CS Sensor vs Manouche Picks Pickup

Chiefbigeasy

I’ve worked my way through the Ischell, Peche a la Mouche, the AT831B, and now the Carlos Sensor. I’ve played them all through my Schertler David and/or Fender Super Champ X2.

Liked the Ischell at first, but the whole putty thing and the fact that it seemed to pick up too much extraneous noise from my fingers on the strings and pick noise led me to sell it. Could only use it with the Schertler David because it needed phantom power.

Kept the Peche for its classic tone and ease of use with either amp. But, it’s not very acoustic sounding. It’s a feedback free workhorse, though. My bandmate is using it on my petite bouche guitar.

Still have the AT831B and love the pure acoustic tone, but it’s fussy to mount and tricky feedback-wise to use even with the Schertler David, which most people say is not a good idea. Guess I’m keeping it for the moment for possible recording use later.

My current favorite is the Carlos Sensor. External mounting is simple after finding the sweet spot, plugs into either amp with regular guitar cord, sounds very acoustic for a contact pickup. Took the suggestion to use a small stomp box 5 band equalizer on the way to the amp to tweak the final range of coverage. Extremely feedback resistant. It’s mounted on my DuPont grande bouche and sounds great.

Carlos Juan was a little miffed about Michael’s opinion of contact pickups, but I suggested to him that he has a number of great artist endorsements from dedicated users, and that a difference of opinion was not going to hurt him. He said he was feeling attacked by the negative opinion of his product, but he seemed to calm down after exchanging a few posts with me.