Soundhole pickups

shufflebeat

thomasw88 said:

shufflebeat said:

...the Monotone offering...

...the monotone...

To clarify - the spoolchucker decided to rebrand the Mojotone (just tried to do it again) - my fault for not checking.

Soupman

@thomasw88 I use an LR Baggs m1a, but you can get a separate jack for a second guitar, then just unplug the cable from the pickup, remove the pickup & insert it into the other guitar & connect new plug. Job done.

thomasw88

Soupman said:

@thomasw88 I use an LR Baggs m1a, but you can get a separate jack for a second guitar, then just unplug the cable from the pickup, remove the pickup & insert it into the other guitar & connect new plug. Job done.

Yeah that's what I'm  going to do  in the short term anyway.
  I  use a Tanglewood TW15ns in the house for teaching but rarely gig with it and that has a Takemine Triax (rebadged M1a) so I'll probably rip that out and put it into the current gigging guitar (simon & patrick) and put the  M80 in the Yamaha.. See how that feels.

Therre is a LR baggs element lying around in another guitar as well but I never really use that one.

guitarjack66

Are there any pick ups where you can basically pick up and go? (No pun intended. Well maybe a little.' What I mean is that most seem to involve a lot of fiddling but arent there any plug and play type things?

thomasw88

guitarjack66 said:

Are there any pick ups where you can basically pick up and go? (No pun intended. Well maybe a little.' What I mean is that most seem to involve a lot of fiddling but arent there any plug and play type things?

mic n mic stand??
Singer I play with uses a couple of mics like that.  To be fair it sounds great solo, but in a band situation probably wouldn't work.

Lestratcaster

guitarjack66 said:

Are there any pick ups where you can basically pick up and go? (No pun intended. Well maybe a little.' What I mean is that most seem to involve a lot of fiddling but arent there any plug and play type things?

I got an Irig Acoustic stage as a backup/spare to my Schertler AG6. Its pretty decent and gives a natural sound. The mic is in the shape of a plectrum which simply clips into the soundhole edge on your guitar. Then you plug a guitar cable from the active box thing to wherever you need it. I've used it a few times and it does the job with very little hassle.

ICBM

guitarjack66 said:

Are there any pick ups where you can basically pick up and go? (No pun intended. Well maybe a little.' What I mean is that most seem to involve a lot of fiddling but arent there any plug and play type things?

Seymour Duncan Woody. Doesn't sound brilliant, but OK. Requires no tools to fit and you just need to plug it into a DI box.

guitarjack66

Lestratcaster said:

guitarjack66 said:

Are there any pick ups where you can basically pick up and go? (No pun intended. Well maybe a little.' What I mean is that most seem to involve a lot of fiddling but arent there any plug and play type things?

I got an Irig Acoustic stage as a backup/spare to my Schertler AG6. Its pretty decent and gives a natural sound. The mic is in the shape of a plectrum which simply clips into the soundhole edge on your guitar. Then you plug a guitar cable from the active box thing to wherever you need it. I've used it a few times and it does the job with very little hassle.

That's an interesting concept. The idea of having to get hands inside a soundhole and glue or screw tiny mics and things in difficult places seems like a pain.

Lestratcaster

guitarjack66 said:

Lestratcaster said:

guitarjack66 said:

Are there any pick ups where you can basically pick up and go? (No pun intended. Well maybe a little.' What I mean is that most seem to involve a lot of fiddling but arent there any plug and play type things?

I got an Irig Acoustic stage as a backup/spare to my Schertler AG6. Its pretty decent and gives a natural sound. The mic is in the shape of a plectrum which simply clips into the soundhole edge on your guitar. Then you plug a guitar cable from the active box thing to wherever you need it. I've used it a few times and it does the job with very little hassle.

That's an interesting concept. The idea of having to get hands inside a soundhole and glue or screw tiny mics and things in difficult places seems like a pain.

Yeah its very quick and easy and you can swap it between guitars in seconds. All this gluing and screwing with some installations puts me off getting them as I don't want to modify the acoustic too much.

Lewy

Supportact said:

Depends for me. If i know I've got plenty of time for a proper soundcheck, i know the venue, i know the engineer etc, then I'll use an undersaddle pickup with a Fishman Aura Spectrum pedal and an eq. But that can sound worse through different PAs/different rooms etc and can take a while to dial in.

The soundhole pickup i use for other occasions (most of them) because I know I can get a good usable sound with minimal faff, and less chance of feedback. Which is all i need really. 

That’s the nub of it all. Lloyd Baggs framed it best when I heard him talking about walking down a street in Nashville and hearing so many amazing players using less than stunning plugged in sounds and essentially it boils down to the trade off between what he called “fidelity” (ie sounding like an acoustic) and “stability”. There’s how good your gear can sound, and then there’s how good it is realistically going to sound on the specific gig given sound check time, pa etc Most approaches to introducing fidelity also introduce instability and sometimes it’s not worth it. I definitely found that when trying to make a Baggs Lyric work for me playing lots in London with uninterested/incompetent venue sound people!

ICBM

Lewy said:

That’s the nub if it all. Lloyd Baggs framed it best when I heard him talking about walking down a street in Nashville and hearing so many amazing players using less than stunning plugged in sounds and essentially it boils down to the trade off between what he called “fidelity” (ie sounding like an acoustic) and “stability”. There’s how good your gear can sound, and then there’s how good it is realistically going to sound on the specific gig given sound check time, pa etc Most approaches to introducing fidelity also introduce instability and sometimes it’s not worth it. I definitely found that when trying to make a Baggs Lyric work for me playing lots in London with uninterested/incompetent venue sound people!

I found that with the Fishman Aura Spectrum too - set right, with the PA set right, it sounded magically like a mic'ed guitar. Set wrong, or with the PA set wrong, it sounded awful. Since I was mostly going to be using it at the sort of gigs where you usually don't know the sound engineer, don't get much of a soundcheck, and often can't even hear your own sound properly on stage, I felt it was more of a liability than an asset.

I'm now using a Boss AD-8, which is significantly further towards 'stability' than 'fidelity' - but most importantly, still removes the piezo boom/buzz and sounds at least something like a mic'ed acoustic.