Seymour Duncan Woody XL - Updated with short review plus Jam up Acoustic Pack

guitarfishbay

I need a solution for an acoustic guitar that won't require any modifications.  Keeping the budget under £100, is there any better option than the Woody XL?

It will be used to amplify my guitar at open mic gigs as and when necessary over the next month or so.

crunchman

I've seen K&K Pure Mini for £90ish without a volume control.  You'd probably need to pay extra for fitting though.

BigLicks67

I can't really offer any new suggestions, but I would suggest you avoid the Fishman Neo D. I had one and it was awful. (single coil version).

guitarfishbay

I wound up ordering the Woody XL.  I will be doing some open mic stuff at the end of next week so didn't want to wait any longer as I want time to test it and make sure it all works ahead of time.  Long term if I end up doing a lot of acoustic stuff I will buy an electro acoustic that I pick based on how good it sounds plugged in but for now I just need to have an option for plugging in to the PA. 

I will report back once I've had some time with it!

menamestom

BigLicks67 said:

I can't really offer any new suggestions, but I would suggest you avoid the Fishman Neo D. I had one and it was awful. (single coil version).

I have the Humbucker version, it's very good, although this is of no use now to guitarfishbay!  They say the humbucker version is a little fatter than the SC, as you would expect, but I wouldn't want a pickup thinner than the HB version.

I'm sure the woody will be nice, a mate had one and it was perfectly usable in most situations, but sometimes was nothing more than passable direct to a PA.  But that's true of most magnetic, passive pickups.

thomasw88

2nd lr baggs m1a is superb.

guitarfishbay

Ok I have had the Duncan Woody XL for a short while now and here is what I think.

Pros:

- Comes in a nice carry bag with draw string.  It is a bit big to fit in my Hiscox case internal storage section along with my clip on tuner, spare strings, and winder/cutter.  But for me this isn't an issue as I take a bag with me for reasons discussed later on.

- Very easy to fit, no marks left on your guitar, non permanent.

- Cable is pretty long and seems quite sturdy

Negatives:

- Tone is lacklustre at best!  Sounds like an electric guitar pickup, which isn't that surprising really.

- Output is pretty low.

- Cable is hard wired in, which for people who aren't able to solder means what you see is what you get.  I think a sensible mod might be to replace the end with a female jack but cut off a lot of the excess.

----------------------

The balance was way off when I first fitted it.  I'm pretty glad I went for the adjustable model in respect of this, and in reality it only took a few minutes to get the string balance the way I wanted it.  I wound up screwing down the allen pole pieces on the plain strings and increasing them slightly on the lowest two wound strings.

Tonally my first impression was disappointment.  I didn't expect much, but even then I still felt it was a 'get out of jail' sound at best.  I experimented and discovered that with an EQ pedal I could get closer to an acoustic tone again, by cutting bass and low mids and boosting presence.

I came to the conclusion that I needed a new solution as taking an EQ pedal and a power supply is not really a good choice for open mic nights IMO, it is way better to work from batteries when you don't know what the plug situation will be and have to do a quick turnaround.  I've since sold the EQ pedal on here because I never use it for electric guitar anymore!

I settled on using an iPad, Line 6 Sonic Port, Jam Up Pro, and the Acoustic Pack.  The Acoustic Imaging model with some dreadnaught blended in with the dry signal sounded pretty decent.  I also picked up the pack that has the LA2A compressor in it, just to even things out a bit between the strumming and single note stuff.  It wasn't doing a lot but I felt like it was helping when I tested it at home.

Last night I tried the iPad/Jamup setup live for the first time and our drummer who was in the audience thought it sounded pretty good.  My only concern was that there was a little latency that was noticeable to me as the player but since there are no stage monitors I could only really hear the amplified acoustic sound when it was me playing on my own (we do these sets with two guitars, two voices - the other guitarist sings harmonies and the singer just sings).  FWIW I did have it on ultra low latency mode.  I'll have to have a look in to it!

Overall it seems like an ideal solution for me, for now.  No permanent changes to my guitar and the iPad battery lasts bloody ages plus I can always see what percentage I'm on.

guitarfishbay

(First post had too many characters)  

This guy has done a video using a piezo pickup on a Yamaha through Jam UP's Acoustic Imaging model.

Phil_aka_Pip

IMO the Woody has such low o/p that an external preamp is required. By the time you've paid for the Woody and a preamp you might just as well have bought another guitar with a decent o/p. That's how I ended up with an SBF-80 Washburn.

guitarfishbay

I did think about just buying another guitar but I already had the iPad and was already going to buy a Sonic Port and Jam UP anyway.  In light of this I've only spent an additional £14 on two packs for Jam UP, which is way cheaper than a pre-amp or another guitar.  I thought it actually sounded better than my bandmate's Yamaha electro too.

Bidley

Phil is right, you'll need a preamp of some sort with piezo pickups, otherwise you'll have very low output and that horrible 'quack;. But it sounds like you know this

Phil_aka_Pip

Bidley said:

Phil is right, you'll need a preamp of some sort with piezo pickups, otherwise you'll have very low output and that horrible 'quack;. But it sounds like you know this

yes and a radial PZ-Pre costs as much as a guitar!

guitarfishbay

Yep, not debating that.  I'm just saying that for £14 on top of what I already owned I got a usable result for my purposes.

What I've not mentioned is that I play in lower tunings, currently D but we are experimenting going to C# to allow some new material to be sung within the vocalist's range.  I already use 13s and find them a bit loose, so I'll be moving to 14s.  This will mean I'll be taking the guitar to a tech to get the bridge properly intonated, as I can't do that work myself.  So not only would I have to factor the cost of a new guitar, I'd have to factor in the cost of a set up too.  For the time being I'd rather just stick with what I own.

Bidley

guitarfishbay said:

Yep, not debating that.  I'm just saying that for £14 on top of what I already owned I got a usable result for my purposes.

What I've not mentioned is that I play in lower tunings, currently D but we are experimenting going to C# to allow some new material to be sung within the vocalist's range.  I already use 13s and find them a bit loose, so I'll be moving to 14s.  This will mean I'll be taking the guitar to a tech to get the bridge properly intonated, as I can't do that work myself.  So not only would I have to factor the cost of a new guitar, I'd have to factor in the cost of a set up too.  For the time being I'd rather just stick with what I own.

Good stuff. I posted it more for the purpose of the thread and reference than anything else

It's worth bearing in mind the humble capo for tuning-to-help-the-singer-out purposes too. Although my voice suits a brighter guitar tone more than most. And lower/drop tunings do sound the tits on acoustic!