Which external pick-up?

Hi guys, I'm finding it pretty hard to find reviews on external pick ups, and ones I can buy in/will be shipped to England. I know Aldrine mentioned one in the very first Uke Minutes, but I can't work out what brand it is. If any of you have had experience with external pick ups, clip on or putty type ones, any advice or comments would be much appreciated!

Mahalo!

I have plenty of experience with stick on pickups, and my advice is to avoid them if you can and to go with undersaddle or a mic instead.

External stick ons have many disadvantages:

• feedback
• handling noise
• picking thud
• more feedback
• more picking noise...

The advantages are...

Er... Well, there must be some, I've just not discovered them yet.

YMMV and others will disagree, but that's my :2cents:

Hmm, appreciate your views. I was hoping to perform something at my school concert in the summer (long way away) but the uke I'm getting for xmas has no installed pick up. Usually at school if someones playing an acoustic instrument on stage they just stick a mic infront of it, but that leaves no freedom to move.

Maybe I'll contact Pete Howlett in a few months time and see if he can sort me out

An undersaddle is a very easy DIY install.

Rigk from Risa/ukulele.de did a good video showing how to do it. Check out:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PdLUDWoh-cE

I got a Shadow uke pickup for about £45 and it took me about quarter of an hour to install it in my tenor uke. Works great.

Check out the item at the bottom of this page:
http://www.highlystrung.co.uk/acatalog/shadow_pickups.html

If you install a preamp too it's a bit more work, but I use an outboard preamp.

Regardless of whether you go for a stick-on or an undersaddle, they're both piezos and so will not give their best unless you use a preamp of some kind.

I hope you find what you need.