got nothing but compliments about the sound, so it's not just me. It's a phenomenally warm and round sound. Not much cop if I'm giving the guitar too much of a beating though - very sensitive to the kind of stuff. If I'm really being picky, lacks a bit of mid range, but it's fairly reflective of the guitar.

I think you've got the right idea with a dual source system. I've been thinking of putting an iBeam in the Martin but keeping the Matrix, grabbing a stereo jack and mixing the two with an outboard preamp (I have a Headway that's ace), so I can have the best of both worlds. Not off the shelf, but could be a go-er.

Interested to see what you go for. Keep us in the loop.
All the gear... absolutely no idea...

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Re: Best acoustic pickup?

Post by Slowy »

bbrunskill wrote:Sounds good, but doesn't really sound like an acoustic guitar, going from clips. Sort of fat and slightly metalic like most sound hole pickups. Actually one sound hole that kills is the Seymour Duncan Magmic.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U3DS6xglAfQ[/youtube]
Beyond a critical point within a finite space, freedom diminishes as numbers increase. This is as true of humans as it is of gas molecules in a sealed flask. The human question is not how many can possibly survive within the system, but what kind of existence is possible for those who so survive.

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Re: Best acoustic pickup?

Post by mr_sooty »

Hmm, the Mag Mic sounds interesting, but I'm not sure I want a sound hole pick-up. Leaning towards the wavelength multi source just because I can get hold of one easily. Don't understand why they'd bother having bass and treble controls that are completely inaccessible though? Even if you decide you need to adjust them how the heck are you supposed to do that?

What I don't like about the anthem is that the blend control needs a screw driver. I want to be able to adjust the blend easily, because there are some live situations where the peizo is just the best option.

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Re: Best acoustic pickup?

Post by rickenbackerkid »

slowfingers wrote:
bbrunskill wrote:Sounds good, but doesn't really sound like an acoustic guitar, going from clips. Sort of fat and slightly metalic like most sound hole pickups. Actually one sound hole that kills is the Seymour Duncan Magmic.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U3DS6xglAfQ[/youtube]
Precisely my point. That’s a nice sound by anyone’s book, but it’s not a purely acoustic sound, in my opinion. What a player though . . .

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Re: Best acoustic pickup?

Post by rickenbackerkid »

Cam, I think as long as what ever you get has a mic as part of it, you’ll be winning.

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Re: Best acoustic pickup?

Post by mr_sooty »

Yeah dual source with a Mic is what I'm after, I want a blendable Mic piezo system that I can switch between easily.

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