Often when we try to choose an aftermarket pickup for our acoustics, we are overwhelmed by the various brands and the various types available. Here, I'll try to provide information about acoustic pickups by categorising them.

General categories are:

1. UST
2. Magnetic soundhole pickups
3. Bridgeplate transducers
4. Condenser mikes.

The final bit is about combination of pickups. The only form of pickup ignored is the acoustic soundboard transducer which is seldomly used on acoustic steel strings but more on classical guitars. In this article, I do not criticise or promote one manufacturer's product over the other.

UST

The most popular form of pickup found in most guitars is the undersaddle transducer (UST). It usually takes the form of a very thin piece of metal-looking strip, placed just below the saddle.

The most common one is the piezo pickup, which is made of ceramic. It is the cheapest form of pickup available in the market and nearly all major pickup manufacturer would have their own version of it. Fishman almost exclusively uses the piezo UST, the Acoustic Matrix. And the others are the Baggs Element and B-band's UST.

However, many amplified acoustic tone connoisseurs disdane the piezo ceramic UST, because of it's tendency to give an unbalanced tone. Other criticisms is it gives a harsh percussive tone, as it is under pressure by the tension of the strings and doesn't capture much sound from the soundboard.
The nature of this unbalanced tone requires a preamp. This is why we will always see a preamp built into the guitar, to adjust and compensate for the unbalanced tone. Another point of note is that the piezo is seldom left as passive as it would sound thin and trebled without any preamp compensation.

Another form of the UST is Schertler Bluestick. This is unlike the piezo, as it is a miniaturized electrostatic condenser microphone. I haven't tried it before, but this product is very popular and has received praises by being able to reproduce a good acoustic tone.

Soundhole Magnetics

The next category looked at is a soundhole-mounted pickup, aimed at capturing sound from the strings. It consists of neodymium magnets to provide string balance and have electronics already built in, thereby removing the need for barndoor preamps. Many of them are also humbucking, not too different from electric humbuckers. The magnetic soundhole pickups are the best for capturing the tone of strings.

Popular ones are the Seymour Duncan MagMic, Fishman's Rare Earth, and the Baggs new M1 is also bound to be popular. However, such pickups are very obstrusive to regular look and feel of a guitar, which is a no-no in my book.

Bridgeplate Transducers

This is by far the favourite of most acoustic players as it captures most of the nuances from the soundboard. By it's category, we of course know that it is attached to the bridgeplate, which makes good sense since it is a critical component in transferring string vibration to the soundboard and the sound chamber.

Here, unlike the others, different manufacturers have significant different forms of their bridgeplate transducers. The most popular would be Baggs I-beam which is really tried and proven, and have won many awards. I think the only negative point is it's prone to feedback.

Another is the K&K Pure Western. I haven't tried it before but I'm having it installed in my new guitar. The interesting thing about the K&K PW is that it works very well as a passive and many have noted that it is really unnecessary for it to be active. It also has received many positive comments in that it reproduces the acoustic tone closely.

The wrongly named B-Band AST, meaning acoustic soundboard transducer when it is really bridgeplate positioned is not too different from the Schertler Bluestick as it is a condenser transducer as well. It is usually combined with the UST, with the UST capturing string tone and the AST capturing soundboard nuances. We'll look more at pickup combination at the end.

Condensor Mikes

I'm not looking at the mikes per se but on those that are mounted on the guitar. There's not much to say about them. After all they are mikes and everyone knows that mikes capture everything, from strings to nuances to overtones. The only thing is that they are highly suspectible to feedback, as all mikes are.

Such guitar mounted mikes are equipped are 'goosenecked', thereby enabling positioning for optimal tone capture. As usual, most manufacturers have their models. B-band and Fishman have got their's goosenecked, but Baggs is slightly different having their condenser on the back of the inside of the guitar and apparently this helps to minimise feedback.

Combinations
Manufacturers consistently offer various combinations of pickups, most of them packaged together with preamps to best capture the acoustic tone. The most common package is to have a UST piezo with a condensor mike. B-band, Fishman and LR Baggs all offer this. In particularly, Baggs Dual Source system is well-received.

Also popular is the magnetic soundhole pickup with condensor mike. Seymour Duncan's MagMic is one such combination. In fact many magnetic soundhole pickups are combined together with mics.

The final popular combination seen today has two systems released this year. One is B-band's A2.2 with the AST and UST, and the other is Baggs iMix with Element and I-beam.

The key to such combinations is having one pickup to capture dynamic string tone action and the other to capture soundboard/sound chamber nuances and overtones. Of course other combinations can be put together, but the above are the more popular ones.

The lastest system to cause such a rage but isn't available as an after-market system is Taylor's ES. It uses Taylor's unique NT neck to position a magnetic neck pickup just below the fretboard, and this is similar to the magnetic sound hole pickup, but this is hidden in body, just below the fretboard to capture string action.

The other ES pickup is 2 magnetic acoustic soundboard tranducers, positioned closely near the bridgeplate to capture soundboard tones. These two are coupled with the specially designed unobstrusive preamp to give one of the best pickup systems available.

To Conclude...
Of course the information here is only a small bit of what is out there. I just hope that this provides you of a better understanding of acoustic pickups.

Thats all I have to say in a nutshell.  If you've learned something or you have further clarifications, feel free to drop us an email. We'll love to hear from you! Till then, have a great day and keep on practicing!

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