Re: Acoustic pickup project
There have been many brands of soundhole pickups made and sold for decades (a classic example would be the old DeArmonds). They were all simple single-coil pickups similar to those we use in electric guitars as far as I know. And as far as I know, none of them were grounded to the strings.
The bigger problem may be that if the guitar has some kind of phosphor/bronze strings, the plain (G,B,E) strings will come through the pickup loud and clear but the wound strings will provide only a very weak signal, which will involve slanting the pickup at a pretty steep angle across the soundhole (or wherever you're going to mount it) to try to get a balanced output. (Pickup would be very low on the treble side and very high under the bass side). Even then, it is somewhat of a compromise, and the angle can be limited by the mounting hardware. (I had a s/c bartolini pickup in the soundhole of an acoustic guitar last year, and this is exactly what i experienced).
There is a way to avoid that problem, and that is by using Nickel or steelwound strings. Then it's all working just like in a soild-body electric. The only drawback with this method is that the sound is different, more like an electric and less like an acoustic.
In your situation, i reckon the steel or nickelwound strings would be the better option....the sound will be balanced, which will make life better for you as the listener, and him as the player.
