Help choosing a pickup... yeah I know, another thread...

I think I have read literally every pickup discussion thread on the forum, but I still come off feeling like I don't know anything more than when I started.

I need a pickup for my kala acacia tenor LOW G. I don't know if anyone has had any different experiences with amplifying low g or anything, but this uke will always be low G.

Now I've heard of some people using the Misi trio pre-amp and then using other companies cables. Anyone care to comment on that?

I've also heard about the K&K and the fishman pickups, but have heard such conflicting things I've just become confused.

I realize that this thread may just confuse me further, but I'm not sure what else to do.

I have a misi trio in my Ohana and I think it's fine, it picks up a bit of finger-sounds, but the amp I have right now is utter crap, and it is hard to determine much about the pickup.

Dane said:

I have a misi trio in my Ohana and I think it's fine, it picks up a bit of finger-sounds, but the amp I have right now is utter crap, and it is hard to determine much about the pickup.

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That's your number one problem.

What sort of things are you planning on doing with this uke amplified? Are you running it into your amp or are planning on playing on other peoples / venues systems?

thejumpingflea said:

That's your number one problem.

What sort of things are you planning on doing with this uke amplified? Are you running it into your amp or are planning on playing on other peoples / venues systems?

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I'm going to be playing through some vintage tube amps with my friend who plays guitar. I will eventually be getting a low watt vintage tube amp as well.

Dane said:

I'm going to be playing through some vintage tube amps with my friend who plays guitar. I will eventually be getting a low watt vintage tube amp as well.

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Do you have any pedals or DI's that you'll be using with it? Are you going to be installing the pickup?

Also, what do you mean by finger noise with the MiSi?

Amplifying a uke is a nightmare.... Haha

thejumpingflea said:

Do you have any pedals or DI's that you'll be using with it? Are you going to be installing the pickup?

Also, what do you mean by finger noise with the MiSi?

Amplifying a uke is a nightmare.... Haha

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I don't have anything else at the moment, nothing that I own.

I try to minimize it as much as possible with how I make contact, but the noises from your fingers making contact with the strings. Which isn't so bad if I have a little reverb and I play a bit quicker. But I was fiddling with it yesterday on some quality vintage tube amps and I could minimize it significantly. Just was curious if anyone had any comments about it.

And I will have someone install this pickup, I have a contact who is supposed to be a very good tech.

I say that if you want something that doesn't give you a hard time, stay away from the Fishman Matrix Infinity. I find myself having a hard time playing with the volume/tone/mid switches to get the tone I want. With the old Acoustic Matrix, it was plug and go. I believe the MiSi is also plug and play. Not sure about the K&K though. That being said, I do have the Matrix Infinity installed in 3 of my instruments...so it can't be all that unusable. It's just not ideal for me. At the same time, I don't like the MiSi since I would need to charge it whenever I want to use it.

Ultimately, issues like that come down to personal preference.

experimentjon said:

I say that if you want something that doesn't give you a hard time, stay away from the Fishman Matrix Infinity. I find myself having a hard time playing with the volume/tone/mid switches to get the tone I want. With the old Acoustic Matrix, it was plug and go. I believe the MiSi is also plug and play. Not sure about the K&K though. That being said, I do have the Matrix Infinity installed in 3 of my instruments...so it can't be all that unusable. It's just not ideal for me. At the same time, I don't like the MiSi since I would need to charge it whenever I want to use it.

Ultimately, issues like that come down to personal preference.

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Yeah, and actually the misi stays charged for a LONG time. I charge it just once every few weeks, takes 1 minute to charge, lasts like 16 hours or something

pulling this off page 2, anyone have any thoughts?

When I was searching for a pickup, I called Fishman and got these answers: the Infinity Matrix uses a ribbon wide crystal that picks up a mix of signal from all the strings..."Good for strumming" he said. Their AG series pickup uses 4 individual crystals giving you a separation of string signal. That's what I went with. It is passive, so you may find you need to use a preamp, but alot of those have EQ's, so you should be able to mix out any finger noise (although I haven't had any!)

Call Fishman...they were happy to talk to me! Make to check the string spacing, though.

~Michael

AzMichael said:

When I was searching for a pickup, I called Fishman and got these answers: the Infinity Matrix uses a ribbon wide crystal that picks up a mix of signal from all the strings..."Good for strumming" he said. Their AG series pickup uses 4 individual crystals giving you a separation of string signal. That's what I went with. It is passive, so you may find you need to use a preamp, but alot of those have EQ's, so you should be able to mix out any finger noise (although I haven't had any!)

Call Fishman...they were happy to talk to me! Make to check the string spacing, though.

~Michael

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hmm very interesting. thanks for the info!