Had a great time playing another open mic night at the Mellow Mushroom. I played eight songs which can be watched on this blog or at my youtube channel. This time I had my classical nylon string guitar on which I had recently installed a pick-up.

The pick-up I installed is the Shadow SH-1900, classical guitar bridge pickup with saddle, volume control and 12 foot cable. I really like this pick-up because when I am practicing at home I can plug my classical guitar into an amp and play very loudly in my living room. And the sound is great! I was surprised when I first tried this pick-up that I was able to get such volume and good sound from a passive pick-up. A passive pickup is basically one that does not use any power and does not amplify the signal as opposed to an active pickup which may require a 9-volt battery, for instance, and amplifies your signal with a pre-amp. I also like this pick-up for the ease of installation and no need to modify or drill any holes in my guitar. You just loosen up the strings, slide out your old saddle, slide in the Shadow SH-1900 saddle pick-up, tune-up and you’re good to go.

Now, I was equally surprised when I went to use this guitar and pick-up combination at my local open mic night and it seemed to hardly put out any volume at all. (You can see in this first video “MASH”, the host scrambling to setup an external mic in front of my guitar so that I could be heard. In my living room at home it is very loud, but here, I guess it doesn’t put out enough to drive the sound equipment used for this much larger room. So, now that I know this, I want to see about getting a pre-amp installed as well.

Until next time, thanks for stopping by! ~Roger