Cherub 9 String Acoustic Bass Guitar, Ambidextrous (WCP-60G)

Wow! I can't believe how effectively this unit does its job. It gives a crystal clear rendition. The one caveat is that the cable is not shielded and thus the whole/entire unit/product is responsive to vibration - this means you MUST place it in a location where you and/or your cloths will not rub against any portion. That being said, this pickup is amazing. I have two baritone ukuleles (one with a wood sound board with a rounded plastic body and one with a spruce body, two sopranos (one with a wood sound board with a rounded plastic body and the other entirely plastic), one non-electric concert and one tenor (made entirely of Acacia wood). Finally I have an electrified concert strung with a low "G", like the tenor. In another room (i.e., a "blind" test") I, my wife, and my daughter who lives in town (and her husband) can all clearly and easily tell which is being played when each one is played through the same pickup/amplifier combination. I have tried playing a simple McCartney tune (the opening of "Ram") that only uses the top two strings of a ukulele and even the subtle differences between the woods (of the same brand of instrument) can readily be heard by each of us. The pickup is THAT sensitive.Please note - the sound is definitively more "acoustic" as compared to the one electric ukulele. Thus it should be pointed out that the pickup does NOT make a normal/standard instrument suddenly sound like an "electric" instrument.The pickup can be placed on the headstock and do well, but it sounds best when attached to the body. With most of my ukuleles the sound holes are small and so the pickup ended up on the headstock, but one of my baritones has dual holes/ports, and both are out of the way of the strings - this is the example that allows me to hear that the pickup sounds most "full" when placed on the main sounding board of an instrument. I know that, typically, more expensive items equal better quality than less expensive. (Even my own stretch of ukuleles shows this.) However, it is hard to imagine a need to spend more money than the cost of this pickup for the amplification of most acoustic string instruments. Yes, it sounds great on a piano and a violin, too.

The sound from this pick up is decent. However, if you move your hand around the bridge or soundboard of your instrument it picks up every tap, knock, click, etc. that your hand may make and turns it into a loud pop sound through the amplifier. Also, I bought this pick up to use in my ukulele but with a small sound hole that doesn't extend out much further than the top and bottom strings this pick up has no option but to sit partially under at least one string and the pick up is rather high and sits high enough above the instrument that whatever string it sits under hits it when played. However, I have put this pick up on a 12 string guitar I have that does not have a pick up and it works great. As I mentioned above, the sound is good with the exception of the popping sounds. However, in a guitar this is less of an issue since it's a larger more sturdy instrument. Also I will note that, having grown up playing punk music, I naturally rest my palm on any instrument's bridge all the time ready to palm mute and tend to play a little more percussive than most stringed instrument players.

Well it does not cost much and it does not look like much when you get it. But it works really well. I purchased this because my strobe tuner for some reason does not work well when going through its mic. So using it tune my acoustic was pretty much a waste of time. As a note once you tune with a strobe tuner it is disappointing to tune with other tuners. Used this and it worked with the tuner very well. I plugged it into my amp and the sound was pretty good. Now my amp is not built for acoustic so that is part of it and I doubt that this device would match the sound quality of the more professional quality acoustic pickups that are out there.Now for the negative. The cable is about as tiny a wire as you could buy. One good yank on it and I can see some damage being done. I also think that they would have been well served to either terminate it with a female end or included an adapter. It is just long enough that you can plug in and play but you better not move too much and you certainly are going to have trouble if you plan on routing it down your guitar through the strap.Final analysis is that this is probably worth getting if only because I think you can tune more easily using it than you can by balancing a typical tuner close enough to pick up the note you are playing. There are some attachable tuners that do the same thing as this would but they cannot be plugged into an amp. So if you think you would benefit by having one of these you probably will be right as long as your expectations are not too high. But I think that if you are thinking about buying this you are not playing a several thousand dollar Martin or Taylor so you probably already are playing an instrument that is not at the pinnacle of quality guitars so I think you are probably like me where you bought the best guitar that you could within the price range you could afford. If price was not an option I would be playing a 1960's Martin and probably not interested in hearing its wonderful tone amplified and certainly not through a pickup such as this. But at this price range I think it is better than you should expect so for me it is a purchase that I am glade that I made.