Werner Carstens wrote
The mandolin has a floating bridge which means that fitting an undersaddle transducer is not practical. I investigated the option of using one of the "stick-on" pick-ups but it seems that only cheap ones in the sub-R500 category are available (with a resulting sub R500 sound). I also tried mandolins with built-in pickups as standard but unfortunately all of them had single coils and I couldn't stand the hum. My question is therefore as follows:
1. Does anyone know of a nice pickup system for mandolins that is not of the "under saddle" type?
2. If not, does anyone know of a new decent quality mandolin with a built-in pickup (sub R5000 category)
There are mandolins and mandolins. They can be flat or arch top, they can have a center sound hole or f-holes.
The options open to you will vary according to the construction of your instrument. EG I have seen some players using a Sunrise pickup (maybe a cut-down Sunrise pickup), but that's not going to work for f-hole instruments.
You can now get floating saddles for violins that have a transducer built into them. There might be something like that available for or adaptable to a mandolin.
