dontfeartheringo wrote: Fri Oct 25, 2024 3:34 pm

Garth wrote: Mon Nov 13, 2023 12:16 pm
Me: [knowing there are actually some quite natural-sounding pickup options out there]

Can you fill me in on those?

None of them are that good but L.R. Baggs' seem to be the best. The Anthem is the most convincing one I've heard but the installation seems too tricky to DIY.

penningtron wrote: Fri Oct 25, 2024 3:42 pm

dontfeartheringo wrote: Fri Oct 25, 2024 3:34 pm

Garth wrote: Mon Nov 13, 2023 12:16 pm
Me: [knowing there are actually some quite natural-sounding pickup options out there]

Can you fill me in on those?

None of them are that good but L.R. Baggs' seem to be the best. The Anthem is the most convincing one I've heard but the installation seems too tricky to DIY.

Man, that's worth so much more than the guitar it's going into...

My daily mindshare is deeply invested in acoustic pickups and I'm happy to answer any questions. The guy who does https://hazeguitars.com/ has a lot of great explanations of all the pickups if you google for something, fantastic graphics etc. (example: takamine palathetic https://hazeguitars.com/blog/meet-the-t ... q=takamine)

penningtron wrote: None of them are that good...

^ I agree with this if our metric for goodness is "Sounds like what I hear my guitar sounding like". Which is funny because electric guitars generally don't have that same restriction, but we've obviously moved far passed that early on.

With that out of the way, no real acoustic pickup system is going to nail %100 what you hear, so everything is a compromise with how practical it is versus how it sounds.

why some people might prefer one pickup over the other generally comes down to playing style, venue, etc. Often broken up into extremes of “do you play mostly big chords? Fingers/Picks, or are you playing finger style or a lot of leads”, and “Do you play by yourself in your basement, or on a big stage with a whole band”

Most acoustic guitar amplification can be broken down into a few categories, or combinations there-of.

- Microphone outside of the guitar (Generally the best, least controllable/repeatable from a practical sense)
- Microphone inside of the guitar, (usually a condensor, often on a gooseneck)
- Piezo-electric pickup on the underside of the top (whether on the bridge plate or ortherwise). Often called a "Top Sensor".

Top sensors can sound quite good but can pick up a lot of extra sounds, or sound washy/phasey

- Piezo sensor under the saddle, often called an "Under the saddle pickup" or transducer (often associated with the squawky sound of the 90s)
- Piezo sensor inside the saddle,
- in Taylor’s case, they (currently) have a pickup on the side of the saddle, going through the top so it picks up both. Good or bad

Saddle sensors can sound good but can mask the character of the guitar and sound a bit more ‘electric’.

- Magnetic pickup in the soundhole (same concept as an electric, just usually not trying to be super high impedance)



The LR Baggs anthem is a combination of a microphone and an under the saddle element (called “Element”, ha) with a blend control to give you options, especially if you play a variety of stuff (ie: less microphone might be better if you’re playing with a band vs by yourself)

penningtron wrote: ... but L.R. Baggs' seem to be the best.

LR Baggs indeed makes good pickups, as does Fishman although they often get labeled with the sound of their past. I recently tried out some new Fishman modelling options that might just get us to the point where you have a good microphone sound out of your guitar, without the impracticality of mic’ing something up on a stage.

There are more options than that, and a lot of people that give you 2 or more options to blend together. Then there's the pre-amp side, that because so much of this is piezo-electric based, there's often a preamp inside the guitar to get you to line level with an output impedance more suited to standard audio equipment inputs. Not every guitar mounted preamp 'sounds' great, or gives you the options you want. Taylor's preamp at it's core was effectively designed by Rupert Neve, and I get to say occasionally, "What was Rupert thinking"

Great post. And yeah.. to be fair I did a few gigs with just a microphone on the guitar and that was lacking in other ways: lack of low end, volume, and chords that sounded like 'whiirrr' more than a grouping of notes. So I put a LR Baggs M80 back in my OOO-15M and do a blend of the two now. But clips of the last gig seemed to have a higher balance of pickup-to-mic ratio and now I'm frustrated all over again. Just how bad do you need that live acoustic?

