Acoustic Guitar Pickups

[Casey H]

I'm doing more acoustic guitar home recording and have been experimenting with different ways to record acoustic guitar. I have a decent condenser mic and have been doing all the recommended things with placement, etc. I'm interested in acoustic pickups-- micing is a pain and, of course, you can get room noise. I like singing while I record the music track, that gives it a better feel. Do you have any recommendations for acoustic pickups that give a very natural acoustic sound? I have an old magnetic one, but that gives an electric sound.Specifically, I'm looking at products like Fishman Matrix Infinity. It requires professional installation, so I thought I'd get some thoughts before diving in...I've been told that nothing beats micing, but I'm willing to sacrifice a little for convenience...Thanks! Casey

[edteja]

Casey, what kind of guitar is it? There are a huge number including some that involve mics as well. Braggs and some others use dual systems with mics as well as piezo pickups. Is it round hole, f hole?

[mazz]

When my wife got her Taylor, we had a Schertler Blue Stick installed, it's an internal mic (I hope I spelled it right). It still sounds "electric" but it is good when mixed in with a mic.Unfortunately, I've never heard a pickup that sounded as good as a mic. The pickup is either picking up the vibration of the body or the strings and even if it's an internal mic, it's still inches from the strings and no one (in their right mind, anyway) ever listens to an acoustic guitar with their ear 2 inches or less from the strings! There's no substitute for distance and air!One way to deal with micing is to accept the bleed from guitar to voice and vice versa and use the mics in such a way that the bleed sounds as good as possible. Of course, punching in is not an option unless you're recording to a click and even then, it can be a pain. If you move around or back and forth, the sound can change and so on.I'm not up on the latest and greatest in the pickup realm but I think it's always going to be a compromise. It might be just fine for demos and when in a mix might just work out OK.Good luck!!Mazz

[devin]

Hey Casey!I'm not a luthier...so I had a Fishman put in at the local shop (with an onboard eq...required a battery). It was the long thin one that went under the bridge...so either the guitar needs to be routed out a bit, or the bone needs to be shortened to keep the string heights the same. Super tricky to do yourself. It sounded much better than the temporary magenetic pickup that is press fit into the soundhole. I had tried two of these cheap ones...both Dean Markley's...a wood-ish color single coil, and the black humbucker (recommended over the wooden one).Other types have a mini condenser inside the body, or just outside. And some hefty mods require expensive modification have both the under-bridge pickup and the condensor, and you can mix with the onboard eq and preamp. This website helped me...it can be a long read (and a long session with all the clips):http://www.fingerpick.com/pickups.htmOf course, I have no way of telling if the featured pickup is really responsible for the tone, or if there is a wall of LDC mics just out of camera range (enter "benefit of the doubt" phrase here). Please note the guitarist uses finger pics, so that's adding to the brightness. And if you watch some of the later clips, the guy sounds like he's talking in a caverous sewer pipe, so I can't tell how natural the signals are.If we can believe the pickups in the videos are responsible for the original signal, and we trust that we can process the signal as good as this guy did, then it would certainly be useful to go this route. I currently use condensor mics for my recording...and I'd be interested to hear how it worked out for you.Maybe Windowman will stop by...he's tone is killer, I'd like to find out what he's using.

[ernstinen]

This doesn't really answer your question, Casey, but I agree that good condenser mics sound better. I've got a Takamine with a pickup and EQ, and it sounds O.K., but when I want it to record really well, I use just a little bit of the pickup, use one condenser mic on the sweet spot and a shotgun condenser pointing down the neck. So that's 3 tracks, panning one center and the other two hard left and right.I've recorded singer/songwriters who just HAVE to sing and play their acoustic guitar at the same time, and the guitar pickup will record the voice a little as well as the guitar. So if you make a mistake on either the guitar or vocal part, it's REALLY hard to do punch-ins. Even if you're humming along with no vocal mic, the pickup still records that, too.But, hey, Dylan recorded all his early stuff "live" in the studio, so it CAN be done! Ern

[Mark Kaufman]

From what I've seen and heard, it's hard to beat the LR Baggs pickups for acoustic:http://www.lrbaggs.com/But I'm still a fan of the microphone. The most recognizable sound of the acoustic guitar resides in the air outside of it, where we hear it, not the strings or soundhole.

[arkjack]

Casey,I know the guy here in Conshy who can do the install for you on any unit you pick, he does a lot of work on vintage instrument restoration and set up adjustments as well.Personally I have Fishmans in the Martins. They sound ok as a pickup, but sometimes you can't beat the sound of pure guitar through the condenser mic. ArkJack

[Casey H]

Thanks all for the comments and advice. I'm getting a little better with the mic but I still might spend the money on the pickup.Ed-- it's a Guild with a round f-hole. I've been wondering about dual vs. single pickups. The one I brought home to consider has the mic that goes at the guitar bottom, no magnetic in the f-hole. I'm not thrilled with the magnetic sounds I've hears so far, but the technology is getting better and dual sounds interesting since you can mix.And Jack... I may take you up on that. My guitar could use some other maintenance at the same time, neck adjustment and a fret job (hasn't had a good fret job in years )... Does your guy do it all?I'm getting dangerous with guitar, Cubase, and Tascam... Lookout all you pros... Casey

[edteja]

Don't think magnetic, cause you will get that electric sound. But there are "glue under the soundboard" pickups, "put under the bridge pickups" and then those that use mics. As Ern said, the pickup in the guitar does "pick up" the live sounds (humming, kicking the music stand -- I don't do that but you might ) as well as the guitar. If you can stand doing it, I think the best sound comes from playing the song with the guitar miked, as Ern suggests, maybe mixing in a signal from your existing pickup. Either learn to sing in your head while tracking the guitar, or have the patience to get the guitar and vocal in one take. Either works, and it depends a bit on what you want in terms of being able to edit and remix later.

[og]

FWIW, I find it easier to play guitar along with a scratch guitar and vocal track. I can then put vocals over the new guitar track. I also like to record both together, but that really blows when someone wants an instrument-only mix as well as the full one...