need some advice on a guitar-related present...

[sunna]

Hello all you musical peoples...

I need somebody to point me in the right direction on guitar accessories. My husband plays, and is just getting back into it after a several-year hiatus: I want to encourage him as much as possible.

I'm looking for something that will record sound from an acoustic guitar (he has a gorgeous Martin his dad gave him, and would never think of replacing it with an acoustic-electric or anything else) and feed it, probably through an amp of some sort, into a computer as a wav or mp3 file. I'm not looking into software or an amp (or whatever that middleman would be) just yet; I don't know if a mike like that even exists. I could swear I saw something like it once - a little thingy that fit under the strings, or in the chamber, or somewhere - but I apparently don't know the right words to search by, 'cause I'm coming up with zilch.

Then I thought: hey, I find everything else I need to know on AW...:D


Can anyone tell me if such a thing exists, and whether or not they're ridiculously expensive? Or, if they don't/are, what other gifts would be great for a lapsed guitarist?

[ChunkyC]

An acoustic guitar pickup of some kind would be the first step. A company called Fishman makes some that go either under the saddle (requires retrofitting the guitar) or in the soundhole (no retrofitting required).

Fishman (http://www.fishman.com/products/acoustic-guitar-pickups.asp)

From there, you'd need whatever widget would do the job of jacking any electric guitar into a computer, such as a JamLab (http://www.thinkgeek.com/computing/avcards/7d86/).

[Serena Casey]

I don't know about this stuff myself, but here are a couple of good guitar forums where you could probably find more information. That's great you're encouraging hubby to pick up his lapsed hobby!
Guitar Noise (http://www.guitarnoise.com/forums/)
Guitar for Beginners and Beyond (http://www.guitarforbeginners.com/forum/)

[sunna]

Awesome. I knew I wasn't using the right terms... :D

Thanks peoples!

[III]

Yup - what Charlie said. You can get a removable pickup that fits in the soundhole. There are lots of them out there and generally you get what you pay for, so if he wants to record and get that great Martin sound, you'll want to get him a good one. Another option would be to get a good microphone for recording and just record the sound acoustically. You can buy a good soundcard for around $150 - $200 if you wanna do home recording on your computer. If he's just getting started again, you may want to just buy an inexpensive tape recorder and let him play with it to see if he really wants to do multi-track recording later.

[sunna]

Thanks III! :)

We're already set to go with the soundcard (he's a tech, so he's got all sorts of wonderful gadgets). I'm thinking maybe a relatively cheap pickup to start with, and if he wants to keep going with it we can get a nicer, more Martin-friendly one later ...I figure if I get him the equipment he'll be more likely to stick with it, knowing we've got a little cash invested in it. We'll see if that works. :D What do you think?

Also a quick question re: that JamLab item...

Is something like that only meant for electric guitars? It doesn't mention plugging in an acoustic pickup, but I'm too ignorant to know whether it would be the same thing.

:hooray: I'm excited. It's been a few years since I felt like I had a present he'd really get excited about, and that involved a creative endeavor. He's been so work-focused lately.

[ChunkyC]

Also a quick question re: that JamLab item...

Is something like that only meant for electric guitars? It doesn't mention plugging in an acoustic pickup, but I'm too ignorant to know whether it would be the same thing.
Basically, yeah, it's the same thing. A pickup like the Fishman that goes in the sound hole of an acoustic has a cord on it with a female jack just like the jack on an electric:

http://www.imuso.co.uk/images/Product/AC00300.jpg

This link (http://www.promusicaustralia.com/guitar/FISHImages/Neo-D.in.guitar.jpg) will take you to a picture of one mounted in a guitar, you can see the cord hanging out of the soundhole.

So you would use a regular guitar cable like this (http://www.accusoundcablecompany.com/store/images/instr_detail.jpg) to go between the jack on the pickup to the jack on the JamLab, which then plugs into a USB port on the computer.