Mighty Mini Pickup

First, some background: I've used The Band pickup (not bad, but not comfortable for me) & also had The Realist pickup mounted on an "extra" violin that I used for amplified gigs. But recently I decided I only want to use my really good violin, even for amped gigs. The Realist is a superb pickup - I highly recommend - but only if you don't mind having your bridge cut down a tiny bit & are OK with risking even slight damage to the finish on your violin. I decided against taking that risk w/ my "good" violin, so I decided to try the Mighty Mini.Seriously, the name needs to change. But that isn't really important. . .What is important is that this little thing works well & is completely non-invasive. It is much more sensitive than I expected - actually, TOO sensitive: it really picked up a lot of finger noise (plop plop plop) which made it impossible for me to use in performance without a decent pre-amp (w/ EQ). This little baby would be perfect if I could just put it on & plug it into a regular DI, but I had to fork over more dollars for the LRBaggs Para-Acoustic DI (don't mess around with anything else).You really need to carefully anchor the cord, too, otherwise it creates a lot of extra noise. Rather than wrap it around the tailpiece, I used a small strip of velcro around the tail piece to tightly hold the cord.I am a bit concerned about longevity. It's kind of a delicate little piece of equipment and doesn't seem all that well-made, so we'll see.And, WHY sell this thing w/ an RCA plug? It comes with a 1/4-inch adaptor that seems very mediocre in quality.The cord is of generous length, which is super convenient, and it's small gauge & lightweight.Overall, I am very glad I discovered this option & was able to make it viable with the EQ. It adds no extra weight to my instrument, doesn't clamp on to the wood, has a nice long cord & (with proper mixing) can sound great. Try it!

Purchased four of these to mike up a string quartet for sound reinforcement in a noisy environment. So far, the MMP's have worked out great. Nice sound, doesn't interfere with playing, doesn't pick up any stray noises, and easy to install and remove without damaging instrument. Nice long cords provide plenty of slack for performers as long as mixing board is nearby.

This seemed like a great pickup, but only lasted about 15 rehearsals. It died right before a performance, and we had to use a condenser mic instead. Too bad. Good idea, not good quality!

Pickup is unusually easy to use and can produce a "relatively" natural sound without a preamp. I plugged it directly into the board and used its limited EQ . A really good EQ will improve the sound more.The issue is that the pickup is sensitive can pick up non-musical sounds, such as bumps, string noise, miscellaneous hand on the neck noises, and even chin rest sounds. Anytime the instrument shifts, the pickup will document that too. In a loud room where people are talking and carrying on and in a band situation with other instruments though, these types of sounds disappear into the room, so no one will hear the scrapes. Hence, the sensitivity probably does not really matter in most cases.The issues will only arise if you are trying to record the sound and/or are in a quiet room trying to play a soulful solo. Then, you will need to be extra careful and get a good EQ. 85% of the time, it probably will be just fine.

I have mixed feelings on this. it does sound GREAT. but its a little noisy if you move around. its that sensitive. you pretty much can't adjust. its good if you are sitting but not walking around on stage.

This is a fantastic, affordable pickup that's easy to attach and requires no modification of the instrument. It was able to excellently reproduce the warm tone of my violin.While a certain amount of fuzz and disclarity might be expected with a pickup that's not fixed to the instrument, the clear tone of this pickup is easily in the league of more expensive pickups, especially when paired with a good acoustic amp or with a pre-amp.

good for the price

I bought this to have one of our musicians use on mandolin in our church band. The sound quality was great and it picks up almost no stage noise. The musician wasn't super happy with the positioning on mandolin and felt like he kept knocking it. He prefers clip on mics better. However, as "the sound guy" I much prefer this over a clip on mic. With the clip on mics, I can hear everything on stage in the mandolin channel. Not with this pickup!Use it with a high quality Piezo direct box for best results. I used it with a Radial PZ-DI and it was very good. It was decent though even with a cheap DI.