Soundhole pre-amp controls

lincolnblue

When I bought my last electro acoustic I found that a lot of them had the pickup pre-amps on the inside of the soundhole rather than the traditonal pre-amp on the guitar body.

I've noticed a lot more these days like the LR Baggs Anthem http://www.lrbaggs.com/pickups/anthem-acoustic-guitar-pickup-and-microphone

Whilst I love the fact that it's discrete and there's no chunk of wood chopped out, is it not a real pain to change batteries? Do you not have to slacken the strings to get the battery pouch out? 

When I was looking a guy in one shop said most people just change the batteries each time they change strings. But, most batteries last longer than strings so it makes no sense (to me anyway).

Am I being silly or is this a real issue of them?

ICBM

It's a real issue, up to a point. The batteries usually last ages as long as you don't leave the guitar plugged in when you aren't using it, so I wouldn't worry *too* much.

If you change it when you change strings it depends how often you change strings... if you do very often you can keep the partly-used batteries for pedals etc since they will be almost new.

I just don't like having a battery in the guitar at all though. I purposely removed one of those systems from my Gibson and put a simple pickup and endpin jack in it.

mart

The baggs pickup I've got in my 12-string has the battery inside a pouch that is velcro'd to the underside of the fretboard. It's absolutely no problem getting it out with the strings on and tuned up. Ok, it's a tiny bit fiddly, and you wouldn't want to do it in the middle of a gig, but it really is no trouble at all.