Soundhole pickups.

[Mr.Coneman]

Sorry if this is kind of off topic...not really about Bareknuckles, and about acoustic, but if anyone wants to TL;DR just skip to the next astrix *

Yeah, I had no idea these existed. For years I've been considering getting a pickup installed in my acoustic, but have been hesitant because I didn't want to drill any holes in my guitar, or anything like that. A guy in work was telling me there are ones you sort of clip on inside the soundhole, and plug in to an amp?

Something like that, I googled up on a few of them, and it seems they can range from anywhere between £5 to £200 and probably dearer. So I'm gunna ask for a little advice...

So, the main reason I want to do this, obviously, is to be able to play through my amp/a p.a etc. I have a couple songs written in that sort of Andy Mckee, John Butler, slap/tap style (though not as good as those guys) and this stuff just does not sound as good on a pure acoustic, you need the amplifacation for the percussive stuff, and harmonics to really have an effect, plus then you can add all sorts of effects to your sound, and write new stuff. I know these things wont have tone knobs or anything to dial in a nice sound, but I will be plugging straight into my little combo amp, which has a setting for plugging acoustics in, and a tonne of knobs to fiddle with the tone.

** Basically the questions are as follows - which models of these pickups are the best? Do you have one, and would you reccomend it? What is the least amount of money I can spend, and still get a decent sound? (considering my acoustic is pretty awesome as is) or are these horrible and to be avoided altogether in favour of a semi-acoustic, or converting my acoustic to a semi?

[38thBeatle]

I bought a Seymour Duncan Woody -the humcancelling version. It was around £55 and I was not looking for anything spectacular as I don't use the guitar live enough to warrant it. It is actually pretty good and I found the tone to be pretty faithful to the guitar ( and I've tried it on a couple of different guitars and my friends and I concluded that it did replicate the sound of the guitar -within reason).
The advantages: simplicity of use, price, quality of build, length of cable. Disadvantage: no tone control( you have to shape the tone on the PA or amp) and no control over volume whilst your playing( you have to go back & forth to the amp) but then again, you use dynamics in your playing just as you would unamplified.

I am sure that there are better units out there and haven't tried others. I'd say try and find a store that will let you try a few out.

[JonnyScaramanga]

I've got an LR Baggs M1A active single coil in the soundhole of my Tokai J200. I much prefer it to a piezo. People tell me it sounds good out front even when going straight into the PA with no preamp.

[Mr.Coneman]

Thanks for the replies guys, yeah I was checking out the Seymour Duncan Woody's. They looked awesome, but the only problem is that they don't pick up the noise of the guitars body, they just repond to the resonence of the strings.

Are there any that will pick up slaps/knocks on the guitar body? I know they exist, I just don't know what they are.