options for pickups in Godin A8

[Jwilson]

I've had my Godin A8 for about 7 years now and it's essentially all I play. I play in a rock band and have always played it out of electric guitar amps. Right now I'm using a vox AC-15C2 and use a Mad Professor sweet honey overdrive for a little boost. I am getting the closest to the tone I want so far, yet it is still not responding as well to my pedals/amp as I would like it too. I am wondering if anyone has swapped out the RMC electronics for pickups that would more closely resemble an electric guitar tone. Though at the same time I don't want to sacrifice all of the warmth of the clean tone the mando already has.

Fair warning I am god awful with electronic and honestly most gear lingo, but I will do my best to keep up if anyone has any sort of answer to this question.

Thanks!

[lenf12]

Four words: solid body electric mandolin. Here's a pic of my Morgan Monroe telecaster mandolin. They can be had used for around $200.

Len B.
Clearwater, FL

[pops1]

I will agree with Len. The Godin is designed to plug in and sound acoustic. If you are thinking of taking out the electronics and adding a magnetic pickup the pickup alone would cost about half of what this can be bought for. Then you would have a mandolin that you can change the pickups easier to get the sound you want. It would also be more compatible with your Vox amp.

[lenf12]

I totally agree with pops1. Your Godin isn't designed to do the job you want it to do. With it's chambered body and individual transducers for each string pair, it's designed to "mimic" the sound of an acoustic mandolin, only really loud before feedback. It's a very nice voice to have in your arsenal of tones. Your Vox amp looks really nice too, clean to crunchy sounds and quite simple to use but pretty heavy and designed for electric guitar. Perhaps any of several solid body electric mandolins would suit your needs. I took the "el cheapo" route and still haven't swapped out the pickups yet, but soon.

Len B.
Clearwater, FL