Fishman NEO D for a Martin HD-28?

[tochiro]

Hello,

I have a Martin HD-28 (love it ) and want to play with it on stage. I do not want to modify the guitar in any way and am looking for an easy to install/remove pickup.

I wondered what you thought of the Fishman Neo D, the humbucker model or the single coil model. Anybody with experience with this pickup?

Is the lead going out of the guitar a problem (noisy?)?

Thank you for your help.

Cheers

[trpullen]

I prefer the M1Active from LR Baggs. I have used the Fishman ones. The Single Coil is very noisy. The cable gets in the way more than creating a noise problem.

[jyee]

i've got the neo-d single coil installed in an epiphone ej200... it does ok, but you'd be better stepping up to the rare earth or even better with the LR Baggs M1.

I'm curious why you don't want to have a pickup permanently installed. the way the neo-d, rare earth and M1 pickups all install into the sound hole, you need to have a small screwdriver to secure them... you'll spend quite a bit of time and risk far more damage to your guitar by constantly installing and removing them than you would if you just installed a good soundboard transducer. Contrary to what many people think, having a good pickup installed, particularly a soundboard transducer requires very little work and almost no modification to the guitar since many guitars have a hole in the end pin already. you'll also get a much better acoustic sound from a transducer than you will with a magnetic soundhole pickup.

[tochiro]

Thank you for your posts.

jyee,
The problem is that I am not much of a handyman (to say the least!) and would not like to modify my Martin which already has a hole where the end pin would normally be inserted.
What transducer would you recommend that would sound better than NEO D, would be really easy to install and would not cost too much?

Cheers

[jyee]

i've got the b-band AST in my taylor... it was extremely easy to install. Most soundboard transducers are like stickers, just peel the wax paper and stick 'em onto the underside of the bridge.

Here's K&K's page... they use 3 transducers whereas the b-band is just one large rectangular one. K&K also has a vintage endpin that fits into a standard endpin hole and is smaller than a normal jack.
http://www.kksound.com/purewestern.html
here's the installation page. it looks long, but that's only because it's extremely detailed and thorough:
http://www.kksound.com/jig.html
if you need to enlarge the hole for a standard jack, many guitar shops will do it for a couple bucks or for free since it's simple and fast.