Adding electronics to non-electric acoustic

[brandondrury]

I was wondering if anyone had any luck with adding electronics to acoustic guitars that didn't come with electronics from the factory.

It seams that drilly a hole for the guitar cable would make a mega difference in tone, but I'm not sure. It seams to me like you would be best off buying a kick ass acoustic electric and then swapping out the pickup if you wanted something different.

Am I wrong? I have no experience at this one so I wanted to ask.

Brandon

[dach]

I certainly won't be mangling the Goodall any time soon but I did do it to the Sigma. It shouldn't be a big deal doing it to a cheap gtr... but I wouldn't do it to an expensive gtr unless it required no drilling.

[guitar junkie]

Originally Posted by brandondrury

I was wondering if anyone had any luck with adding electronics to acoustic guitars that didn't come with electronics from the factory.

It seams that drilly a hole for the guitar cable would make a mega difference in tone, but I'm not sure. It seams to me like you would be best off buying a kick ass acoustic electric and then swapping out the pickup if you wanted something different.

Am I wrong? I have no experience at this one so I wanted to ask.

Brandon

my acoustics have pickups added after market.

My Gretsch has a Seymour Acoustic Tube pickup which is a stacked humbucking sound hole deal.... the only hole drilled for this was the jack in the tail block, about the same as having the strap pin still there... nothing seems to have changed there...


My Guild has a Fishman Rare Earth humbucker in it and again the same thing....

If you add the pre amp to the side of the guitar, then yes some tone may change but not near enough IMO to worry about... pickups are just this evil thing we have to deal with while playing live.

My choice live would be to just use an SM57 but then again the way I move around on stage while putting up a good show the chances are nobody would ever hear my guitar at all!

[brandondrury]

nothing seems to have changed there...

Well that's good to know. I get asked this question a lot so maybe now I can give some halfway educated advice.

Brandon