Acoustic guitar pick-ups might be a completely new phenomenon to some, while an area of expertise to others. Pick-ups are generally a way of taking your acoustic guitar sounds to the next level, by ensuring the audience gets to hear every detail of the tone.
Depending on your preferences, the suitable pick-ups for your acoustic guitar shall differ. To know more in detail, keep reading!
Best Acoustic Guitar Pick Ups
Image | Product | Features | Price | Buy Now | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 | Seymour Duncan | Adaptable quality No artificial soundsMagnetic | $$ | ||
 | K & K Mini | Clear acoustics Wireless feature Transducer | $$ | ||
 | Fishman Neo | Magnetic Adaptable Low noise level back | $$$ | ||
 |
| Soundhole Smooth transmission Low noise level | $$ | ||
 | Seymour Duncan | Easy installation Magnetic Minimum noise | $$ | ||
 | Fishman Rare | Magnetic Smooth treble response Adaptable | $$$ | ||
 | Seymour Duncan | Magnetic Smooth transmission Replicate vibrations effectively | $$$ | ||
 | L R Baggs | Transducer Wireless Low noise level | $$ | ||
 | KNA Pick-Ups | Lightweight Portable Detachable | $$$ | ||
 | Fishman Pro | Adaptable Smooth transmission Magnetic | $$$ |
1. Best Acoustic Guitar Pick Ups: Seymour Duncan
The Seymour Duncan pick-up is a magnetic one, perfect for those who wish for an easily mountable pick-up. The passive pick-up cancels any distortions on a moderate level.
Moreover, the pick-up is versatile for several acoustic guitar models, making it versatile. The pick-up can be plugged into consoles or sound systems accordingly, making your experience smooth.
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2. Best Acoustic Guitar Pick Ups: K & K Mini
The Mini pick-up for acoustic guitar is an option for those performers who dislike bulky additions to their guitars. The transducer pick-up system ensures you get the maximum sound quality possible, being placed under the soundboard.
This means the pick-up shall remain invisible to the audience, ensuring a better appearance. The pre-wired pick-up saves you from the hassle of connecting chords and wires too!
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3. Best Acoustic Guitar Pick Ups: Fishman Neo
The Fishman Neo pick-up is a magnetic one, providing you the best possible transmission of your acoustic guitar’s sounds, that too without any distortions. The impedance design of this pick-up is highly versatile, ensuring coherence with your acoustic guitar depending on your playing style.
Moreover, the easy installation requires no professional help. In addition to these, the single-coil pick-up enables acoustic clarity for better performance.
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4. Best Acoustic Guitar Pick Ups: AMUMU SP30
The single-coil pick-up comes with a high impedance, ensuring versatility towards multiple acoustic guitars. The soundhole feature enables it to be installed easily while providing clear acoustic sound.
Moreover, the pick-up arrives with a lossless transmission cable, making sure there are minimum distortions in your performance. In addition to these features, the material of the pick-up enables easy transmission of the strings’ vibrations.
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5. Best Acoustic Guitar Pick Ups: Seymour Duncan
The single-coil pick-up from Seymour Duncan offers a moderate output level, with minimal disruptions. The magnetic pick-up is easy to install in your acoustic guitar, leaving you from the trouble of setting it up.
Furthermore, the passive characteristic of this pick-up makes sure that the acoustic guitar sounds are transmitted and replicated accordingly, with no interference. Lastly, the maple cover ensures durability and better transmission even in crowded surroundings.
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6. Best Acoustic Guitar Pick Ups: Fishman Rare
The Fishman Rare pick-up is ideal for acoustic guitars, as it’s a magnetic pick-up that ensures high output volume with the minimum noise level. The pick-up enables natural sound production, which is a necessity for many performers.
Moreover, the pick-up delivers fine-tuned audio, without any crackles and with a smooth flow. In addition to these features, it has a battery life of 240 hours- perfect for stage performances!
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Seymour Duncan might easily be one of the popular acoustic pick-up brands in the market currently. Along with the previous versions, the Woody acoustic pick-up from the brand promises to deliver high-quality audio with minimum disruptions.
The magnetic transducer enables it to be attached to the acoustic guitar, without being visible to the audience. The soundboard attachment system helps the pick-up to transmit all vibrations of the strings and balance it before displaying the melody to the audience. In addition to these, the maple-colored coating gives it an appealing appearance.
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8. L R Baggs
The under-saddle pick-up from L R Baggs offers to preamp your acoustic guitar audio, making it clearer and more transparent to the audience. The pre-attached characteristic makes the transmission process easier, with no worries about cords or wires.
Moreover, the pick-up has a volume and tone controller, enabling you to alter the two phenomena according to your mood and playing style. In addition to these, the acoustic guitar pick-up fits multiple saddle slots, while being invisible to the audience.
