What are considered the best acoustic guitar pickups?

[Methos1979]

Originally Posted by bho

These have been great responses. A few of you have asked about my particular needs.

I am thinking of adding a pickup to my Circa.

I play in two bands. One band has three vocalists, an electric guitar player, a percussionist (without a drum kit), and me on acoustic guitar. The other band has one vocalist, a drummer (full drum kit), and me on acoustic guitar.

Some of the songs are loud strummers. Others are delicate fingerstyle songs. So I need the ability to adjust volume between songs.

Both bands play a mix of venues including small coffee houses, somewhat loud bars, house parties, and outdoor fairs. Most but not all venues have PA systems. Some venues have sound guys of varying skill sets.

My amp is a Fishman Loudbox Artist.

Adding a pickup to a guitar for a loud setting, in all honesty I would go for a soundhole magnetic pickup, something like a Baggs M1 or M80 or if you want to spend the money a Sunrise. A mag sound hole is your best bet for a loud band situation. Easy to install and remove or move to other guitars.

[Petty1818]

Originally Posted by Methos1979

Adding a pickup to a guitar for a loud setting, in all honesty I would go for a soundhole magnetic pickup, something like a Baggs M1 or M80 or if you want to spend the money a Sunrise. A mag sound hole is your best bet for a loud band situation. Easy to install and remove or move to other guitars.

I see this recommendation a lot and I truly believe we are past needing a soundhole pickup for loud situations. A Baggs Anthem or Matrix + Aura would work perfectly well and sound far more natural.

[Wild Bill Jones]

I suppose the answer is in your ears. I have tried Fischer, Baggs and K&K. These all work well. Didn’t seem to matter which guitar I used them in. Then I tried a Trance Amulet. These are all I use now. They are expensive, a bit difficult to install but IMHO this pickup is the most natural sounding. If you don’t wish to spend the money and take the time to install the Amulet, I think that the K&K is a wonderful product for the price.

[Wild Bill Jones]

Oops, I forgot to mention that I have a Dazzo in my Roberts guitar. I found installation a pain, need an external preamp and it sound wonderful, jay as nice as the Amulet

[Oregon Donor]

If you try the previously mentioned options and none satisfy you, as a last resort I recommend an F150.

[BluesKing777]

Originally Posted by bho

These have been great responses. A few of you have asked about my particular needs.

I am thinking of adding a pickup to my Circa.

I play in two bands. One band has three vocalists, an electric guitar player, a percussionist (without a drum kit), and me on acoustic guitar. The other band has one vocalist, a drummer (full drum kit), and me on acoustic guitar.

Some of the songs are loud strummers. Others are delicate fingerstyle songs. So I need the ability to adjust volume between songs.

Both bands play a mix of venues including small coffee houses, somewhat loud bars, house parties, and outdoor fairs. Most but not all venues have PA systems. Some venues have sound guys of varying skill sets.

My amp is a Fishman Loudbox Artist.

Brutal truth for all that stuff going on.....Telecaster.

And if you insist on an acoustic - the best acoustic guitar pickup system is the Maton AP5-Pro pickup system, but you need to buy a Maton and a soundhole plug!

BluesKing777.

[BoneDigger]

I have tried a few but not nearly all. Right now, my favorites are the Fishman Rare Earth Blend and the LR Baggs Anthem tru mic system.

[stephenT]

Soundhole: Sunrise or my new favorite, Fishman Blackstack

Soundboard: Trance Audio Amulet

[tadol]

If you need something more than a mic, the K&K is a good choice at a reasonable price. To move that up a notch, adding the Tonedexter is a major improvement. I also like the Barbera Soloist, but it is not a user-installable device, and is somewhat tricky to train with the Tonedexter, but totally feedback resistant. James May, who designed the Tonedexter, makes the Ultratonic, which is like the K&K on steroids - I’ve used an earlier version of it extensively, and his design has eliminated many of the issues I’ve had with the K&K signal, and he has a new design with a much finer volume control and is easier install, which I hope to be putting in one of my baritones shortly - it’s very worth looking into -

[rockabilly69]

Originally Posted by Petty1818

I see this recommendation a lot and I truly believe we are past needing a soundhole pickup for loud situations. A Baggs Anthem or Matrix + Aura would work perfectly well and sound far more natural.

