Seymour Duncan SA-3XL Woody XL Acoustic Soundhole Pickup - Instant Mounting Magnetic Soundhole Pickup for Standard Steel String Acoustic Guitars - Black

Update After Using for 59 Months:This pickup is awesome! I've now used it for 257 live shows and an unknown number of practice sessions, with a easily a dozen acoustic guitars, and it just keeps getting better. After the first year or so I bought an identical Seymour Duncan Woody XL with adjustable pole pieces for a spare, because I would be lost without it, but the spare just sits in my box, waiting for the original one to go belly-up, which doesn't look like it's going to happen any time soon. Read my earlier reviews for the specifics and for some tips on getting the most out of this pickup.Some things have changed, like the foam pieces have smashed down enough with use that it's a breeze to install. But, as someone pointed out in one of the reviews, it needs a 4 inch sound hole. I was able to get it crammed into my Martin 000-18, but it was scary and I never did it a second time. You could probably easily modify it to fit a 000 sound hole, but then it would be too loose for a 4 incher and that's what I mainly use. In fact, I like this pickup so much that I insist that my acoustic guitars have a 4 inch sound hole. That's how much I like it. The chips on the black paint haven't gotten any worse and I am so happy with the sound and the durability that I'm no longer worrying about them. Audiences love the sound and so will you!Update After Using for 28 Months:My Woody XL is still going great, so I'm a "Happy Guy." I did buy another Woody XL for a backup, but have never had to use it. I may be wrong about this, but the old one seems to require a little more amplifier gain than when it was new and it definitely isn't as "hot" as the new one. No problem; I just turn up the amp gain a little on that channel. The black finish has numerous chips and scratches from picking, so I would buy the natural finish (and did for my spare). The scratches seem unavoidable since I am a gentle picker and don't have any pick wear on my guitars. Insertion into the sound hole as gotten easier as the foam has gotten a little compressed, but that allows me to push it further towards the neck and out of the way. The tone is awesome and the pickup is still dead quiet.Update After Using for 20 Months:More time has passed and the Woody XL is still cranking out great sound. I haven't had to touch the pole pieces since the first day I adjusted them. I have eight 6-string acoustics and the pickup sounds good in all of them. I'm up to 93 live shows (and a lot of practice) using this pickup and it has never given me any kind of problem. No Hum, regardless of the venue. No damage to any of the guitars. No damage to the Woody except that I am slowly shredding the black finish on the pickup. My advice is to buy the "natural" wood finished one instead of the black one and save yourself $20. I happen to like the way the black one visually "disappears" on stage and the guitar looks completely acoustic. However, I wouldn't pay $20 extra, especially when the finish is slowly being eroded (see pictures). Oh, and I'm a gentle guitarist, none of my guitars have any pick gouges or scratches; the Woody just seems to be a magnet for scratches. Get the natural one.The first picture shows the paint damage and the second shows the extent to which the pole pieces can be (and need to be, in my case) adjusted to achieve a balanced sound with my guitars.Everything else in my earlier reviews remains the same, so continue reading if you want to know about output, equalization, etc.Update After Using 12 Months:I love this pickup! It continues to wow me with its beautiful tone. I've now used it for a year, in 55 live shows and countless practice sessions, and always get compliments on sound of my "guitar", but actually it's the way this pickup (as adjusted) makes the guitar sound. It seems to me that the adjustable pole pieces are essential as this is the only sound hole pickup (of the five I tried) that sounds good plugged right into my amp, without an equalizer box to temper the piercing B string. That sure simplifies things. If the pickup stopped working today, I'd order two more (a replacement and a spare), but so far it seems bulletproof and I am gigging it without