My new Myers pickup seems to have very low output, is this right?

[Scottm4321]

Hi all, thanks in advance for any help with my question.

I'm new to pickups for acoustic instruments. I just received and installed a Myers gooseneck pickup/mic on my mando. It said it was for guitar but I thought it would work for mando too.

The description on Amazon said "Myers Pickups, Versatile, Multi-Instrument, Powered Pickup! Compatible with almost any musical instrument!" so I felt it was ok use.

However, the output is very low when compared to my Fender elec/acoustic with built in electronics. Is this something I should expect and does it have to do with the battery size of each pre-amp? Or is the Myer pickup faulty. There is a big different in output.

[Scottm4321]

I just emailed Myer's Pickups and received an immediate phone call from their CEO Gregg Myers. Wow! This is customer service. He explained that to use thismic through an amp as I had been trying, I would need XLR adapter and impedance transformer to make this work well with an amp. And you know what? He's sending me one of each and some more batteries.

If this isn't great customer service I don't know what is.

Thank you Gregg.

[pops1]

That is good service, let us know if it helps.

[dhergert]

Yup, I was going to guess impedance. The inline impedance transformer is the easiest way to get around microphone impedance mis-matches with an amp. You could instead use a pre-amp, but it looks like there is some of that functionality built into the little mic box. Note that if/when you are feeding into an FOH mixer you most likely won't need the impedance transformer.

[Lorraine Fox]

I just bought a Myers external pick and hooked it up to my Phil Jones cub amp. It had low volume so I called Myers and he sent me am impedance transformer. Then I call Phil Jones and he advise the same. They both said the transformer allows them to talk to each other. I am very happy with my purchase and Myers and Phil Jones had great customer service. Also, the best way for me to attach the mic is to use the suction cup on the tail piece. I used a bread tie wire, wrapped the wire around the suction cup screw, then wrapped it around the mic cable. Works great. Any other attempts for me like the clip, etc. failed.

[Ray(T)]

The clue is in the Amazon advert. It says “Compatible with almost any musical instrument” but that doesn’t mean that it’s also compatible with almost everything you might want to plug it into.

The fact that it is stated to need a matching transformer suggests to me that has a low impedance output and, in the photo, it has what is likely to be an ubalanced output on a jack socket. It’s difficult to think of any piece of modern equipment you could actually plug it into and get any worthwhile sound without some sort of interface (transformer).

A transformer would convert its low impedance output to high impedance to enable it’s use with a guitar amp. Alternatively, you could make up a lead to enable you to connect it to a balanced input on an acoustic amp or mixing desk but this would be far from ideal. My guess would be that the reason people would want to buy one is because they’re cheap!