Pick up for a Hawaiian Gold Tone

Joe Burke · From: Toronto, Canada

Has anyone had a pick up installed in a Gold Tone PBKG?

Someone recommended a pick up that would sit under the bridge.

Michael Kienhofer · From: Goulais River,Ontario,Canada

Not an undersaddle but i use the M1 LR Baggs.
Fantastic pickup!

Erv Niehaus · From: Litchfield, MN, USA

I use a Sunrise pickup on mine.
I also have a Bagg's pickup mounted under the bridge inside the guitar. I run the pickups to a stereo jack on the end of the guitar and from there into a Marshall acoustic amp where I can divide the signals into two separate channels to balance them out.
I get a real good sound and have received several compliments. I have the same setup on a Superior Weissenborn.

Mark Eaton · Posted 14 Jul 2014 9:23 am

Sure, it's a lap steel - but in essence it's still a flattop guitar that just happens to have a square neck. So unlike a resonator where good choices are extremely limited, you have the vast world of acoustic guitar pickup technology available to you as choices for this Gold Tone.

Where you are going to find a lot of talk about acoustic pickups will be on sites like The Acoustic Guitar Forum or The Unofficial Martin Guitar Forum.

The Baggs and Sunrise pickups mentioned above are fine options and they are soundhole pickups. Maybe you don't want a soundhole pickup, or maybe you do.

I really like K & K pickups. Three transducers are mounted in the guitar on the underside of the bridge plate and connected to a standard 1/4 inch endpin jack. I was at Artisan Guitars outside of Nashville in Franklin a few years ago and they are really big on K & K pickups and install them in a lot of guitars they sell. The guy that was helping me said that he had sold a couple of really nice acoustics recently to a pair of guys who can afford anything they want, and they opted for K & K - their names were Brad Paisley and Kenny Chesney.

I'm not sure to what you are referring as "under the bridge " pickups, maybe that's something like the K & K, or is it more like what is referred to as an "under the saddle transducer" or UST? To use LR Baggs as an example, this would be their piezo pickup known as the Element.

There are pluses and minuses to all these choices and it's why there are long threads on acoustic guitar forums about them.

But do check out K & K:

http://kksound.com/index.php
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Mark

Mark Eaton · Posted 14 Jul 2014 10:03 am

Erv, thank you for editing your post - when I entered mine earlier Erv's originally read that he had a Sunrise pickup, there wasn't any mention about an L.R. Baggs pickup.

Erv, what type of pickup from Baggs is an "under the bridge" model? Is it the iBeam bridge plate transducer?

Sounds like you might have more money into the pickups in the two guitars mentioned than the guitars themselves!

I guess we need to know from Joe how much he is willing to spend on this guitar for a pickup. And if it's going to be used a lot for plugged in playing - it's easy to overspend in the area of amplification.

I also have a Seymour Duncan Wooody soundhole p'up I use sometimes, it's the high end of the three they offer, the humbucker model. I think they are about 75 bucks. Works pretty well for many applications but the cable coming off the top of the guitar from the soundhole pickup is kind of annoying. But for occasional plugged-in playing it's fine.
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Mark

Erv Niehaus · From: Litchfield, MN, USA

Yes, that's the one.
I use the passive pickup.
I really don't like the idea of having to get inside the guitar to change the battery.
It's quite simple to install the pickup.
It comes with a jig to help position the pickup.
As far as expense, you have to look around and pick them up where most reasonable.
I see the passive Baggs pickup listed for $85.00

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