Seymour duncan woody

Ray

What are these pickups like? - they are a soundhole thing and from what I hear this Seymour duncan is a pretty reliable bunch with good products. Also, I hear so much discussion about other Fishman and Baggs stuff and noone pays these soundhoel things any heed so I wonder why. They just seem so convenient?

Cheers

Bob-Dubery

Ray wrote: What are these pickups like? - they are a soundhole thing and from what I hear this Seymour duncan is a pretty reliable bunch with good products. Also, I hear so much discussion about other Fishman and Baggs stuff and noone pays these soundhoel things any heed so I wonder why. They just seem so convenient?

Have you ever tried buying one of these things? Go into your preferred guitar shop, walk up to the counter and say "I want a woody."

Do let us know what happens ?

These devices are usually magnetic pickups and thus they tend to sound like a magnetic pickup. The plus side is that they are very feedback resistant. Also installation is usually pretty quick.

There are some interesting variations on the theme. The Baggs M1 is magnetic, but they have a clever construction that allows vibrations from the top to move the coils slightly and thus colour the output from the pickup. Tom Petty is an M1 user.

Folks who have used them say that the Sunrise is fab in all kinds of ways. They have a small annual production and so are hard to get (might also be expensive).

All that said, I don't think ANY of the pickups/pickup systems available replicate the sound of an acoustic guitar with 100% accuracy. I think the system I recently got is a step in the right direction and it sounds MORE like an acoustic guitar but not completely the same.

OTOH so what? Maybe you don't want it to sound like an acoustic guitar. John Martyn used an early manifestation of the in-soundhole pickup (De Armand?). It didn't sound completely like an acoustic guitar, but given that he was putting the signal through a volume pedal, an echoplex, a big muff, maybe a couple of other FX and then into an amp absolute fidelity was probably not something he was looking for.

I think the best sounds come from multi-source systems. The system I had fitted to my Larrivee combines and under-saddle element and an internal condensor mike - each bringing something to the mix. A friend of mine gets a pretty good tone out of a Baggs I-Mix which has an under-saddle element plus a contact transducer that fits under the bridge plate. When that I-Mix system was being fitted at McGibbon's they did some experimenting and concluded that the I-Mix plus the M1 gave a very good sound - but that is now THREE sources.

I think that electronics can make a huge difference. My Morgan has a Baggs Active Element which comes with it's own pre-amp. I take the output from that and run it through a little external Baggs gig-pro pickup, not for boosting, but just to add a little EQ and to warm the tone up a bit. A good DI/pre-amp/EQ like the Baggs Para-DI can make a difference.

Ray

Thanks for the info Bob. Sort of was hoping you'd wander by. Tell you what, I'm after something that is completely (or almost) non-invasive/destructive (is that what they refer to it as?). Scouted around on abother forum and they do some comparisons and seems like an LR Baggs M1 gets preference as far as results is concerned. Someone posted a link to a site where you can listen to these things and evaluate what you hear. Dunno if the office here is gonna enjoy that so I'll take a look at home.

Bob-Dubery

Well let us have the URL Ray! ?

It occurs to me that one advantage of this kind of pickup is that testing in a shop should be fairly easy - though I note that on some of them (certainly the Sunrise and the M1) you need to fine tune them by adjusting the individual pole pieces.

McGibbon's have M1s in stock. Don't know if it's the active or passive model. They've also got the Woody in stock.

Most of the Baggs after-market systems are fairly non-destructive. No need to cut holes in the bodywork, but they do require installation beyond clipping something into the soundhole.

You could rip the Baggs Dual-source out of my Larrivee and leave nothing behind bar a small hole in the bridge, and that would only be visible if you took the saddle out.

Obviously the magnetic type of pickup is not going to work with nylon strings.

MikeM

X-rated Bob wrote: Have you ever tried buying one of these things? Go into your preferred guitar shop, walk up to the counter and say "I want a woody."

Have you ever used Seymour Duncan's Woody? :?

Keira-WitherKay

i have some experience with the in hole pickups even on steel strings and they all bad......... most use it for a while... so if you totally acoustic it will for a short while sound fab to plug your baby in....... but after the novelty wears off you will prob want to install a LR baggs or something similar but LR baggs seems affordable and close to top of the pile when it comes to pickups in acoustics....... i know someone woith a 100K luthier built classical that has a baggs in it ...and he uses it professionally for recording .....

so yeah ray try the in hole gear and hey maybe it works for you ..... cos in reality even my rig has some gear in it that most would shy away from but it does the job for me...........

Bob-Dubery

It turns out that there is a RANGE of Woodies. The top of the range is the XL, which has adjustable pole pieces so that you fine tune it to suit your ear, the strings you use and the radius of your neck.

From what I can see they are regarded as being good for the money.

They are all passive, so will require some kind of pre-amp or DI box for some applications.

Ray

X-rated Bob wrote: Well let us have the URL Ray! ?

Yip here it is as I say got it off another forum.
http://www.dougyoungguitar.com/pickuptests/

Looking to use on steel string.

Bob-Dubery

Wow! Thanks, Ray. Lots of test recordings there. Though it's not complete - no Baggs I-Mix - and so that shows how many options there are (in some countries).

I haven't listened to all of them. It's a very interesting and useful resource.

The same pieces are played for each pickup/combination. This allows us to see how the pickups work with different styles, and so you can get an idea here of what might work for you (then cross check against a list of what you can afford).

Ray

Well, maybe you're not gonna be a serious pro live acoustic performer. Maybe what you're thinking is that you may find yourself in a situation one day or days where you gonna want to just plug your guitar into a pa and be able to get a sound pretty close to what you get when you play unamplified in the little corner of your home. Well, maybe that is me, ne. And I came across another short review of one of these inhole magnetic things.

http://www.deanmarkley.com/Pickups/ProMag.shtml
http://www.guitaredge.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=407:deam-markley-promag-plus-xm-review&catid=41:reviews&Itemid=61