Pickup in a Legend?

[duluthdan]

Good thoughts all, thanks. I'll give this guitar some time in my hands before I take pickup action. I have the TV - maybe I'll swap out the Lyric for a Trance, and feed my itch with that.

[blindboygrunt]

My decision would be based on how many other guitars I (you) have that you can plug in to gig with. If you're a working musician and need more than one guitar on stage to make the songs work the way you want, then you need to get all of the guitars you play on stage set up to plug in. If, however, you only plug in occasionally and mostly for your own gratification seems to me you only need one guitar set up to plug in. I personally think that it is nigh impossible to make an acoustic guitar sound like an acoustic guitar once you plug it in. Whenever I sit across from another acoustic player, about three or four feet from the soundhole of her guitar, I so appreciate the sound I hear and I think nothing amplified I've ever heard comes even close to that tone. Another thing I consider is the added weight of the pickup system and the battery, if one is required. If your Legend is a light build I would think you'd want to savor that lightness and not add any weight that detracts from that attribute. My J-50 is the only guitar I own that has a built in pickup but I never use it so I've taken out the battery to keep it as light as possible. If I want to plug in I put a Fishman single coil soundhole pickup in my Eastman ET5-SS and into a little 5W tube amp and rock out. I only end up doing something like that about once every two months as I'd rather hear acoustic guitars au naturale. That's my take on it.

 

I don't understand the worry about lightness of the guitar. I can see how the 'lightness' or 'thinness' of the wood could improve or not improve the sound. but taking a battery out to reduce the overall mass of a guitar baffles me. unless that little 30mm of air taken up effects things !

 

no argument. just pondering.

[J-1854Me]

I wouldn't sweat it, Dan -- put a pickup in it if you intend on playing it and want to be able to be heard.

 

I recently had Dennis Berck install a pickup in my '56 J-185:

 

My reasoning was

-- it's my favourite guitar

-- it's already had a pickup in it (a DeArmond) and has the scars that come with that including a plugged jack hole in the side with the obligatory Oops-I-dropped-it-on-the-jack-hole side crack (now fixed) and the screw holes in the rosette and pickguard

-- the bridge plate was replaced with spruce which Dennis Berck re-replaced with a solid maple one

-- it sounds really good

-- given the above, it is not a collector closet queen

and,

-- Hogeye would tell me to "Just shutup already and PLAY the damn thing!"

 

...so I went ahead and had the pickup installed. It has the three sensors glued onto the (new) bridgeplate and requires no battery.

 

Go for it, would be my advice!

 

Fred

[larryp58]

Guitars are meant to be played! No matter how expensive or vintage they are, they're made to be played! If installing a pickup is going to help you perform or play it more often, I say go for it! At the end of the day, it's still a guitar. Installing a pickup does give you more options sound-wise, it's your guitar, let your conscience be your guide!!!

[aliasphobias]

I like them w/o pickups.