do all acoustic pick ups sound bad? What's your Fav?

[celdry]

I've been recording my friends acoustic guitar lately and I don't really care for the pick up sound... I asked him if he needed to change the battery and he told me no......I got an acoustic guitar for x mas and wanted to get a pick up for it but now I'm second guessing myself.... I really don't care for the sound... it's almost like a synth sound...
What is your favorite acoustic pick up....? no price range......Celdry

[michaelhoddy]

If you want an acoustic guitar to sound like an acoustic guitar on recording, don't use the pickup as the primary source. Mic it. Cheap pickups especially sound awful, and even many of the better ones don't sound very good.

That said, I like the Fishman mic/pickup combination setup in the high end Taylors. I've gotten good sounds off of it through a PA, but never tried recording the pickup.

[xstatic]

I agree with Michael. However, I will use a guitars pick up if I am recording it to go into a rock mix. I find that often that extra little bit of steely grainy sound is necessary to cut through louder mixes. But, I also mic the acoustic at the same time so that if the level of everything else drops out (like for an acoustic solo or something, or bridge) I can crossfade to the mic signal when it will be easily heard. Also, good pick ups will be les likely to feed back during live performance.

[David Klausner]

I'm with both Michael and Xstatic on recording using the pickup. Generally, I won't go near them, but sometimes on a dense rock mix all you want is that percussive insinuation of an acoustic, and a piezo can do a good job with that.

I use Highlander pickups in most of my acoustics for performance, and they do a decent job. Other things to check out are the Sunrise magnetic system and the Schertler BlueStick system.