Tuesday, April 1, 2014

Acoustic guitar pickup suggestions?




haydo_pota


Recently bought a handmade Engleman Spruce/Indian Rosewood OM-style hand made acoustic guitar. Didn't come with a pickup, bit clueless as to what to choose, though I know I don't want a preamp/EQ. Any suggestions?


Answer
You may not want one, but if you're playing live you will desperately want a preamp/EQ if you want to be heard. Now of course you don't want to cut a hole in your custom made guitar to install one, but they make outboard preamp/EQ units that can either be mounted on your strap or as an outboard unit between you and the PA or amplifier. Fishman makes a good one.

There are lots of pickup opportunities. Your basic Fishman under-saddle pickup will require installation by a tech, and even then you'll need the outboard EQ unit. The painful truth is that you will need a preamp/EQ no matter what you do. Sunrise makes a pickup system that is pretty excellent, which consists of a soundhole pickup combined with a small microphone on the inside of the guitar. A lot of professionals like Richard Thompson and Emmylou Harris use the Sunrise. It'll set you back about $200, but it's worth it. You may have to get a tech to install it - I would recommend it. Fishman and L.R. Baggs offer similar units which also sound pretty good.

But no matter what direction you go, there are two hard truths: you will need a preamp/EQ, and you will need to have someone help you install the pickup. You can, of course, always go with the soundhole pickups, like what Dean Markley and Seymour Duncan offer, but the sad truth is that those are just single-coil guitar pickups and they end up making your guitar sound like an electric guitar.

And whatever you do, I beg you, DO NOT GET ONE OF THOSE STICK-ON TRANSDUCERS. They sound perfectly miserable.

Good luck! Here's a link to some acoustic pickups.

http://www.musiciansfriend.com/home/navigation?q=acoustic+guitar+pickups

how does an acoustic electric guitar get it's sound?




Pebbles


I bought an acoustic electric guitar, and the pick up doesn't seem to be working. I checked the jack in, and there is power to it (sound when attaching to an amp). It does have a battery, but I replaced that, and still no sound. I took off the strings, and checked all the connections inside the guitar, everything is connected. So, I am not sure what to do next. How does the cord from the pickup get the sound from the strings on the guitar (acoustic guitar)?


Answer
There are a few different ways to have an acoustic/electric guitar functional. One is piezo pickups which is like a small microphone that can adhere internally or externally to your guitar. Another is a transducer which is typically found under the saddle of acoustic guitars. There are also soundhole pickups which functions like an electric guitars pickup but mounts in the soundhole and can be removed or installed quickly.
Both the Piezo pickup system and the transducer systems can have preamps, which is what that battery is for. Of course you need to check your battery which you did already. Check the cable next, make sure that there is signal. Then make sure your volume is up if it has a volume adjustment on it. If you don't get a signal, try wiggling the cable while its plugged in. If that doesn't work, it needs to be looked at. There could be a myriad of issues, electrical, dirty or a signal in general.




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