Good in-guitar hole pickups(acoustic)

[Captain_Pants]

good Ive never used one, but I have a wonderful koa wood Takamine guitar that sounds magnificent, but unfortunately its been reduced to just micing as it has no pickups.

Does anyone use the in-hole pickups? I cant use the pickups that go in the bridge because the ivory is split into 2 pieces, not a single slab... So, im stuck with basically inhole pickups, or the little mini-me mic's that clip on the inside.. Any help would be much appreciated. Id like a pickup that wouldnt require alteration of the guitar.

Thanks.

=-Ben

[Bazzle]

People have jumped in my cornflakes for suggesting this before..but I get good use out of a DEAN MARKLEY the wooden one that sits in the sound hole..cheap and reliable..For live gigs it beats the hell out of the Fishman tbat I have in my Larrivee..sounds pretty good recorded to, if you also mic the guitar

[Bee-man]

I've been using the duncan performer maverick.They're GC exclusive i believe.The best sounding acoustic Pkup i've heard.I think i paid 25 for it. JMHO,YMMV

[Paul14]

The Sunrise pickup is IMO the best soundhole magnetic pickup that there is. I think that Lyle Lovett and most Nashville cats would agree...

Anyway, you need to check out a bunch of things and decide what you like. They all sound different, and it will depend how you play and even on what kind of strings you use. Magnetic pickups are a little difficult to use with bronze strings. (The unwound strings will be way louder than the wound ones) Michael Hedges used a Sunrise, and he used medium gauge steel strings instead of bronze.

At this point I actually prefer crappy piezo pickups because I like to play acoustic through an MXR Dyna Comp and a Tube Screamer (something I stole from Monty Montgomery) and you need a piezo to get that sound.

BTW, there are ways to get a piezo under one of those split saddle bridges...

Good luck,
Paul

[3JDamon]

Sound hole pick-ups are just coils like on an electric guitar, no useable signal above maybe 4kHz, kiss the brightness goodbye. At best they make your acoustic sound like a hollow-body electric, and are typically poorly shielded single-coil, so there's a fair bit of hum. You can pay through the nose to get a pick-up/mic combo, which I've heard can work very well, but in the end it will cost you far more than a piezo bridge pick-up, which every sound man under the sun knows how to deal with.

There's a trick if you really want a piezo pick-up to work right though. The first thing the signal from the pick-up sees must have a rediculously high input impedance, or else you get the signature brittle tinny treble. Typically built-in preamps use a FET preamp that accomodates the impedance issue reasonably well, but not as well as a good DI box. I've been doing sound at the local folk venue, and I love it when someone has a piezo pick-up with no preamp, then I can run it through my BSS AD-112 active DI (1 megaOhm input impedance) and it's cleaner than even the best on-board Fishman rigs.

So my advice is to get a piezo pick-up installed (it can be done for split saddles too) with no preamp, and get a suitable active DI. The BSS AD-133 is the current version of my DI, runs about $180, worth every penny. Proel makes a 1 megaOhm active DI as well, not sure how much it costs, but the BSS will have a better transformer that will be most welcome in the studio for bass or keys etc. On the cheap, the Behringer Ultra-DI has 250kOhm impedance, and only costs $30 or so. For when you just want to plug into an amp, a DOD mosfet preamp pedal will sound as good as any built-in preamp and are generally $20 or so used. Piezo pick-ups without preamps cost maybe $65 installed, probably a little more for the split saddle.

And make sure to plug a tuner into the link off the DI, do not put the tuner between the guitar and the DI. If you want to use effects pedals with it you're in a world of pain - active DI -> low-Z adapter -> pedals -> passive DI... just run clean.