Aftermarket Acoustic Guitar Pickups/Piezos

[JD01]

This is probably one for @Armistice or @musicturtle

I'm rehearsing some live acoustic stuff with a mate of mine (he also has young kids), but one of his guitars is purely acoustic. Do you guys (or anyone else) have much experience with aftermarket acoustic pickups? I remember Schaller doing a good one.. 30 years ago but that's the extent of my knowledge. My Martin has a Fishman system which is pretty good, so I'm fine.

[vomitHatSteve]

I've built a couple out of the 10cent piezos you can buy in bulk on Amazon. They don't sound great

[Greg_L]

The easiest solution is to not do anything acoustic.

You're welcome.

[WhiskeyJack]

I've built a couple out of the 10cent piezos you can buy in bulk on Amazon. They don't sound great

Helpful.

[WhiskeyJack]

Only time i have ever seen anyone do anything after the fact was some L.R. Baggs pick up thing that went into the sound hole. Not near as helpful as @vomitHatSteve s two cents but another option to investigate.

[Bill L]

They make pick ups that can be mounted in the sound hole but they don't sound very good. I had a Fishman installed on my Martin and that seems to be the go to around where I am. The input jack goes through the strap button, the piezo element goes under the saddle and they mounted the volume/tone pots to inside of the sound hole. In my case, I use an L.R. Baggs DI https://www.lrbaggs.com/acoustic-pream ... i7iFflY_m to send to the mixer. If you want to hear what it sounds like, let me know. I have some acoustic gigs recorded using it.

[JD01]

Yeah, if you could give me some sound samples that would be great.

[vomitHatSteve]

I've built a couple out of the 10cent piezos you can buy in bulk on Amazon. They don't sound great

Helpful.

I could record some audio demos so that JD could know exactly how middling of a tone he can get out of a quarter's worth of parts.
He hasn't told us his budget, so who knows? Maybe it's good enough?

[WhiskeyJack]

Helpful.

I could record some audio demos so that JD could know exactly how middling of a tone he can get out of a quarter's worth of parts.
He hasn't told us his budget, so who knows? Maybe it's good enough?

OK fine do it. IS THIS NOT WHAT WE ARE HERE FOR!

@Greg_L can suck it up for a little bit if we wanna post up acoustic tones in the tone thread. Lord knows that thing is being neglected more than a tradwife who's been married for 25 years.

[Armistice]

My acoustics are all Australian Matons and they all have Maton's in-house pickups, which are OK for piezos but not great - but when are piezos ever great? Guitars they make now have a better system with an internal microphone in an adjustable position, but I doubt you'll be sending your geetar to Australia for a refit...

ex-Jongleur Richard had an unpickuped mahogany Martin which he post fitted something to - can't remember what it was though - came with an external control box that sat of the floor (but could be put somewhere else) and that made it clunky - who wants to be be bending down mid song to adjust your tone?

So Baggs do all sorts of different options - they're the name with which I'm most familiar - but they're not cheap. Presumably that's because they're good. They'll run to $500 excluding fitting over here... so you'd want to have a pretty good guitar to warrant that additional expenditure, I'd imagine.

So if it's a good guitar it'd be worth it, but if it's not, such things aren't going to magically turn it into a good guitar. I guess money is an object here, but if I was doing this again, right now, I'd just buy a good guitar with a good system already installed.

Not much help, I know. Sorry!

[Tadpui]

I don't think that mankind has invented a piezo that actually sounds good. The best acoustic sounds I've heard have all been from internally mounted mic systems. I don't know any by name but I'd bet that the usual brands are involved, like LR Baggs and Fishman.

[musicturtle]

I have not looked into this since buying my Martin which had the Fishman installed. Mine has a condenser and a piezo that you can blend.

I would lean toward one of the systems with a condenser mic.

Might also need a preamp of some sort to get the best sound.

Like Armistice said, a good one is not cheap, so it depends on the quality of the guitar to determine whether its worth it or not.

[JD01]

I have not looked into this since buying my Martin which had the Fishman installed. Mine has a condenser and a piezo that you can blend.

Yeah, mine too. My experience with pickups is pretty limited. My experience with piezos is that they always have savagely harsh transients so you end up playing in this really muted way.

[Armistice]

I have not looked into this since buying my Martin which had the Fishman installed. Mine has a condenser and a piezo that you can blend.

Yeah, mine too. My experience with pickups is pretty limited. My experience with piezos is that they always have savagely harsh transients so you end up playing in this really muted way.

Yeah, it can be pretty awful. One of the main reasons I always had subtle effects on my live acoustic guitar was to take some of the harshness out of it because it could just be so "sharp" for want of a better word.

[muttley]

The piezo's are shite... the go to these days and for are while now are the Fishman and the Baggs.

More important than either of those is the amp or more specifically the preamp. Even a decent and well installed Fishman or Baggs will sound bad through an amp not designed for them.

[Lt. Bob]

get a small condenser mic like sax players clip onto the bell of the sax .... it's a mic so it'll sound good .... they have them for sax so I'm sure they make some designed for mounting inside a guitar

[Greg_L]

It only proves my point that acoustics suck that here in 2025 there's still not a simple viable way to make one sound good amplified.

So save them for campfires....as mild entertainment and then fuel.