EMG ACB-5 Banjo Active Pickup with Solderless Install Hardware - Black Reviews

I really like this pickup, and highly suggest it if you are having problems amplifying your banjo! I play banjo in a classic rock/Americana band with drums and electric guitar. The banjo has always been a huge feedback problem in a loud environment for me. I have tried two other pickups that worked fine in a low volume acoustic environment, but in the louder environment either no one could hear the banjo or it would feedback and cause all sorts of noise problems. I've also tried EQ pedals and other noise controlling pedals which did not solve the problem or made the banjo sound so muddy it wasn't worth the trouble or expense. This pickup seems to have solved that problem.

Three complaints:
1) There is some loss of banjo tone and it sounds a little bit (not a lot) like an electric guitar but that may be because I didn't put the metal shim on the head of the banjo. I chose not to install the shim because I think that causes the head to act like a microphone and pickup stray noise, but I could be wrong about that. I will play with some adjustments and possibly add the shim to see what happens, but I'm very pleased with the results at this point.
2)The battery arrangement is not the best, I would like to have the batteries outside of the resonator so I could get to them more easily. I bought a battery case so I can extend the batteries and put them where they are easier to get to, but I haven't installed it yet.
3)It could be an impedance match issue, but the output is lower than I expected. I have Line6 wireless system and will move the transmitter from instrument to instrument. My passive harmonica mike has a much higher output than the banjo pickup has. This is not what I expected since the pickup has a preamp.

As I said at the beginning, I really like this pickup. It has solved the feedback problems I had with the banjo, allowed me to play louder, and has made our sound setup much easier. I highly suggest this pickup.

This EMG banjo pickup is the Cats €#*$! If you take your time to carefully install this banjo pickup you will be rewarded! Great sound and no feedback! The instructions are really well thought out. Plus it arrived in 2 days. Thanks to Adam and Sweetwater!! Keep up the great work! Charles

Very satisfied with the customer service for one. As far as the pickup goes I can't be more pleased. My best friend and I recently started playing on stage rather than on street corners and we needed a way to be able to plug his banjo in without sacrificing the natural sound that the banjo has to offer, I did plenty of research and read many reviews and this one kept popping up as to be the best. I also was looking for something that wasn't intrusive or visual along with an easy installation so that I can do it myself and so that we could slap it on a new banjo when he decides to upgrade and this pickup did exactly that in every category.. all that aside the rich tone that it provides is so impressive in that the banjo still sounds like the banjo we're used to hearing unplugged. I just really love sweetwater and how easy they make it to be a musician these days, because we all know gear is not cheap and for starving artists like ourselves that can't just dish out $300 for a banjo pick up because we needed it to take what we're doing to
The next level, sweetwater made that possible and we appreciate it. Thank you!