ETUDE: Adding a Pickup

KEN: Most archtops are strung with nickel wrapped strings, which sound fine on electric guitars, but can’t be expected to flatter a sensitive acoustic guitar. The Acoustic Archtop guitar needs bronze wrapped strings to sound its best. Only a few pickups have been designed to balance properly with bronze wrapped strings, and, no surprise, all are aimed at flat-top acoustic guitars, and extend into the sound hole. These pickups work well on flat-top guitars, but are too bulky to fit on traditionally built archtops, forcing players to fit electric guitar strings to their acoustic archtops so as to achieve correct string balance.

Duneland Labs has developed a unique pickup specifically for my guitars, and I’m proud to be able to offer it as an option. This pickup sounds remarkably like the instrument's acoustic voice and, for the first time, offers a no-compromise solution to amplifying the Acoustic Archtop guitar.

In this series, I demonstrate how the raw pickup coils are packaged, dressed up, and fit to the guitar.