Fishman PRO-REP-103 Rare Earth Blend Pickup

Excellent. Installed into a favourite acoustic guitar for some upcoming shows this is a fabulous pickup system utilising a very slim pick up in the sound hole that doesn’t compromise the acoustic properties of the guitar and a microphone in the body. You can blend these together to tweak your sound. The sound quality is far superior to a Piezo system, which I personally dislike for its toppy unnatural sound. There are cheaper pickups on the market but this is really worth installing. I read someone here complaining about the volume output. That is nonsense it works great directly inputted into an amp or PA and if you want a bit more control use a floor standing preamp. Great product! p.s. don’t ask me about fitting, I got someone else to do that!

I installed the pickup myself very carefully on my Yamaha acoustic guitar. Easy installation. The sound is superb! The only downside is that it's quite heavy.

I recently bought a Martin D-18 and never intended to have it electrified, but love the guitar so much I wanted to use it live. In the past, I have always gone for Headway pickups, but this means drilling the area under the saddle and my guitar has the vintage style saddle that sits in a slot that's open at both ends. This makes adjusting the saddle in any way a very skilful operation - skills I do not possess. So I looked around and read some very positive reviews about this soundhole mounted unit and thought I'd give it a go. This is the first Fishman pickup I have ever bought and my immediate impression was positive; well packaged, detailed fitting instruction and a very solid feel to it (apart from the flimsy arm the mic is attached to - all the other comments about this are spot on). Initially, I was going to just have the wire dangling from the soundhole, rather than fit the thing more permanently, but I had nightmare visions of standing on the lead and ripping the front out of the guitar so decided to fit the endpin jack. The instructions talk about using reamers and stuff to enlarge the hole, but if you have the correct final drill size, it's relatively easy to use increasing drill sizes as a series of pilot holes until you get to the final size (half inch, I think, but don't quote me). After shortening the lead wire - leaving enough spare to remove the pickup to change the batteries - I just used a length of solder wire to reach through the end hole and pull the jack through. Once tightened and with the decorative jack surround in place, you're done. By the way, StewMac.com do a clever little device the allows you to replace the jack with a standard endpin if you decide to de-electrify at some point. Plugging in to my Headway preamp the tone is good if lacking in treble a bit. EQ adjustment soon fixes this and it's possible to get a very pleasing tone blending a little mic with the pickup and perfectly good for an amplified acoustic (which I never find truly authentic sounding, but good just the same). This was a good solution to electrify my Martin, but I do wonder if they're worth the extra you pay for it having the mic.

My Yamaha acoustic guitar (FS72OS) is certainly not top of the range, and I wanted a pick up to enrich its sound and give more volume and projection. I like physically playing the guitar, and especially like the feel of its neck, but its sound really does need augmenting - especially when playing live. The Fishman PRO-REP-103 Rare Earth Blend Pickup gave me exactly what I wanted, and a bit more. Okay, so it can't magically make an inexpensive guitar sound like a top-notch instrument, but it certainly makes an inexpensive guitar sound absolutely fine - especially in a live performance situation.

It’s not really a review of the item but I was hugely disappointed to receive an opened and used unit. I don’t know if it’s legal to do this. Returned.

Amazing pickup. Being able to blend the 2 different pickups is lovely. I have it installed on my Martin D15M. My only issue with it is that it is a little on the quiet side when plugged into my amp or sound card for direct recording which unfortunately means turning up the gain considerably and then getting a bit of a hiss.

Excellent pick up for acoustic guitar. Easy to fit, simple to use and produces a high quality sound. Perfect for recording and public performance. I would highly recommend this for any budding musician. Money well spent.

The quality of the sound is accurate but I'm really disappointed with the low output. Come on Fishman, you can do better!

This pickup allows you to blend the tone from the mini-humbucker pickup with the directional condenser mic to achieve the most natural tone possible. I cannot imagine getting a more natural amplified sound of an acoustic guitar without investing significantly more time and money in pickups that require permanent modification (i.e. under-saddle pickups) to my instrument. Beyond outstanding acoustic performance, the Fishman offers TWO distinct advantages to other pickups: 1. Non-permanent installation enables you to switch it between multiple instruments. I actually purchased additional end-pin jacks and wired a permanent pigtail with mini-xlr connectors into each of my guitars. 2. The pickup will output blended sound when a mono plug is inserted into the endpin jack, but when a TRS (stereo) plug is inserted, it outputs discrete signals from each pickup to separate channels!

Fácil de instalar, suena mucho mejor mi guitarra y estoy contento con mi compra

War zuerst skeptisch aber der Fishman macht genau das was er soll. Den Klang einer Akustik Gitarre so abbilden wie sie klingt. Lediglich das Output Level ist ein wenig schwach, aber mit DI Box ist das auch kein Problem.

Un ottimo pickup per avvicinarsi abbastanza al suono naturale della chitarra da amplificare. La possibilità di deviare le uscite singolarmente (pickup e mic) è utilissima se trattate con preamp adeguati.

El sistema de electrificación de acústica más convincente que he probado. Los matices que añade el micro a la mezcla de señal hacen que el sonido sea imbatible, vívido, redondo. Hace pareja en mi caso con un ampli de la misma marca (Fishman Loudbox mini), lo cual entiendo que influirá en el resultado final. Lo negativo es no contar con un control de volumen (que sí tiene la versión sin micro), y la necesidad de desmontarla para cambiar las pilas (aunque duran lo que las cuerdas pueden estar al 100% e incluso más) el resto es un 10. El precio es alto pero merece mucho la pena.