a spare. Maybe I should buy that spare.Update After Using for 6 Months:Most of what I said earlier is still accurate, but the Woody XL has really grown on me. I've used it for more than 30 gigs and it has never missed a beat. I've gotten used to slipping it in and out and that is no longer a bother. I've never had it work loose during a show, but I'm seated, so I'm not jumping around. If it there was a way to mount it permanently, I would do so and wire it to an end pin jack; maybe that's something the manufacturer could consider in another model.The sound is great and very well balanced (after adjustment of the pole pieces). Don't buy the version without adjustable pole pieces and expect to get a balanced response. I've converted a couple of friends by showing them just how much better their acoustic-electric guitars sound with my Woody XL than they do with their onboard pickups. An acoustic purist might quibble that the sound of the Woody XL isn't exactly like a louder version of the same guitar, but I am fine with that. On the dreadnought I use for my gigs, the Woody XL sounds like a cross between a much more expensive acoustic and a hollow body electric (closer to the former). The sound is outstanding whether strummed or fingerpicked.Some folks have asked about the possibility that the Woody might damage the rosette or the wood around the sound hole. It seems possible that this could happen, but I've had it in and out easily 100 times and I haven't seen the slightest wear or damage to the guitar. Again, I'm using it on a an inexpensive guitar, so I don't even think about it. Your mileage may vary.As noted below, the output of the pickup works fine for me, with the volume adjustment on the guitar channel set about the same as on the vocal channel (Shure SM58). If you've been on the fence about soundhole pickups, give this one a try!Original Review:This is really a pretty good pickup at a fair price. I compared it to the Fishman Neo-D, which costs about 1/3 more, on four of my acoustic guitars. The sound is pretty mellow, especially after I got finished dramatically lowering the pole pieces for the unwound strings and raising the wound ones. The overall sound, after adjustment was very comparable to the Fishman, except that there was no way to compensate for the piercing volume and tone of the B string on the Fishman. I had to send it back.This pickup is passive and not very "hot." The Fishman is only slightly hotter. The Woody works out fine for me because the gain on the guitar channel comes out about the same as my Shure M58 vocal mic (on it's own channel), so everything is fine. Others have commented that you might need to boost the output and shape the sound of your passive pickup with a boost/equalizer pedal, but I don't need to do that with my rig. I just turn the high band of the amp's equalizer down a bit on the guitar channel and the sound is pretty good.By the way, the pickup is dead quiet, as far as hum or other noise.So much for function. I'm not as wild about the form and fit of the Woody. I'd rather that the pickup install with clamps like the Fishman and the Belcat, even if the installation is temporary. It's easier to place the pickup in the sound hole and spin the screws to clamp it in place, than it is to wrestle the woody into place. It just seems cheesy to wedge the woody in there and on one of my guitars it isn't particularly easy to do, even though it does have a 4 inch diameter soundhole. Because some of the pole pieces extend above the surface of the Woody, it isn't particularly easy to get it past the strings and into the sound hole. The pole pieces tend to catch on the thinner strings on the low side. Unlike the Belcat and the Fishman, which fit out of the way in the forward end of the soundhole, the Woody only fits in the center of the sound hole. This position brings it closer to interfering with whatever you're doing with your right hand. It works for me, but others have commented about catching a finger nail on one of the pole pieces.Finally, the painted wood surface looks okay, but I already have a scratch through the paint of the surface facing out. When compared to the Fishman Neo-D, the Woody seems homemade.Still, with the good sound, low price, and individually adjustable pole pieces, this is a soundhole pickup I can embrace.

