Saturday, 24 October 2009

Choosing an Acoustic Pickup

I have used a Schaller soundhole pickup on my Eko Ranger6 for MANY years.
I take it off when I do not need to use it. It was never a great match because the pickup was never wide enough for the string spacing.

Now I have a new Crafter DLX3000 . I chose it for its acoustic sound with a plan to sort the pickup later. I chose it because it also has wider than average string spacing.

If I had bought an electro-acoustic it would have come with an under-saddle piezo-electric pickup.
I had assumed that I would be adding one of these.

But having spent the money, the idea of drilling holes is a little daunting. So first I bought another soundhole pickup, Artec – MSP-50. It is pretty good and has adjustable pole pieces so that I get much more even pickup from each string. But it does impede the acoustic sound a little.

Looking harder at 'invisible' under-saddle pickups I started to see references to 'quack' and comments that such pickups can be quite harsh. Then I found Schatten.

The Schatten HFN installs inside the guitar, under the bridge.
I bit the bullet...
I'll let you know how it goes....

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