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King Loudness « Cheap pickup... fake sound... do not buy! »
Published on 05/01/11 at 15:02I purchased a new Larrivee L-03 acoustic in late summer of 2009 and decided that I, for some inexplicable reason, needed a pickup for it. However, I only had a budget of about $50. The only thing I could get within that price range was the Dean Markley Pro Mag. It's basically a single coil pickup that slips into the soundhole of your acoustic guitar and from there, a long cable with a 1/4" plug on the end of it protrudes out so that you can plug it right into an amplifier.
There are no controls for this pickup whatsoever. No volume, no tones, no equalization sliders, etc. All adjustments for the sound or output level coming from the pickup have to be done from the amp, and while it's nice not to have to drill into the guitar to install controls, not having ANYTHING to adjust is a major pain. Another problem was that I didn't have the budget for a proper acoustic amplifier or sound system to run into for a purer signal, so I had no choice but to run into electric amps. This produced a pretty terrible sound, but even when I was later able to try it through a Fender Acoustasonic Junior amplifier, it really didn't sound much better.
The tones from this pickup could be characterized as anything but acoustic sounding. It basically sounded like a very dead, muffled, and generally un-natural tone that was not pleasing to the ear. The closest comparison I have is plugging an electric guitar into a cheap, small amplifier, using the neck pickup and rolling the tone completely off. Basically a dead sound that has no brightness or overtones. This isn't helped by the fact that it has no controls to adjust it... so what you see is what you get. Not impressive as an acoustic pickup at all... it made my $1,000 Larrivee sound like a $100 guitar from Wal-Mart when it was plugged in.
In closing, this is a terrible example of an acoustic pickup. It's like putting a blanket over your guitar to completely deaden the sound, and then, just like a blanket, this pickup has no controls to adjust your tone, so again what you see is what you get. I (very fortunately) managed to sell this pickup for the $50 I paid and learned my lesson...
There are no controls for this pickup whatsoever. No volume, no tones, no equalization sliders, etc. All adjustments for the sound or output level coming from the pickup have to be done from the amp, and while it's nice not to have to drill into the guitar to install controls, not having ANYTHING to adjust is a major pain. Another problem was that I didn't have the budget for a proper acoustic amplifier or sound system to run into for a purer signal, so I had no choice but to run into electric amps. This produced a pretty terrible sound, but even when I was later able to try it through a Fender Acoustasonic Junior amplifier, it really didn't sound much better.
The tones from this pickup could be characterized as anything but acoustic sounding. It basically sounded like a very dead, muffled, and generally un-natural tone that was not pleasing to the ear. The closest comparison I have is plugging an electric guitar into a cheap, small amplifier, using the neck pickup and rolling the tone completely off. Basically a dead sound that has no brightness or overtones. This isn't helped by the fact that it has no controls to adjust it... so what you see is what you get. Not impressive as an acoustic pickup at all... it made my $1,000 Larrivee sound like a $100 guitar from Wal-Mart when it was plugged in.
In closing, this is a terrible example of an acoustic pickup. It's like putting a blanket over your guitar to completely deaden the sound, and then, just like a blanket, this pickup has no controls to adjust your tone, so again what you see is what you get. I (very fortunately) managed to sell this pickup for the $50 I paid and learned my lesson...