Add a soundhole pickup to my archtop.....huh!

[hotroad]

I am considering ways to get my archtop to produce acoustic tones like having a soundhole pickup in a flattop. Has anyone experimented successfully with adding some sort of pickup to an archtop that has only the neck floating Armstrong pickup. Behind that there is room on the guitar to add something that gives the acoustic tones but not sure what. Got ideas??

[Big Band Guitar]

I use a clip on condenser microphone with a short gooseneck clipped to the tail piece and placed just behind the bridge. Over the f hole was too boomey.

Not this one but very close.

https://www.amazon.com/Technica-ATM3...ser+microphone

[Tone Gopher]

I suggest a contact pickup, such as one would install under the top on the bridge plate - something that picks up top vibrations.

If you want to use a microphone, you could suspend it inside the guitar, away from the proximity of the f-hole.

Sound hole pickups that sense string vibrations are not appropriate to mount anywhere but under the strings (and you already have that).

[hotroad]

I have a small but very high quality surface mic that can be simply stuck onto the guitar face, back or sides using some putty. The mic is amazing. I will give that a try.

[campusfive]

+1 Clip on condensor mic.

There's a whole description of how to do it in this article:
https://www.campusfive.com/swingguit...g-rundown-2017

[Spook]

I have a Sunrise in a couple of my archtops. However, there is a conveniently located oval hole to plunk it in. With a few leather shims, some pole adjustments, and phosphor strings, it doesn't sound pure acoustic, but it sounds quite good. Thing is.. acoustic pickups are quite deep. Too deep to mount on the pickguard of a normal archtop. This leaves with a few options (all in my jaded and worn opinion having chased this for awhile now):

- K&K Definity pickup
-- Very position sensitive. Takes tons of EQ wherever you put it. Overall not that great sounding.

- Fishman piezo bridge
-- Piezo's don't sound great in flat tops. Don't sound great in archtops either.

- K&K Archtop (same as acoustic bass)
-- Very position sensitive which isn't great when you need to move the bridge for intonation (like when you change string gauge). Also hard to get just right even if you never move the bridge. If perfect might sound OK. Tried on a couple of different guitars and never got good results.

- Microphone
-- It will work but you probably already know all the limitations and hassles

In the end what I recommend (because I'm too lazy for microphones and short of an oval hole archtop) is to purchase an Armstrong handwound jazz pickup (these are different than what comes OEM on many current archtops), better EQ (Empress EQ is a good choice), and use higher fidelity amplification (e.g. Schertler Jam150, AER, et al). It won't be acoustic but it will sound good and will allow some of the acoustic quality of the instrument to come through. You can also mix this with a mic when you're in a setting to take that much trouble with it.

[hotroad]

These are great ideas. Looks like experiment time. Thanks and keep em coming.