Soundhole Pickup for Jazzy Sounds?

[ToadSmith]

Hi,

I'm new to the forum and had a question for those more knowledegable than myself. I play in a jazz guitar duo and have up to this point been using my Les Paul for a warm jazz tone. However, I have been craving an acoustic presence in my sound, especially for rhythm comping at smaller gigs, and was hoping to get my flat top steel string in shape for jazzy sounds. I don't really have money to purchase a decent archtop, and thought a hybrid flat-top jazz box could yield a unique sound.

My question is, are there any soundhole pickups that get a particularly warm, electric sound? (think Jim Hall, We Montgomery) Or one that can be eq'd pretty easily to get that sound? I really want to blend my guitar's natural acoustic properties with a warm, amplified electric tone (like a neck position humbucker sound), and have read that certain soundhole pickups get more of an electric sound than an acoustic sound. Can anyone recommend a pickup that may achieve this ideal?

Thank you!

[Rick Jones]

I would suggest, from personal experience:

-Sunrise (or Fishman's 'BlackStack')
-MiSi's 'acoustic duo'
-Seymour Duncan 'woody' (affordable)

Then just roll a fair chunk of the brilliance and high mids off at the eq.

[ljguitar]

Originally Posted by ToadSmith

…My question is, are there any soundhole pickups that get a particularly warm, electric sound?

Hi ToadSmith...

First of all, Hello and Welcome to the Forum! Glad you joined and jumped in with a post...

Any decent clip in soundhole pickup ($50 and up) will do a good job. As for the warm tone, depends on what you are playing through. Tone production depends on the amp you use...

[jseth]

Like the others, I'd say some sort of humbucking-type sound hole pickup... Funny, you pretty much want the opposite that most guys want... you DON'T want a pickup that sounds natural and acoustic, but one that DOES sound like a "neck position" humbucker!

I used to have an older Seymour Duncan of that type (it was pre MagMic) that I used with my 12 string... I used GHS "White Bronze" strings with that pickup, otherwise it had no balance between the unwound strings and the phosphor bronze ones. I think some sort of older sound hole unit should be halfway cheap, just make sure that it works!

If you have a little dough to throw at this, you might check out the Duncan MagMic; basically a stacked single coil (voiced for acoustic) with a microphone on the underside of the 'bucker... you can dial in whatever balance between the two you prefer. The MagMic actually does a nice job on the acoustic side of town, too.

As for an archtop? You can pick up some pretty sweet, used Ibanez Art Core guitars that would fit the bill... and Eastman archtops are VERY nice; you might find one of the "lower end" (without any bling) ones for ~$500, quite possibly less than that.

Welcome to the Forum; glad to have you here. It's always nice to have more working musicians on this site!

play on.....................................>

John Seth Sherman

[ToadSmith]

Thank you for the welcomes and all the information! I will look into all these options. It's so hard to decide; I wish I could sit in a room and try them all. I play a Fender Twin, which gets me a great warm, clean sound, so I'm betting any decent sound hole pickup could be eq'd for what I'm wanting.

I forgot to mention I do have a Fishman pickup in this guitar (which is an Ibanez PC300 BTW) that gets a decent acoustic-electric sound, but the 'electric sound' is an unusual request I'm sure, especially here at the Acoustic forum! Ideally I'd blend the warm soundhole p'up, the brighter fishman p'up, and the natural acoustic sound.

The other player in the duo I'm in uses an Eastman archtop; I love his guitar, but I'm finding that I personally prefer the acoustic sound of a flat top to an arch top. Flat tops seem to have that huge, wide frequency acoustic sound whereas the archtops seem to have a more punchy, cutting, mid-rangey acoustic sound.

Thanks!