Pickup for my new CEO-7

[Goat Mick]

When I bought my CEO-7 a couple of weeks ago, I installed a Baggs Lyric immediately as this was going to be my "nice" guitar. No overly noisy / high volume environments, basically for listening rooms, recording, TV, radio, etc., and I just wanted a good pure acoustic tone that I could plug straight in and go. I don't like fiddling with preamps and such if I can get away from it. I played a small gig with it last Friday and had a hard time working around the "woofy" sound I was getting from standing close to my amp. Went to see some friends play a medium sized outdoor gig last night and they asked me to do a song so I used my friend's Gibson AJ (awesome guitar!) that has a Lyric installed. I played through their PA and didn't tweak anything and while his wasn't as "woofy" the top end was still very bright and I didn't feel like it reproduced the beautiful full sound of his Gibson. So now I'm thinking that a Lyric isn't the best pickup for me. This morning I compared my CEO-7 with my LG-2 that has a Baggs M1 passive, my Taylor 710 with a JJB Prestige 330, my J-45 with a K&K Mini and I really didn't hear the sound I wanted for my CEO-7. All running through the Loudbox Mini I keep in my office/garage/shop/ man cave for testing such things. The M1 sounded overall best but I know I don't want to use a soundhole pickup for the CEO-7. So that got me thinking of other options like a Schatten or something of that nature that I haven't tried before.

So hit me with suggestions for something that isn't a soundhole pickup and is minimally invasive installation, and if I'm going to be greedy passive would be nice too. I want something sounds good straight to my Fishman amps so I don't have to use a preamp at every gig.

[RogerPease]

James May Engineering Ultra Tonic pickup. Full stop.

Lightweight, minimal impact to your “nice” guitar. No batteries or many wires and goop inside your guitar.
Much more feedback resistant than other SBT pickups.
Is adjustable during install to reduce woofy-ness.
Has volume wheel, too, if you like that.
James May himself is very responsive and will help you or your tech.

It is a little more work to install and adjust (have it done), but that’s a one and done.
And instructions on the website are very complete.
It is a passive pickup so it needs a high impedance input. Some mixer inputs may not be high enough.
If you play a lot of open mics you may need to bring a simple preamp or buffer to have a known good input.
If you only play into dedicated acoustic amps and/or PAs with high impedance you will have no problem.

I have a CEO7 with a K&K Mini in it. It was so woofy I named it “Boomer”.
I added the Ultra Tonic conversion kit and it was cured like magic.
If I had it to do over I’d just start with the full Ultra Tonic pickup. Much simpler and cheaper, too.

The CEO7 is a very resonant guitar being small but with a lot of bass.
So I suspect it is prone to sounding woofy with a pickup.
Seems like the Ultra Tonic is made/perfect for the CEO7.

Just one person’s experience. Hope this helps,

_Roger

[Goat Mick]

Originally Posted by RogerPease

James May Engineering Ultra Tonic pickup. Full stop.

Lightweight, minimal impact to your “nice” guitar. No batteries or many wires and goop inside your guitar.
Much more feedback resistant than other SBT pickups.
Is adjustable during install to reduce woofy-ness.
Has volume wheel, too, if you like that.
James May himself is very responsive and will help you or your tech.

It is a little more work to install and adjust (have it done), but that’s a one and done.
And instructions on the website are very complete.
It is a passive pickup so it needs a high impedance input. Some mixer inputs may not be high enough.
If you play a lot of open mics you may need to bring a simple preamp or buffer to have a known good input.
If you only play into dedicated acoustic amps and/or PAs with high impedance you will have no problem.

I have a CEO7 with a K&K Mini in it. It was so woofy I named it “Boomer”.
I added the Ultra Tonic conversion kit and it was cured like magic.
If I had it to do over I’d just start with the full Ultra Tonic pickup. Much simpler and cheaper, too.

The CEO7 is a very resonant guitar being small but with a lot of bass.
So I suspect it is prone to sounding woofy with a pickup.
Seems like the Ultra Tonic is made/perfect for the CEO7.

Just one person’s experience. Hope this helps,

_Roger

Thanks Roger! I decided to experiment a bit today while researching what pickup to try and I happened to remember Noeldog's advice on setting up his loudbox amps and worked my way into this setting. Amazingly the Lyric started sounding MUCH better. I think I'll still swap it out for something better, but this will get me through gigs until I decide what to do.

[Driftless]

I have to have a mic. I like the audio technica atm-350 clipped to the soundhole edge, and pointed at the soundboard behind the bridge.
Sometimes I can play with a full band in a theater, and sometimes just a small bar has too much reflection to get the sound I want.
I just added a neodymium magnetic soundhole pickup to the mix, and it was pretty easy to mount and remove both the mic and pickup. I recorded the two signals to hear what I would be sending to the PA, and the mic needs no EQ at all. The pickup needs a big cut to the midrange. I'll use both at the next acoustic gig, and I'll still have nothing permanently installed on the guitar, and no endpin jack.

[AeroUSA]

I like the Lyric. You have to dial in the presence control and use some external EQ to make it sound its best.