On a related note this song comes up on my partner's Spotify sometimes and that sound makes me want to punch a wall. Groooossss.

The Baggs soundhole pickup is the best I've found, esp if you use it with the standard simple Baggs outboard preamp.

I've grown to hate under-bridge piezos. I had some KK thing that glued under the top of the guitar--it was OK.

I basically do not play acoustic live anymore unless it's unamplified or i am OK with just doing it with a mic there and having it turn out however it turns out.

Dave Bazan was doing solo tours where he only used stuff he can buy at Guitar Center.
He was playing a cheap Yamaha with the Baggs soundhole PU and that lil Baggs outboard dude.
Sounded fine-to-good, though he also has a wonderful singing voice so who really cares about the guitar so much.

eephus wrote: Fri Oct 25, 2024 6:23 pm The Baggs soundhole pickup is the best I've found, esp if you use it with the standard simple Baggs outboard preamp.

I've grown to hate under-bridge piezos. I had some KK thing that glued under the top of the guitar--it was OK.

I basically do not play acoustic live anymore unless it's unamplified or i am OK with just doing it with a mic there and having it turn out however it turns out.

Dave Bazan was doing solo tours where he only used stuff he can buy at Guitar Center.
He was playing a cheap Yamaha with the Baggs soundhole PU and that lil Baggs outboard dude.
Sounded fine-to-good, though he also has a wonderful singing voice so who really cares about the guitar so much.

Yeah many under bridge piezos either don't have the piezo designed for the string tension, or don't properly match the piezo impedance to the preamp - they often sound rough. they ARE the most practical in terms of feedback, cutting through etc. so in a lively band they "just work". That being said not all under-bridge piezos are created equal!!
if the K&K thing wasn't running into a preamp, that's just piezo and it benefits from a preamp/di bigtime, but I still just think it's 'okay' too.

The baggs soundhole pickup is a nice under the saddle because it's piezo with a somewhat squishy shield material around it, so there's some 'give' under the saddle without it being a hard surface just slamming the film. It decouples the saddle a bit so you get less string/saddle connection with the guitar, but there's so much energy going into the top I would challenge most people on telling the difference. But decoupling the saddle from the piezo with the material shielding the piezo film is part of what makes it sound good as a pickup.

I should've mentioned DI's too and I'm guessing you're talking about the Baggs Para DI, which is the best bang-for-buck DI you're going to find, with enough features to make most things sound good. Key features being some gain, phase switch (critical), a mid notch (super useful), balanced output, can run on phantom power (yay).
It sounds good, it makes some sort of improvement on pretty much anything.
If anyone plays live more than a few times a year they should get one, bango done.

https://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail ... lsrc=aw.ds

All of this to say if you're a gigging musician, fine to good is about the best you'll probably want/hope for because so much can go wrong with amplifying an acoustic guitar - given the range of frequencies going on, giving the sound person something predictable is just about the best possible option.

And if you can sing, halleluyah

Also all things with acoustic pickups are 'general' - the individual guitar and especially the setup plays a decent part, like %50-%60? more? of the amplified sound. I can take a pickup that sounds pretty good on one guitar, and make it sound like dogshit on another. Some guitar designs especially lend themselves well to one pickup system or another. "Ask me how I know" this is my office RIGHT NOW (I should go home, it's friday). The guitar on the right is my frankenstein pickup torture victim

Acoustic preamps are a hard sell because what's the point of they don't sound great either way. But Joyo makes one that's like $60, anyone tried it? Otherwise I'm just using the active boost in the Baggs thing because it's mostly for some low end blend anyway.

don't you need a super high-Z di for a piezo to not sound rough?

scrotescape 4 real wrote: don't you need a super high-Z di for a piezo to not sound rough?

Most piezo based guitar pickups (minus k&k as the popular one) have a highZ preamp paired with them in the guitar for that reason, and the bags preamp/DI is still nice

penningtron wrote: Sat Oct 26, 2024 7:48 am Acoustic preamps are a hard sell because what's the point of they don't sound great either way. But Joyo makes one that's like $60, anyone tried it? Otherwise I'm just using the active boost in the Baggs thing because it's mostly for some low end blend anyway.

Outboard presmps being generally better sounding than what many companies put in their guitars,