PICKUPS & PREAMPS

I have tried many different pickups over the years and have settled on a few types that I would most recommend. Prices include fitting to any guitar with the most common addition being a new saddle if the existing one is not fitting well enough for proper seating of an undersaddle pickup (a new bone saddle is usually about £30 extra).

LR Baggs Systems www.lrbaggs.com

There are many excellent pickup systems made by LR Baggs and I feel that they are probably the most professional and good sounding range available. I have only listed the systems which I use most frequently but I can fit all guitar systems listed on their website and also supply any of their products mail order including preamps, DIs and amps. Please contact me for current mail order prices.

LR Baggs Anthem and Anthem SL - The new benchmark for tone and ease of use!

Ideal for a very natural but stable and easy to use sound for almost any situation - finally no trade-off between reliable tone and good tone!

Bagg's latest systems combine an undersaddle pickup with an internal mic like many other dual systems have done in the past but they have done it in a new way which achieves what I feel is a dramatic step up from even their best previous offerings. The 'Tru-Mic' attaches very close to the bridgeplate on the inside of the guitar with a special mounting harness - this positioning rejects most of the reverberating jumble of sound waves inside the guitar and instead picks up a strong and robust tone from the strings which is very dramatically better than any other mic positioned in other ways. In both versions of the system there is an active crossover circuit which rejects everything below 250Hz for the mic and everything above for the undersaddle. What this means in practice is that you get all your attack and upper midrange nice and sweetly from the mic but without any boom and all your bass and low end strength from the undersaddle but without any unnatural attack or aggressive mids.

The full Anthem system has a soundhole mounted control panel (see Bagg's website) which includes volume, blend (you can go to full range undersaddle if you want), phase and a very handy battery level check.

The Anthem SL has a preset mix and just a soundhole mounted volume control - the preset mix is adjustable to suit the particular guitar at point of fitting.

ANTHEM :£350 fitted, £300 with a Benjamin guitar.

ANTHEM SL: £275 fitted, £225 with a Benjamin guitar.

Recommended EQ settings; often little or no EQing is required but sometimes you may want a mild boost to upper mids and/or presence for warmer guitars or a notch cut at about 250Hz for bassy instruments or for higher volume situations. Brand new strings can sometimes benefit from a slight treble cut too!

LR Baggs M1 and M1 Active - magnetic soundhole pickups with soundboard sensing.

Robust but detailed feedback resistant tone ideal for band situations.

The M1 appears on first inspection to be a magnetic soundhole pickup much like any other but its secret weapon is its ability to sense soundboard vibration as well as the normal picking up of the strings like other magnetic units. It does this by allowing the two coils within it to vibrate relative to one another in a controlled way, producing a balanced and non-boomy microphonic effect as well as the magnetic string sensing from the same device.

The M1 boasts adjustable pole pieces for each string, allowing string to string balance adjustments and also quite dramatic tonal adjustments. When the pole pieces are set further away from the strings the microphonic part of the sound is heard more, giving the pickup a brighter more transparent quality. As you move all the pole pieces nearer the strings you get a fuller more 'magnetic' tone .

The M1 has all the benefits of most magnetics including good feedback resistance, which combined with it's great sensitivity makes it an ideal pickup for solo fingerstyle players particularly playing blues toned music. It also sounds good strummed and flatpicked in a band setting (some mid cutting EQ at about 900Hz benefits for these styles), making it one of the best ways to be heard in a (moderately!) loud band with minimum hassle and maximum tone.

The active version of the M1 has a built in preamp and mini integral volume control powered by a watch battery (1000 hours life). The M1 Active is compatible with all outboard equipment:- please note the passive version does not work well straight into a desk line input and needs either an active DI box with reasonably high input impedance, acoustic amp or preamp, such as the EDB-1 or Para DI to sound at it's best.

M1:£190 including fitting,£150 with a Benjamin guitar.

M1 Active: £220 including fitting, £175 with a Benjamin guitar.

Recommended EQ settings: mid cut at about 800-1000Hz plus mild treble cut above 5kHz for brighter PAs and/or a notch cut at about 250Hz for higher volumes or more bassy guitars.

