Acoustic pickups – where do I start?A very good question, and one we’re going to have a go at tackling here and now...What type of acoustic guitar pickup is best?There are a few alternatives when it comes to amplifying an acoustic and they all have their pros and cons.The most common type found on guitars with pre-installed pickups are piezo pickups fitted underneath the saddle of the guitar. Piezo acoustic guitar pickups work much like the diaphragm of a microphone, converting the back-and-forth vibration of the saddle into an electrical signal. As this signal is very weak, a pre-amp is usually used to boost the level of the signal before it leaves the guitar. Suitably amplified, piezos produce a clean, strong signal that is fairly feedback resistant, and is a good choice for a stage guitar in most environments. These preamps can be mounted into a control unit on the side of the guitar with controls for volume and EQ, or more discretely within the assembly of the jack output socket. Transducer (or “bug”) pickups work in the same manner as a piezo, but take vibration from the soundboard of the guitar. As the pickup is responding to the vibration of the top as a whole and not just the saddle, this can offer surprisingly realistic results. Budget transducers are generally attached to the outside of the guitar using removable putty, and are probably the cheapest way to get a reasonable sound from an acoustic guitar. Because the pickups are removable you can experiment with placing the transducer on different parts of the soundboard to find the “sweet spots”.Professional transducers are usually installed inside the guitar, most commonly fitted to the bridge plate (a strip of hardwood glued to the soundboard underneath the bridge that prevents the soundboard from twisting underneath the bridge and protects the delicate top from string ball-ends). These are extremely realistic in sound; however, soundboard transducers are noticeably more prone to feedback than piezos, so are impractical for high volume environments. They also pick up more handling noise, so if you’re going to use one sitting still on a stool is pretty much a requisite!A third option is a magnetic pickup that works in the same way as the pickup on an electric guitar. These take sound from the strings rather than the guitar, so you won’t hear any of your instrument’s individual character, but with careful voicing a good approximation of an acoustic sound is possible, and with low handling noise and good feedback resistance they are a good choice for loud band situations. The cheaper variants are less fiddly to set up than bug transducers, and are handy to keep in your guitar case if you only need to plug in occasionally. Pro versions benefit from professional instalment with an internal jack output.It is possible to fit a microphone inside an acoustic guitar. The sound tends to be a little muddy as there are a lot of sound-waves bouncing about inside that body, but microphones work very well when blended with a piezo to add colour and depth to the sound. Microphones are the most feedback prone of all methods of amplification.How are acoustic pickups installed? Can I do it myself?Some pickups are designed to be installed by the player. Magnetic pickups generally clip across the sound hole, and don’t need professional installation – although if you’ve any doubts about how to do it don’t be afraid to ask the person selling you the pickup to show you how it fits. Similarly if you can use blue-tak you shouldn’t have any problems with the bug transducers!Fitting a piezo pickup requires a higher level of skill, and is not recommended for the amateur. The piezo lies underneath the saddle inside the bridge. A hole is drilled through the bridge to allow the piezo to connect to the preamp, and a second hole is drilled and reamed through the endblock, where the jack socket assembly exits the guitar. The saddle needs filing to compensate for the thickness of the pickup, and it is also necessary to ensure that the saddle and saddle slot are totally flat. The top of the piezo should sit a few millimetres below the top of the bridge - if the saddle slot for your guitar has been routed so that it is fairly shallow, it may also be necessary to deepen the slot to allow the pickup to sit correctly.Internal transducers can be fiddly to manoeuvre into place inside the guitar; you only really get one shot at getting it in the right place and you still have to drill out the end pin to install the jack socket, so again we strongly recommend leaving it to the experts.We never recommend fitting side mounted pre-amps – if you need controls on the guitar Fishman make a series of pickups with control plates attached to the underside of the sound hole – far neater, and can be removed without trace if you decide to remove the pickup at a later date.What is the best brand of acoustic pickup?Ok, so this one is pretty subjective.Fishman is probably the best known manufacturer of acoustic pickups. Their Rare Earth series is a pro quality magnetic sound hole pickup, easy to install and excellent in sound quality. I would recommend the hum-bucking version for a few pounds extra as the single coil is a little susceptible to buzzes and interference. The Neo D is a good budget alternative version and, as it’s designed to be easily removable, ideal to keep in your case for occasional gig use. The Fishman piezos have quite a distinctive sound which I find a little harsh, but the more expensive models have Microphones built in that smooth out the sound very well and the preamps are excellent if you want on board controls.The English based Headway piezos are the pickup of choice for Fylde guitars, and we can certainly see why with a warm, full sound when compared to the Fishman. It’s not the easiest pickup to fit and we often need to re-rout the guitars saddle slot, so it can be a little more expensive to fit than the other piezos.Shadow were pioneers of the under-saddle pickup, and their Nano-Flex piezo – as used by Gibson, Epiphone and Faith - is an excellent system. Very thin, easy to fit and with a microphonic strip that picks up vibration through the bridge and soundboard as well as the saddle. Because of its thinness it works really well on guitars with through saddles, and they offer a version voiced specifically for classical guitar. They also make some good budget bug transducers and magnetic pickupsAER are primarily an Acoustic amp manufacturer who are currently making waves with a combined piezo and microphone system. It’s a new one to us but we’ve installed a few of them this summer and they invariably sound great.EPM are a Canadian budget brand who make an excellent soundhole pickup, and some funky bottle top bug transducers.Dean Markley make an excellent semi pro sound-hole pickup called the Tahoe.So, that’s the basics!Forsyths try to keep all the above in stock and we’re always happy to advise, so give us a call and we’ll do our best to help work out which pick up is best.