Acoustic Guitar Pickups

Acoustic guitar pickups are available from guitarguitar. They are unlike electric guitar pickups, which deliberately colour the sound. They work best when they are as transparent sounding as possible.

Acoustic pickups work according to the same principle as the electric pickups, picking up harmonic information from the guitar string and changing it into electricity. However, they achieve this in a different manner. You'll hear the term 'piezo' a lot. This refers to the type of pickup that lies underneath the actual bridge saddle of the acoustic guitar. Piezo pickups use vibrations because this works well with both steel and nylon strings.

The piezo pickup will nearly always be used in conjunction with an on-board preamp. This normally appears to the musician as a box fitted to the side of the guitar's body or a couple of controls found within the instrument's soundhole. You can normally control the master volume and other functions from such a device. Under the hood, the preamp is where you'll find the 'brain' of the guitar, in other words the main circuits of the system. Normally, you'd buy both the pickup and preamp together as a single purchase.

There are a wide selection of acoustic pickups currently available on the market. At guitarguitar, we keep the best of them in stock. Browse our fantastic selection online, or visit the acoustic department of any guitarguitar store.