Re: help me choose between two different acoustic guitar pickups


mfassett@xxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
The guitar I'm likely to purchase will not come with a pickup, so I need
to buy one. I'm not a fan of piezo pickups, never ever liked them, so
I' thinking about something like the i-beam or PUTW #27. I know many of
you have experiences with them, so please tell me what you like better
about one or the other.

My playing style is a lot of fingerpicking, but also hard strumming...
I'm pretty heavy handed when I'm strumming. I don't use a pick, just my
fingers (both fingerpicking and strumming).

Comments appreciated, thanks!

I have PUTW 27s in a Santa Cruz OM PW and in a Phil Crump bouzouki, and
I'm delighted with them both. I had a #54 in the bouzouki, on David
Enke's recommendation, and I replaced it with the simpler #27. I use a
Raven Labs PMB-II or a PreSonus Acousti-Q (very similar to one another)
preamp with the pickups. This is all very good. Now, in all honesty,
I -usually- use
a mic with these instruments, but the pickups, when they are in use,
provide an honest replication
of the sounds of my instruments, just louder.

I got a #27 for a pal who plays a Martin D-28. He/we messed with the
placement and the adherence of the strip for months and it never got
right. We're about to replace the PUTW #27
with a Baggs I-Beam active, which has a little volume control and an
amplifier in the endpin jack tube. (Maybe you can tell, by now, that I
really like Acoustic Soundboard
Transducers. I really -don't- like Under Saddle Transducers, and I'm
not crazy about piezos either.
<GG>)

I hope that the Baggs will make a better match for the Martin dread.
The PUTW needed a LOT of amplification with the Martin, but the ones in
my instruments don't need as much. We don't know why all this is, but
.... on we go with the Baggs.

I play Irish trad music, with a wide dynamic range, from very
delicately to rompin'-stompin' hard, and I play with a pick all the
time, The PUTWs just don't care, they just bring the instrument sound
and stay true.

When I first put the PUTW in the Santa Cruz, it took a while to get it
right, and we moved it three or four times. With the bouzouki, we put
it in and it was right. I tested out the pickups in my recording
studio quite a bit before I took 'em out on stage, too. They really
don't need any tweakage, so the EQs on the preamps generally stay flat.

Acoustic guitar players who come into the studio generally want to try
to use their pickups for recording along with the mic(s), but the vast
majority of the time, the pickup tracks aren't very satisfying and
don't get used. The ones that do come from systems with a mic or a
soundboard transducer. From this I've concluded that the -type- of
pickup is more important to the sound than the maker or price.

I'm excited to hear what the Baggs I-Beam Active will do in the D-28.

I hope this helps...

stv

steve v. johnson
http://cdbaby.com/Culchies - Irish traditional music
http://cdbaby.com/Lopers - Original acoustic music

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