LR Baggs Dual Source Systems - ideal for percussion players who need precise control of sounds from the guitar's body.

Baggs original internally fitting pickup and mic blending system has now been updated with the more unobtrusive blend controls used on the iMix system. The Dual Source is now available with an Element or the original Ribbon undersaddle combined with Bagg's internal mic. The mic is unique in its combination of foam block suspension and mounting position on the inside of a guitar's back rather than using the more common gooseneck mounting style soundhole positioning of most internal mics. In my experience the Baggs mic gives a much more even and less boxy sounding tone than many other types of internal mic and the variable bass control included on the Dual Source preamp makes it relatively easy to set up a good sound. It is also possible to combine an M1 (passive) with a mic using this system and blending can be purely on-board via the soundhole controls or it can be switched into stereo mode for off-board blending or recording of the two sounds separately.

Dual Source system: £260 including fitting, £210 with Benjamin guitar.

Recommended EQ settings: upper mid cut at about 1.4kHz and slight treble cut above 5kHz, if higher mic levels are used then a notch cut at about 250Hz is also essential.

As used by Newton Faulkner in his Benjamin guitars (Ribbon version mainly).

K&K Sound www.kksound.com

K&K pickups are based around a seemingly simple three head piezo disc contact pickup system which superglues (removably) to the bridgeplate inside the guitar. Thomas Leeb first asked me to fit this pickup to the 'Percussion' guitar prototype for him and I was very surprised at the tone and feedback resistance. To get the best results a reasonably strong mid cut is required but when you have done this every other part of the sound is good.

My favourite K&K system is the Trinity which combines the 'Pure' discs with a mic and a dual channel preamp. It is ideal for a very detailed, rich and dynamic tone for solo percussion players.

K&K preamps are ideally matched to the systems and allow you to preset the EQ for a given guitar and allow blending of either an undersaddle pickup or microphone with the main K&K 'Pure' pickups. There are many choices - please see their website for details - some of the main options are listed below.

Ultra Pure Mini: £190 fitted.
Trinity Mini: £290 fitted.
Onboard Trinity Mini: £310 fitted.

Please double check current prices with me - I am mainly getting these systems in to order now.

Highlander www.highlanderpickups.com

I can supply all Highlander acoustic guitar products, contact me for prices. These are to order only, waiting time generally two weeks or more.

Headway www.headwaymusicaudio.com

Headway produce excellent piezo undersaddle pickups here in the UK which include some of the best piezo preamps available, all class-A for maximum headroom and minimum distortion with a hi-fi inspired enriching circuit in some models which helps remove any brittleness from the sound and gives a valve like quality. Definitely one of the best undersaddle systems I've tried for higher volume stage work. Please contact me for current prices.

AMPLIFICATION

I have decided not to offer guitar amps via mail order anymore because I can't compete with other larger online retailers' prices.

PREAMPS, BLENDERS etc.

Headway www.headwaymusicaudio.com

Headway EDB-1; Headway's new preamp/EQ/DI box is essentially the main channel of their fantastic SK120 amp in a small box; warm tone, powerful 5 band EQ, excellent notch filter, plus many switchable extra features (see their website). It has two input channels with separate gain controls but the two signals cannot be EQed separately - ideal for a more visually obvious way of blending the Baggs iMix or Dual Source. This is currently my first recommendation for tone shaping any acoustic pickup!
£199 or £175 with a pickup system or guitar (UK RRP £199).

LR Baggs www.lrbaggs.com

LR Baggs Para Acoustic DI (Para-DI); a great EQ/preamp/DI in a small rugged box, 5 band EQ including notch filter etc. The Para DI has long set the bench-mark for all units of this type - its uncoloured tone and subtle 'quasi-passive' EQ are great for tweaking your sound in a live setting.
£199 or £185 with a pickup system or guitar (UK RRP £209).

LR Baggs Venue DI; a new all singing all dancing DI unit from Baggs! Five band EQ with two tunable mids, notch filter, signal level meter, built in foot-switchable tuner/mute, boost foot-switch, and ground lift. Lots of very useful tools for live performance in one box!
£330 or £310 with a pickup system or guitar (RRP £369).

D-Tar www.dtar.com

Please contact me for current prices of D-tar preamps.