taylor 614C pickup

[yapacity]

Hi, i would like to put a pickup on my taylor 614C but I don't know which one. Active or passive ?
Some people advice me a B-Band with core99 and with a LB Bagg DI.
Can you help me ?
Thank you
Fabrice

Hi Fabrice.

Is there a particular reason why you wouldn't want what Taylor installs on all of their regular 614CEs and other high end models, the Fishman Prefix On-board Blender? Bob Taylor could have selected any brand of pickup he wanted on the 614CEs, but he chose the Fishman Prefix Onboard Blender system as the one he thought sounded and worked best.

They will install other kinds on special request, if you really want something different. The ones they offer as alternatives are found on their website at the following address:
http://www.taylorguitars.com/guitars...ectronics.html

Jim

[GordonHLau]

Originally posted by Jim:
Hi Fabrice.

Is there a particular reason why you wouldn't want what Taylor installs on all of their regular 614CEs and other high end models, the Fishman Prefix On-board Blender? Bob Taylor could have selected any brand of pickup he wanted on the 614CEs, but he chose the Fishman Prefix Onboard Blender system as the one he thought sounded and worked best.

Jim

Not necessarily. In production line products - availability, costs and ease of install are dominant factors. For example, B-band or LR Baggs may not be able to supply Taylor with all the systems it needs to keep its guitar production on schedule. If production gets backed up, Taylor loses money - not a good thing. Since Fishman is the largest acoustic guitar pickup manufacturer, they probably know how to produce a lot of pickups better than a smaller company. Taylor can rely on Fishman more than other pickup manufacturers.

An example for costs would be tuners. Taylor uses Grovers for most of their guitars but Schallers are considered superior and more expensive.

The Fishman Prefix systems are good sounding systems and probably has the best onboard controls on the market but IMHO, they are not the best sounding. I'm sure Bob Taylor uses them for the reasons I cited above. If they were the best sounding, why do most if not all the clinicans, past and present, use something else?

--Gordon Lau

I hear your good points, Gordon. But on the other hand wouldn't a contract to a pickup company from a guitar company as large and famous as Taylor be such a prize that any company not already able to fill it would be eager and willing to quickly ramp up to provide them? Even if cash flow were a problem, such a contract would easily convince most banks to extend a loan to pay for the upsizing.

[yapacity]

Jim , the problem for my Taylor 614C is that I don't want to cut a huge Hole in my guitar and that I live in France where I would have some difficulties to find the good person able to do that.
I doesn't matter if I have an external preamp.
It is easy to find fishman products of course but I don't know which one is the best and if there are other brands.
I have read the taylor homepage but I want to know the reaction of people who know these products.

[GordonHLau]

Jim,

Expansion is not as easy as you might think. As big and brilliant as company as Taylor is, ramping everything up so that their new necks would be implemented took YEARS. Big companies are also wary of having a small company be one of their suppliers. I run a small business and I can't begin to count how many times I lost business to a large business because my company was too small. I doubt Taylor would sign a contract with anyone unless they can prove they can do the job.

I'm not saying Fishman is imune to production problems (look what happened to Firestone). It's that large companies will have a greater degree of confidence when dealing with a large company as a vendor than a small one.

One thing I forgot in my earlier post about ease of installation. The Fishman products are very easy to install and reliable. Another pickup might indeed sound better but from a production standpoint, is much more costly since it requires more work making it not cost effective for Taylor to use as stock. Or another technology such as a soundboard transducer may sound better but can somehow come off making it not very reliable.

--Gordon Lau