Pickup Help

[dmmax]

I have a Northwood MJ70, (what a wonderful guitar!), that I want to put a pickup in. I have been to the LR Baggs site, the K&K site, as well as Doug Young's site, (nice job Doug, and what a collection of guitars!!). But alas, none of the pickups sound any good to me.
I know that there must be something I'm missing in all of this because I run the soundboard at a church where the worship leader plays a Taylor with a Fishman Blender, and while it took some tweaking we were able to get it to sound like an acoustic guitar as opposed to an electrified plastic toy guitar.
Presently I'm leaning toward the iBeam with an outboard eq, but if the best I can expect it to sound is what I heard at the LR Baggs site then I don't want it. After all, I played ALOT of guitars before buying the Northwood and I want as much of the guitars "personality" to come through as possible.
Any and all help/advise would be greatly appreciated.

[unclrob]

Getr a large diaphagm mic,ie Audio Technica,Rhode's.Then you don't have that problem.I get guy's all looking for that great acoustic sound,they have me install pickup's that I tell them it sort of get's that acoustic sound then they tell me that that's not what they want,I look at them and tell them I told you that and then all I get is that Deer caught in the headlight's look.When I show them the sound a mic get's they complain that now there forced to stand in front of a mike and they don't think it looks cool.So something has to give!!!!

[Zach]

I've listened to a lot of those clips at Doug's site, and I think the K&K sounds much better than those clips.  Maybe its the lack of eq on the clips I've heard.  I've had the K&K Trinity and the Pure Western, and both were among the best sounding pickups I've heard.  

I don't know how much you're looking to spend, but I would go with the K&K Trinity with the Quantum preamp.  The IBeam is ok, but to me it sounds a little tubby.  The Pure Western through a PADI sounds good too.  

To me, the K&K is the best pickup going right now.  Its not perfect, but its cheap, easy to install, and can be used strictly passive if needed.

[Tony Capri]

For the money, the Pick-up The World #27 is still the most natural sounding pick-up I've heard. I don't use them anymore though because they do require a bit of tweaking and it's just too hard for me to do playing through a different p.a. & different room from gig to gig. Using the B-Band AST 1470s (w/ A1 preamp) now. Just plug & play. Not as natural sounding as the #27 though.

[mjvincent]

Zselby hooked me on the K&K pure western.  I was debating what to put into my D-03R... I didn't want to cut into my guitar with onboard electronics and I so I asked the gentlemen here what their opinion's were on pickups.   Your best bet is hearing them live...  You can not judge the tonal qualities of a guitar on a computer speaker system (unless you have a $3000-$5000 rig).  Trust me, the K&K is great... I have an outboard Raven Pro mixer (PMB-1) that can tweak the sound, but you can play it straight into your amp and sound good too.  The K&K is hand-built by the company and their quality control is unsurpassed.  I purchased a factory second from them and couldn't find any "blemishes" on it (and it goes on the inside of the guitar anyway).  You would not be disappointed in the sound that you get from a K&K...

Mike B)  

[fitness1]

baggs I-beam active and a decent quality mike.....I was using AKG c3000b, but went back to the old standby sm-57 and it actually sounds better (more dynamics)   I use this setup on all my instruments.  Use the mic for mids and highs, predominantly and the bass is from the baggs (note both sources are actually full range, but eq'd as noted)  

[GIGGLER]

I play a Northwood OMC (Blackwood), and I have the PUTW like Tony referred to above. I play it thru a Cal Blonde Amp, but thru a booster first, as it's not a real strong pick up. I can say it sounds almost exactly like the unplugged sound I get unamplified, which is very cool!

By the way, I love my Northwood....a nice piece!