Under saddle Piezo and Soundhole pickups.

Gru

Just curious about what some of the differences regarding sound and noise from each.

My two current acoustics both have piezo under saddle pickups, both Fishman electronics.

Recently I treated myself to a Yamaha THR5A and while I haven't had a load of time to play around, there are two things I have noticed.

The B (mainly) and e strings on both guitars both project louder when I finger pick and after messing around with the controls, I cannot change this.

Secondly, finger noise is quite dramatic.

Just taking something cheap like a Seymore Duncan Woody XL as an example. Due to the adjustable pole pieces, I assume I can tweak the sound to suit my ear?

I did notice an LR Baggs pickup with the B and e pole pieces already set really low. I guess this may be a 'normal issue'?

Secondly, does a soundhole pickup reduce the finger to string noise at all? I tend to play quite gently and certainly when amped up, the finger string noise can over power a little.

Technique will play a part here and it's something to work on, but when my cheap Squier Strat is plugged in I don't have these finger noise issues as much.

ICBM

Yes, undersaddle piezo pickups are notorious for string balance problems and handling noise.

Magnetic pickups do have an inherent balance difference between the plain and wound strings, but that's easier to correct for. Some magnetic pickups deliberately have no polepiece under the B string, they just rely on the field bridging the gap, which reduces the sensitivity a lot.

To me, magnetic soundhole pickups just sound more natural. I've come to the conclusion that the best use for a piezo is as the driver for a modelling system - which for acoustic means something like a Fishman Aura - so you aren't really listening directly to the pickup. (At least not if you set the blend to all-model.)

crunchman

It depends where you are and what you are playing through.

The church I play at regularly everything sounds very middly through the PA. An undersaddle tends to sound a bit muddy there and I would prefer a piezo. The best sound I've had (out of 7 guitars with 4 different pickup systems) is with a Fishman Ellipse blend that came factory fitted to my Martin.

I would like to try an Aura though.

I've played through one or two acoustic amps that made sound hole pickups sound really good.