Fishman Neo-D Single Coil Passive - My impessions

[limnephilidae]

Let me preface this by saying I'm a natural kind of guy. Outside of the research/computer lab, I tend to distance myself as far away from electronics as possible. I love wood and have nothing but respect for great engineering and craftsmanship. I had a late start in life for guitar playing so I don't do a lot of live gig playing, however my hobby has recently forced me to consider amplification. So I recently purchased a Fender Acoustasonic at a terrific price to get started with all of the guitars I have that have built-in pickups. I have to admit that I'm enjoying it a lot more than I should. 

I have several guitars that have a built in pickup so I had the following to compare my new Fishman Neo-D Single Coil Passive purchase with:
- Fishman Matrix Natural I with preamp and no controls (under bone saddle on a Guild GAD-50E)
- Gibson? undersaddle with preamp and no controls (under bone saddle on a Gibson J-60)
- LR Baggs Active Element with preamp side-mount (factory installed on a Larrivee LV-03RE)

I have 3 other guitars that don't have a pickup so I wanted an inexpensive solution for home recording and practice amplification. I picked up the aforementioned Fishman Neo-D Single Coil because it was easy to install and move around from one guitar another and I don't have a lot of electronic interference at home. For a single coil passive pickup the thing surprised me. The quality of the sound was terrific and it was a welcome change from that compressed "quack" of the undersaddle pickups. For fingerstyle I had to turn up the amp a lot louder than any of my active pickups with pre-amps but it was fine for in home practice or recording. It would NOT be ok to play out at anything but a quiet coffee shop though, however this is also due to the fact that my Fender doesn't produce a lot of volume in the first place (30 DSP model is decent quality sound but underpowered for even small venues). There is an audible amount of interference in the background when the volume is turned up but this can be reduced very acceptably by just turning your seat around so your guitar (the antenna) is oriented in an opposite direction.

Using the Neo-D made me appreciate sound-hole pickups a lot more and I'm much happier with the tone produced. To be honest, the only undersaddle pickup I can stand to play with now is the LR Baggs on my LV-03RE as the quack is far less pronounced. I tried out the Fishman Neo-D against the humbucking version and while I think some people might prefer it, I did not. I also tried the Dean Markley series (humbucking WAS better in this series) and was not very impressed with the sound quality. The price was right for this guy and now I'll be shopping for a Fishman Rare-Earth Blend for one of my other guitars in the future.

Speaking from a home/hobby perspective, this is a great tool to have around that won't break the bank. True performers will already know to go a slightly higher end but for those of us just making music, this is a terrific tool. For an entry level pickup, Fishman does the job right.

PS - I'm reposting this link from a previous topic because it's very useful: http://www.dougyoungguitar.com/pickuptest.htm