Well no, not everybody is past it, I've had problems with the full Anthem in loud situations in my dread. Total runaway feedback issues, to the point of having to use the phase button and almost no mic mixed in. And a very close friend of mine (pro musician), has had the same problems with his full Anthem. If he's not using inner ears, he's bringing another guitar. I installed a barn door Anthem Stage Pro in one of my smaller 000 guitars and I prefer than pickup with it's EQ and Notch filter, although I would never put it in a guitar that I had to cut a hole into. This guitar already had a barn-door style pickup in it. And there's almost always some trace of something I don't like with the Anthem when I'm playing live. I always fight it. The Matrix Infinity system that I have in my HD28 is consistently reliable. I have an Aura pedal but I never use it as I get good results plugging the Matrix system into my Grace preamp.

The Stage Pro is loaded in this guitar on the right, the one on the left has a NOS Fin made B-Band system which sounds, IMNSHO, much better than the Anthem. Acoustically these guitars sound almost identical!





A lot of people slag the Fishman pickups around here, but the Matrix Infinity system in this guitar is ridiculously consistent. I always get compliments on my sound when I bring this guitar to gigs. I would play it more live, but on longer gigs, I prefer the neck shapes of my other guitars which are more comfortable. I love to record with it though, so it stays!

[guitarman68]

If close reproduction of the acoustic sound is the goal I always would try Dazzo first.
Internal mic is always an upgrade to any pickup, even the Dazzo. But the Dazzo is closer to a mic'd guitar than any other PU I tried.

[Caddy]

Originally Posted by Murphy Slaw

The best pickup is a mic....

Exactly! That was going to be my answer as well.

[3notes]

Originally Posted by BoneDigger

I have tried a few but not nearly all. Right now, my favorites are the Fishman Rare Earth Blend and the LR Baggs Anthem tru mic system.

That Fishman blend pickup is really something else. That's my next pickup. Wow.

[massimo]

I have asked this in another thread but no luck, so here I am...
I have had a Fishman Rare Earth (not Blend) on my Lowden for >10 years. It is good, but I always found the high E and B strings too loud. I am now considering a Rare Earth Blend or Schertler AG6 + mic for my 00018 1937 Authentic, an appealing alternative perhaps being the Trance Amulet Phantom.
Has anyone compared the pickup-only sound of the two? Has Fishman ever addressed the string balance problem? Any comment on battery life of the two? (one of the reasons I am also tempted by the Amulet Phantom)
By the way I have the K&K Pure on another guitar but, while good, I seem to like the more powerful output and bass register volume of a mag better (maybe Trance would change that?).
Thanks in advance for your advise

Massimo

[Petty1818]

Originally Posted by rockabilly69

Well no, not everybody is past it, I've had problems with the full Anthem in loud situations in my dread. Total runaway feedback issues, to the point of having to use the phase button and almost no mic mixed in. And a very close friend of mine (pro musician), has had the same problems with his full Anthem. If he's not using inner ears, he's bringing another guitar. I installed a barn door Anthem Stage Pro in one of my smaller 000 guitars and I prefer than pickup with it's EQ and Notch filter, although I would never put it in a guitar that I had to cut a hole into. This guitar already had a barn-door style pickup in it. And there's almost always some trace of something I don't like with the Anthem when I'm playing live. I always fight it. The Matrix Infinity system that I have in my HD28 is consistently reliable. I have an Aura pedal but I never use it as I get good results plugging the Matrix system into my Grace preamp.

The Stage Pro is loaded in this guitar on the right, the one on the left has a NOS Fin made B-Band system which sounds, IMNSHO, much better than the Anthem. Acoustically these guitars sound almost identical!





A lot of people slag the Fishman pickups around here, but the Matrix Infinity system in this guitar is ridiculously consistent. I always get compliments on my sound when I bring this guitar to gigs. I would play it more live, but on longer gigs, I prefer the neck shapes of my other guitars which are more comfortable. I love to record with it though, so it stays!

I should clarify my post... What I mean is, I see the soundhole recommendation come up a lot when someone says they will be playing in a band or a loud venue. I am just saying that I think we are past the sound hole pickup being the only option. It's crazy, I don't know if it's because I own a Taylor dread but I have tried the HFN, Amulet, Lyric, Anthem, K&K, Fishman + Aura etc. and I have never once had feedback. I am not careful as well. I get up there, the sound man or myself, if I am doing sound, crank up the monitors and away we go. The only instrument that sometimes feeds back is my Octave Mandolin with a Headway pickup but that's typically where I will sit it down, a string will start vibrating and I need to mute it quickly.

I can see something like a boomy dread being a bit of a challenge though. I think for that I would still go Matrix + aura before a sound hole pickup but that's just me. The one benefit of the sound hole pickup though is that you can just keep it in a gig bag and if for some reason you have a nightmare time on stage with feedback, it's easy to slap one in.