A Brief MiSi Motif Demo

[guitaniac]

There was a thread about this mysterious pickup a few years ago, but no-one had heard it yet. I finally found a short demo vid from a fellow speaking Thai. It does indeed sound good, though he isn't playing hard enough to generate much quack, if the pickup has any proclivity for quack. In any event, I'm wondering if there's a "catch" (feedback vulnerability or whatever). Now that Aaron has started reviewing MiSi products, maybe we'll be hearing more about the Motif system.

https://youtu.be/biopJaBwrJU

The playing starts around 2 minutes in.



I also found this little interview with MiSi's Simona (SP?) She's the wife of the designer and the Si in MiSi. She starts talking about the Motif about 2:10 minutes in and I find her references to piezo quack both amusing and endearing.

I went through a phase of experimenting with MiSi pickups a decade or so ago. At the time, I ended up liking the DTAR Wavelength better than the MiSi Acoustic Trio. (They both employed the same Baggs Element transducer.) I'm nevertheless happy to see that they're still in the game, working to improve on the state-of-the-amplification-art. They announced the re-designing of the Motif system in January of 2017, so this may well be a better pickup than we were wondering about three or four years ago.

https://youtu.be/-KZ8StAw1Sw

[Petty1818]

I believe they have sound clips of the Motif on their website and it sounds just like any other UST. I did email Mi-si the other day and they confirmed that their website is dated and will be replaced soon. They don't even have the Magpie Air or Trio Air listed anywhere and both were released over a year ago. I like what they are doing with the active/no battery approach and they seem to have great ideas but the marketing is lacking for sure.

[AeroUSA]

I love what they are doing. The trio air is fantastic and I’m going to test out the magpie air soon. I prefer undersaddle a to soundhole pickups. I’d love it if they could add a mic to the motif pickup and get it sounding as good as an Anthem but without the stuff in the guitar!

[guitaniac]

Originally Posted by AeroUSA

I love what they are doing. The trio air is fantastic and I’m going to test out the magpie air soon. I prefer undersaddle a to soundhole pickups. I’d love it if they could add a mic to the motif pickup and get it sounding as good as an Anthem but without the stuff in the guitar!

The Magpie Air sounds intriguing too. Years ago I experimented with pairing the first generation MiSi mag pickup (the Acoustic Duo) with one of those GHS mics on a gooseneck. I really liked that combo for fingerstyle playing, but not so much for strumming. There's something about the way a mag responds to fingerstyle playing that I find appealing.

[Petty1818]

Originally Posted by guitaniac

The Magpie Air sounds intriguing too. Years ago I experimented with pairing the first generation MiSi mag pickup (the Acoustic Duo) with one of those GHS mics on a gooseneck. I really liked that combo for fingerstyle playing, but not so much for strumming. There's something about the way a mag responds to fingerstyle playing that I find appealing.

That's kind of why I want to try pairing the Magpie air with my HFN. I feel like a blend of mostly HFN with a slight amount of mag and the internal mic would produce a nice tone. I have two jacks so this is possible. I also like how with Mi-Si, their sound hole pickups easily disconnect from the output jack so they can be removed easily. A lot of other companies have their wires soldered in.

[guitaniac]

Looking at the NAMM vid, it appears that the Motif system which Simona is holding has a different style of lead, coming from the transducer, than the plain black lead which is apparent in the Elderly catalog listing for the Motif. I'm wondering if the MiSi folks have redesigned the system so that the Motif transducer can be threaded up through a slanted hole in the bridgeplate, as with the Acoustic Trio and Acoustic Trio Air systems. That would not only make the installation process easier in general, it would also make it easy for current Acoustic Trio users to swap that system out for the Acoustic Motif.

And of course, other UST systems (Baggs Element, Baggs Anthem, Duncan Wavelenth, OTSS UST, various co-axial UST systems) which employ a slanted hole for access to the saddle slot could also be swapped out for the MiSi Motif.

[guitaniac]

Originally Posted by Petty1818

That's kind of why I want to try pairing the Magpie air with my HFN. I feel like a blend of mostly HFN with a slight amount of mag and the internal mic would produce a nice tone. I have two jacks so this is possible. I also like how with Mi-Si, their sound hole pickups easily disconnect from the output jack so they can be removed easily. A lot of other companies have their wires soldered in.

I reassuring to know that I'm not the only two jack guy on the forum. That said, ToneDexter and the Anthem SL have left me with three guitars which currently have an empty hole in the tail block.

I thought the Black Angel (which I'm considering) can be disconnected from the jack. If it can't, that's a deal breaker.