UPDATE AFTER USING for 7 years 8 months:I bought this in 2014 to play at my grandfather's funeral when he passed at 98 years of age. In these years since, I've used it to play a gillion times at church (every weekend for 4 years straight) and through tons of recording. After all this time, it's still has a warm, smooth sound, records with an amazing, balanced tone, and I've used it with (and without) solid state preamps, tube preamps, and no preamps at all. Granted, it was $47 cheaper in 2014, but I'd buy it again in a heartbeat if I needed to. The sound, particularly with the balance you can achieve with the adjustable pole pieces, is still fantastic. My only issue with it is not sound-related. Maybe not that big a thing really. The felt that's glued onto the back came off after about 1 year of using it. The edge of the felt got hung on the sound hole. Keeping it glued on is a challenge sometimes, but that's pretty much it. Not a sound issue, just a minor thing I took care of with tacky glue. So far so good. Anyway, back to the sound - Due to tendonitis in my hands from playing too much on occasion, I started running some 10 gauge electric strings on my acoustic (Ernie Ball regular slinkies, yellow pkg). Kinda tinny sounding, but my tendons won't do thick strings right now. I've done this off and on for several of the last 7 years when I get tendonitis. You can't tell they're thinner electric strings with this pickup. Period. Amazing puppy to me, to say the least. Still amazed and impressed with it and those adjustable pole pieces in 2022.===============================* Usage: Have used this in an old Yamaha guitar for about 10 months - has worked great with small amps to medium amps of varying quality.* Pole Pieces: Came with a small hex-nut tool to screw the pole pieces in or out. It works well. I only raised the pole under the low E-string a tiny bit and had a descent increase in bass, enough-so that I lowered it back a little. It's now raised maybe 1/16-inch, if that. The poles can be a little tough to turn at first, but they're not too bad. The guitar it's used in tends to be a little bright, but not too bad, so increasing the bass balanced it well. I prefer a smooth sound, so I like bass, mids, and highs to have a balanced feel. This pickup did it.* Preamp: I haven't needed a preamp for playing live so far, but this also depends on the power of your amp, what you're doing, and what other equipment you're using. It's output is descent, but not what I'd call real strong. With recording, I've usually needed a preamp when running into audio cards, or some multi-track recording mixers - just depends on the recording device.* Tone: It's warm without being boomy (after raising the low-E pickup piece slightly), and the highs are very pleasant without being brittle or too tinny-sounding. Got a smooth sound out of it with the guitar I use. Although the guitar used is slightly bright, the pickup still translates it really well in my opinion. I also like how nice the highs came out with it. I wasn't sure if it was going to make them dull or way more bright. It did neither. It just made the strings sound really nice, even after putting electric strings on the guitar used (for easier bending) - fender reg. slinky.* Sound Hole: The foam pieces in the ends, which hold it in the sound hole, do a good job and haven't worn out - even after inserting/removing it from different guitars a bunch of times. The sound hole on my main guitar measures 4-inches exactly - this pickup fits it just right. The Seymour Duncan website says it works with sound holes from 3.85 to 4.10 inches.* Hum: No hum, just like the S/D website says. I've played through cheap preamps and small amps, as well as better ones of both. No hum at all from the pickup.* Cable: 14-feet, not too stiff. Depending on your hand size (8" here), or how you hold your hand while playing, it might need to be taped down to the guitar's pick guard if it gets in the way. I've taped it when finger-picking, but not when strumming with a pick. It has a kind of pre-bent shape to it in the 7 or 8 inches before it connects into the pickup itself, so that really helps with it naturally bending out of the way some.Summary: I really like how this acoustic pickup sounds & works. Not too bright or too dim. Let me get a smooth, warmer sound out of a moderately bright guitar. Cable sits good against pick guard, mostly out of the way. Fits good in a 4" sound hole.

Makes my dreadn aught sound like a fine jazzbox. I can plug it into my zoom recorder and use all the special effects and block out all the unwanted ambient sounds. Recommended.

My volume kept going up and down, I did not use a pre-amp, but plugged directly into my mixer.

The pick up delivered the sound quality I was looking for.

Como comentan otros usuarios aquí y en Amazon.com, hay que regular la altura de cada imán pra conseguir el sonido que te guste. De entrada las dos primeras cuerdas al no llevar bordón tienen una respuesta mucho mayor y hay que regularlo. La madera no es muy buena y al regular la altura de los imanes sale algo de serrín porque el giro hace que se levante algo de serrín de los bordes del agujero en la madera. Por lo demás muy bien, el sonido muy bueno a través de una mesa de mezclas Yamaha con el previo a menos de la mitad de la ganancia.

Es PP idez en el envío y calidad del producto

Profesional quality very pleased

Great little pick up