MSP Pickup for Musical Instruments
Manufacurer: 123sound.jp
International Sales via 123sound.jp
Inuyama Aichi, Japan
Price: $99US
The Good Stuff
- The magnet installation is quick and great because you don’t have to remove your strings or get sticky gunk on your guitar.
- For relatively cheap you’ll be ready to play casual gigs.
- The positioning can be adjusted easily for optimal sound.
- Very simple design that has little chance of going wrong at gigs.
As far as contact mics go
Contact mics have some drawbacks but this is one of the best I’ve tried so far. Contact mics are sensitive to anything touching the guitar so buttons or taps to the instrument result in a boom. Also, feedback can still be a problem when used with amplification. This one had a comparable amount of feedback when you crank up the volume but would be fine outside and in larger rooms (which is where you’d be using it anyway). Piezo bridge pickups are better but can be more expensive and not as easy to take on and off.
The sound from this review
For the video review I plugged the mic right into my Universal Audio Interface which has a sound card and runs at about $1000. I didn’t include the sound of the amplified result since going through two mics and two preamps obscures the results too much. How did it sound through my amp? It was mid tone and bass heavy like most contact mics but adjusting the placement helped just as it did in the video. After adjusting the amp settings I thought the sound was good for a contact mic. Not as good as a bridge piezo but good for what it is. I would definitely recommend the MSP for people looking for a cheap and easy way to mic, pros will want to upgrade further but for casual background gigs this would work well. I was surprised at how good it sounded direct into my interface though.
Bottom Line: As far contact mics go this one is a winner. I loved the easy magnetic installation and the sound was good for a contact mic. When amplified there was some feedback but not more than expected.
