EMG ACS
This pickup looks a lot bigger than it really is.
It has a pretty big footprint but doesn’t go
very deep into the guitar body. It’s surprisingly light at 3. 5 ounces, so soundboard muting
was minimal. EMG includes wrenches for easy
installation and pole adjustment. The internal preamp requires a 9V battery, and EMG
provides a Velcro-mounted black battery bag.
Information on battery life was not included
in our package.
Shadow NanoMAG
Shadow NanoMAG
The smallest of our batch of review pickups—
a mere 6mm thick and 5mm high—the
NanoMag actually installs via sticky tape at
the end of the fingerboard, keeping it entirely out of the way. It requires a flat-ended fretboard. It’s extremely light, though the Endpin
Preamp does require a 9V battery. The
NanoMAG offers a standard Velcro-mounted
battery case. Information on battery life was
not provided in our package.
response, and for this pickup there was
none. Then Pat strummed a G chord: the balance was good, you could really hear every
string clearly, and none seemed any hotter
than any of the others, although Gayla felt
that the demarcation between the wound
and unwound strings was slightly abrupt.
It sounded good through all the amps, if a
little crystalline in the highs. It would make
an excellent companion with an undersaddle
or soundboard pickup, in addition to being
viable on its own.
We found it to be nicely balanced, although
the wound and unwound strings do sound
very different—the unwound strings were
maybe just a hair hotter, but clearly different. According to their website that’s to be
expected with Phosphor Bronze strings, and
can be compensated for by removing the
pole piece for the B string altogether, and
lowering the pole for the E string below the
pickup face to taste. Even so, we thought it
sounded pretty damn good: powerful, dead
quiet and very well balanced.
Street $150
emgpickups.com
After installation, we tapped the pickup
and the body to see if there was any body
Street $177
shadow-electronics.com
