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Old 12-04-2017, 07:38 AM
martingitdave martingitdave is offline
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Join Date: Feb 2014
Location: Chicago
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Default “All pickups stink”

I thought that would get your attention... :-)

I have number of local and long distance friends and acquaintances who share my passion (obsession?) with pickups. We have collectively come to the conclusion that all pickups stink.

Now, this may not be a revelation for many of you. In fact, we have, collectively, been told the same by many folks. But, we have nonetheless tried (in vain) to find a pickup system that would provide top notch plugged in tone without degrading the instrument. Tone is subjective, but we have a fairly picky bunch of friends who run the gamut from casual users to gigs every night.

Allow me to disabuse you of the notion that there is a “unicorn” solution out there. There is no internal system that does it all and maintains your guitar’s responsiveness and acoustic volume.

“OK Dave, thanks for nothing. What are we supposed to do now?”

I see two options. And, our fearless leader in spirit, Doug Young, has been telling us this for a long time (we have thick skulls).

Option 1: dual source piezo and microphone systems. If you are using a stage guitar, and don’t care about acoustic sound, you can use one of the packaged systems with preamps, batteries, etc. If you care about acoustic sound, just buy Doug’s book. (Hint: passive pickup(s) and mics with outboard pre-amplification and blending.)

Option 2: passive piezo pickup and a pedal. Yes, you need a pedal. Sorry. There are two variations here too. Some folks like the analog preamp solution for their passive pickup. This works well, but only gives you what the pickup is capable of. In other words, EQ typically is best at taking away, not adding frequencies. The second option is IR convolution. Some call it modeling, imaging, etc. Essentially, it is a digital process that compares your pickup’s signal to a reference microphone, generating an algorithm, and processing your signal respectively. In English: it makes your pickup sound like a guitar amplified through a microphone. Some guitars include these systems from the factory. If you can find a guitar that sounds they way you want it to, and includes this system, more power to you. But, when the pickup eventually fails (they all do) you may be out of luck.

“Where’s the bandwagon?! Take my money!”

We are collectively exploring the IR path. I’ve settled on passive K&K pickups. We’re experimenting with the Zoom AC-2, TC Helicon Play Acoustic (not really modeling), Custom IR, Fishman Aura, and Tondexter. One of us, who actually makes a living at this, is also using the Fishman Matrix undersaddle for higher feedback resistance. Matrix and LB6, or similar hard material pickups do the least to degrade your acoustic tone. They also quack more and require careful processing.

“Huh? I thought you were going to use English?”

The short answer to all of this seems to be a K&K pickup and a Tonedexter. The K&K picks up the strings and the body. The Tondexter makes it sound like a Mic.

“But, we don’t like to do things the easy way. What fun would that be?” ;-)

Stay tuned for another week when we all change our minds and send the bandwagon off a cliff.
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Last edited by martingitdave; 12-04-2017 at 10:13 AM.
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