EMG B Active Magnetic Bouzouki / Mandola Pickup, Black

I installed this pickup on my GoldTone octave mandolin after becoming dissatisfied with the onboard piezo pickup. (yes, the dreaded "piezo quack" got to me - not the sound I wanted.) I had to make a small adaptor that allowed me to clamp around the edges of the sound hole and mount the EMG pickup at the proper height beneath the strings. I took an hour or so of fiddling - not a huge project, but the pickup won't directly mount to the GoldTone OM800.I like the natural sound of the EMG pickup - it is transparent and doesn't "color" the sound at all. The output from the EMG is a strong line-level that I can feed directly into a sound board, although I usually wind up running it through a DI box for the sake of having a shielded XLR cable running to the board.I've had a lot of fun running the EMG into a Zoom multi-effects pedal. All of the sound processing available to an electric guitar player is now yours to play with. I mostly go for a slightly augmented acoustic sound (add a bit of EQ to warm up the bass and cut the ringing high drone strings) and just a bit of reverb. When you're ready for an Irish-punk sound (think Flogging Molly or the Rumjacks) you can crank up the distortion...I just changed the batteries in the unit after 16 months - playing 2x monthly gigs of 4-5 hours plugged in (i.e. battery being used) time.I would recommend this pickup anyone, amateur or professional.Jeff

If you take a look on ebay, there's no shortage of greek bouzoukis that have pickups. Most of them however are significantly overpriced due to the fact. I purchased a fantastic bouzouki that didn't have a pickup and slapped this guy in there. Wham, bam, there you go. Great sound and so far not a single thought about changing batteries.