Mandolin Pickups- whats the best??

Any of you people any experince of pickups for the mandolin?

I want a good clean acoustic sound.

I have a Ozark mandolin and the bridge is flat on the sound board so I don’t thin one of the Bridge pickups would be any use to me.

Cheers

The best I’ve heard is a Schertler but they are very expensive.

I use a McIntyre Acoustic Feather internally installed (i.e stuck on soundboard inside, under the bridge) with acceptable results.

Needs a pre-amp

The Schertler DYN-M is very good but as Bren said very expensive. The nice thing about them though is that it’s not installed on the instrument, you put it on only when you are using it. If you upgrade your instrument you can keep the pickup

My quick answer is that the results usually reflect what you’ve spent on it, oh, and how good the sound engineer is.
Will the pickup be earning it’s keep, or is it just for your own personal satisfaction and making the audience happy ?
Some recent threads have suggested that, in an ideal and controlled situation, you won’t do better than with a good microphone. On the other hand, I can see why a pickup has the advantage, not being tied to one spot up against a mike.

I think one of the reasons the Schertler works as well as it does is because it’s really a mic, not a pickup. The mode of attachment (putty) virtually eliminates feedback and it moves with the instrument, like a pickup, but it has the mic sound.

hi,

The Shertler Bluestick Pocket is the best for the mandolin::
http://www.gougi.com/fr/schertle/blue/pocket.html

about 400 Euros installed by a luthier, F Gougi in my case.

Paul

I fitted a Shadow pick-up and equaliser on my F5 copy and has totally ruined the accoustic sound of the instrument. The tone is not as sharp as it was before fitting the pick-up. Hywel

I am using a Fishman pickup for many years and it sounds very good…

here you can hear some samples of me and my band:

http://www.kapellis.de/cds.html

Greetings from germany

Frank

I just installed a MI-SI acoustic trio in my Paris swing mandolin.. ms -120 . all I can say, it is incredible . great balance , super easy to install. and it is active WITHOUT a battery. you just plug it in for one minute and it stays active for 8 hours.[ or if you forget the plug you can use a 9 volt battery and a stereo cable.] . I put it trough my Tonebone [ by radial ] pre-z. and it goes anywhere I want it too. I know if will feel chancy trying something this new. But you will be very happily surprised. They are about $150. and WELL worth tripple that. I’m goin to get them for my other two acoutic mando’s and maybe my fiddle too.

What is the difference between a Schatten Dualie and a Bizzy Bee contact Mic?