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I have recently been electrifying my acoustic instruments by adding piezo and magnetic pickups. I really like the combination of a piezo bridge with a magnetic neck pickup because it's a very well balanced tone even without a preamp/mixer for the piezo. The problem with adding a magnetic pickup to most acoustic instruments is insufficient clearance between the soundboard and strings. There's also the problem of finding pickups with the correct pole spacing to accommodate string spacing's ranging from 3-12 strings. The MGB Five Dolla solves a number of those problems for cigar box and acoustic instruments. It is a single coil pickup with a coil wound around a short and narrow plastic bobbin with a ceramic bar magnet in the middle.
I wasn't expecting much for $5 but I am very pleasantly surprised by this pickup. Since it has a central bar magnet string spacing and string to string volume is no issue. Also with it's short and narrow coil it can be surface mounted where a guitar pickup is too tall. I was expecting a weak and noisy single coil at 4.5K but it sounds great. It is far better than a Dean Markley Pro Mag I have which is weak, noisy and thin sounding by comparison. I wrapped mine in aluminum flashing tape to reduce RFI and it's quieter than most single coils I have. Since it doesn't have a baseplate I used a hot glue gun to fasten the top of the coil to its stamped metallic cover. Since the coil is taller than the cover I suspended it in the sound hole of my Puerto Rican Cuatro. Otherwise you may need to route out a hole below or surface mount it and find a different cover.
So for $20 I now have an electric Cuatro after installing a compensated saddle, installing a cheapo piezo under the saddle, mounting the magnetic pickup in the soundhole, and drilling for a stereo end jack.
https://mgbguitars.com/collections/p...s-pickups-five
https://mgbguitars.com/collections/p...r-3-4-6-string
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Piezo-Under...53.m2749.l2648
https://mgbguitars.com/collections/j...-flange-chrome
I wasn't expecting much for $5 but I am very pleasantly surprised by this pickup. Since it has a central bar magnet string spacing and string to string volume is no issue. Also with it's short and narrow coil it can be surface mounted where a guitar pickup is too tall. I was expecting a weak and noisy single coil at 4.5K but it sounds great. It is far better than a Dean Markley Pro Mag I have which is weak, noisy and thin sounding by comparison. I wrapped mine in aluminum flashing tape to reduce RFI and it's quieter than most single coils I have. Since it doesn't have a baseplate I used a hot glue gun to fasten the top of the coil to its stamped metallic cover. Since the coil is taller than the cover I suspended it in the sound hole of my Puerto Rican Cuatro. Otherwise you may need to route out a hole below or surface mount it and find a different cover.
So for $20 I now have an electric Cuatro after installing a compensated saddle, installing a cheapo piezo under the saddle, mounting the magnetic pickup in the soundhole, and drilling for a stereo end jack.
https://mgbguitars.com/collections/p...s-pickups-five
https://mgbguitars.com/collections/p...r-3-4-6-string
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Piezo-Under...53.m2749.l2648
https://mgbguitars.com/collections/j...-flange-chrome
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