Best built-in pickups (for acoustic guitar)?

[jseth]

Originally Posted by Doug Young

So you want guitar with a pickup to use in the studio? There are lots of good pickups out there for live use. For recording, the cheapest possible mic will beat the best pickup hands down. I'd skip the pickup for recording, If it was me, I' look for a good all around guitar that sounds good when mic'd.

This is said much more gently than I would have, but I have to agree wholeheartedly.

In your thread, you sound like someone who's fairly serious... so I was amazed at the concept of using a pickup in an acoustic guitar to SOUND LIKE THE GUITAR... when a microphone is the only way you'll ever get that... now, if you want to do a lot of "treatment" to the signal, I can see using a pickup... but, at that point, the guitar ain't gonna sound like that acoustic guitar anymore...

You see where I'm going with this? Pretty much ANY pickup system can be manipulated and electronically tweaked, but it's never gonna sound as good as a decent microphone on that guitar.

If I were going to use the pickup for some sort of treatment, I'd want a fairly direct signal without any additional microphones or anything... so I'd not look at systems that use a mic in combination with something else... the Anthem (which I have and use and like a lot), the Presys, stuff like that. Probably a good old UST would be fine...

[Oldguy64]

If you are going to spend that kind of money, consider the Godin Multiac Steel.

For the studio, it will rival the T3/T5 Taylor.
It is very good with high and low volume situations.

[JackB1]

Originally Posted by Sonics

You can save yourself a lot of 'coin' by plugging your Taylor into a mic modelling foot pedal. You'll also have the added bonus of a tuner, a DI and other useful 'goodies' for live use. I won't vouch for the accuracy of the 'modelling', but the sound is significantly better than raw piezo.

Yamaha, Zoom, BOSS and Fishman have all put their modelling technology into stomp boxes.

^^^^^^

this is a great suggestion

[Shades of Blue]

I think if you look at the best all around system, it has to be the ES/ES2 system. Sounds good, and is simple to use. As far as the best sounding, I'd have to give that to the Fishman Aura stuff. Really good, but a bit more confusing and involved to use.

My personal favorite is the LR Baggs Lyric. Attaches with tape, and as long as you are ok with drilling out the hole in the end pin for the jack, it is pretty non-invasive. My guitars have this.

[redir]

Definitely a mic for the studio. I like a condenser mic personally. I've always hated piezo UST's. The worst sounding pickups for acoustic guitar. Something like a K and K is much more natural. That was up until about a year ago when I got an Aura. Now all my guitars have piezo UST's. I would still record with a mic though.

[roylor4]

Originally Posted by silver mica

I've never been fond of acoustic guitar pickups - but I'm playing live and also record a little. My Taylor's ES2 (which is a piezo pickup) didn't sound as bad as I was expecting. I'm looking for another guitar to leave in the studio 24/7 - and was curious to get feedback on what guitars for, say, under $1500 have decent sounding built-in pickups. For now, I don't want to consider adding a pickup myself. And, I'm open to good sounding piezo pickups.



Cheers!

Silver Mica

For me, there is no such thing as a good sounding piezo pickup. Some are better than others, but I despise the sound of them. YMMV

Mic in the studio is the way to go. Live and for ease of use i would go with magnetic. You can use a removeable such as the SD Woody XL or an active, semi permanent solution like the Baggs M80 or M1A.