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9. KNA Pick-Ups
The KNA acoustic guitar pick-up offers to deliver the natural sound of your acoustics, with replicable transmission from the pick-up’s part. The acoustic guitar doesn’t need any modification, as the pick-up itself is detachable and easily manageable.
Moreover, the wooden case for carrying the pick-up is lightweight and easily portable- ideal for the performers who love to travel. Lastly, the installation process is safe and secure for non-professionals.
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10. Fishman Pro
The Fishman Pro acoustic pick-up promises to deliver outstanding acoustic clarity, with smooth transmission and replication. The neodymium magnetic structure assists in balancing the strings and transmitting the vibrations accurately.
Moreover, the high impedance design helps the pick-up to be versatile, and cohere with multiple acoustic guitars. In addition to these features, the installation process is easy and manageable by non-professionals!
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Acoustic Guitar Pickups Info Section
Before getting your hands on a certain type of pick-up, it’s essential to understand the features that qualify to be suitable for your acoustic guitar.
Often, people choose the pick-up with the most characteristics, but it fails to cohere with their acoustic guitar- making it useless. Hence, do your research!
Magnetic Pickups
Also known as soundhole pick-ups, magnetic pick-ups assist in transmitting the vibrations of the sound to the amplifier or the sound system. Most of the time, magnetic pick-ups just transfer the sound from your acoustic guitar without any hassles or disruptions.
While they are very useful to amp up your acoustic guitar performance, they are very easy to manage as well. You can mount or detach the magnetic pick-ups in a second, without any trouble.
Due to the ease of use, the magnetic pick-ups are versatile and can be used from several acoustic guitars as well. However, it shall arrive with a cable attached to it, which might be a problem if you do not like wires and chords.
Under Saddle Transducer
Another type of pick-up, which sits under the saddle of your acoustic guitar and is induced with piezoelectric crystals, to make your performance even better. The position of the under-saddle transducer helps to catch the vibration of your guitar strings more effectively, resulting in better sound quality produced.
Moreover, there are no wires included- you can use these pick-ups without the burden of wires and chords. However, the installation process of these pick-ups is strenuous due to their positioning in the acoustic guitar. Thus, it is recommended to take professional help in case of the installation process.
Soundboard Transducer
Also known as contact pick-ups, the soundboard transducer is attached underneath the soundboard of your acoustic guitar, making sure the pick-up receives the vibrations from the board and replicates it.
Even though this method might seem easy and manageable for low output volumes, it can be disruptive for higher volume levels. Since the pick-ups are attached to the soundboard, the sound from your acoustic guitar may result in microphonic, which is certainly not a treat to the ears. Hence, observe your output volume level before making a choice.
Preamps
Need to boost up your pick-up signals? Go for a preamp. Preamps shall help you balance the sound quality or get rid of the crackling vibrations, ensuring better melody without distortions.
Depending on your requirements and the parametric of your acoustic guitar, accompanied by your playing style, the type of preamp shall differ. Preamps range from easily manageable to complex ones- you may select your ideal match according to the necessities of your acoustic guitar.
In addition to these features, preamps can be built-in or external. While the built-in preamps may seem arduous to install, the external preamps might be hard to port to different places. According to your priorities, pick the right one!
Blend Systems
Not only can pick-ups be ideal for more than one acoustic guitar, but they can fulfill multiple functions at once. Therefore, it’s very natural if you like the functionality of one pick-up but the positioning and maintenance of another.
In this case, you may opt for blend systems, which are a blend of two or more pick-ups. The blend systems allow you to enjoy the features of many pick-ups without settling for all those at once. It can also provide multiple services that you can alter according to your playing style and mood.
They offer a more natural and definite tone, which serves as a must-have if you’re looking forward to impressing the audience. However, it’s essential to remember that the blended pick-ups are the pricier ones on the market due to their features.
Subjectivity
Pick-ups aren’t generally made for all acoustic guitars. While there might be some versatile options that work for multiple acoustic guitars, the scenario isn’t always the same. As a result, it’s vital to realize that the number of features does not predict how well the pick-up shall cohere with your acoustic guitar.
To enjoy the fullest potential of the acoustic guitar, the pick-up needs to meddle in with the sounds of the guitar.
Most of the time, people settle for the ones with big lists of characteristics but then failing to achieve the desired sound quality. This is because several vibrations and frequencies are in question when you attach a pick-up to an acoustic guitar.
Other than transmitting the sounds, the pick-up needs to be able to replicate the vibration of the strings accordingly. This again is heavily affected by your playing style. Hence, make sure you choose the pick-up that coheres with YOUR acoustic guitar, and not give in to other technicalities.
Conclusion
Acoustic guitar performances may need to be amped up a little from time to time, depending on your audience and the multitude of your playing stage. This is where the pick-ups come into action.
Pickups can amp your acoustic guitar sounds, ensuring that your performance is outstanding and reaching your audience efficiently. Therefore, let our pick-up reviews and buying guide help you in choosing the right match for your acoustic guitar!
You can also check: Best Guitar Amps under $500
