Fix Taylor Fishman or go Soundhole

[airpatrick]

I’m a hobbyist hack and don’t play out but like to run my acoustics through a looper into my amp to practice. The original Fishman on my 312 stopped working this spring. I know nothing about pickups. Should I take it to a pro for a diagnostic and get it fixed, or just get a soundhole pickup? If soundhole, which one given my use case?

Thanks for the suggestions!

[pieterh]

If it was my guitar I would try to get it fixed. I assume it is a guitar with a side-mounted preamp?

What is the problem? Is the preamp coming on but no signal out? It might mean a bad connection in the output jack.

Preamp not coming on? Might be as simple as corroded battery terminals which is an easy fix.

Depending on what has happened over the years it might be as simple as replacing the pickup element that sits under the saddle.

So, process of elimination!

[RockerDuck]

How much to spend? To repair the guitar would cost alot more than a pickup. A nice pickup like an LRbaggs M80 is $250. As a hobbyist, a Fishman neo series pickup is great for less than a $100.

[rmp]

Is this one of the Fishman pickups with the control panel for the pickup on the side of the guitar?

Taylor has good customer service, email or call them. That should be something they'd cover under the warranty. They may just send the part that needs to be replaced. that control panel could be just swapped out for a working one.

[EZYPIKINS]

Tried a battery?
Only Taylor I ever liked the sound of, was an old 314 with a Fishman.

[varmonter]

Originally Posted by EZYPIKINS

Tried a battery?
Only Taylor I ever liked the sound of, was an old 314 with a Fishman.

I had a 514ce from 1997-8 had a Fishman
Prefix barn door . Great sounding pickup.
Like said above you can go either way.
Pay just to have it diagnosed and evaluated.
Then you'll know where you stand. Baggs m80
Is a great soundhole pup. As is sunrise.

[Goat Mick]

I would say get a soundhole pickup and run with that. But that's really only because I've never heard a factory installed Fishman UST that I liked.

Now that my opinion is out of the way, pop in a new battery and see what happens. It's pretty rare for a pickup to just "break" without something actually happening to it (dropped, banged, twisted, worked on by the owner...).

[DjFuzzyMcPickle]

For what it's worth in my 2004 614ce, mine had the side Barn Door Fishman system that I presume yours is like or similar. Even though I really like the new es2 compared to the ES1, I really liked it and I thought it did it really really nice job. If it were me I would definitely look into getting it fixed before changing it out or something else

[TNO]

Fix it or pull it and stick something like a Schatten HFN in there.