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Reading my post again, it does read like I’m being overly harsh towards Bigtones. I was being too emphatic I think when I said they sound bad. Sorry about that. I’m actually a fan of sorts. Guitarists seem to have different levels of tolerance towards piezos full stop (period). This is just as true in the flat top world as it is in Gypsy jazz. I myself can live with them because I’ve grown up with the sound. It’s interesting that Taylor appear to have gone back to piezos with their new pickup systems. The bridges have tiny screws that allow you to alleviate the pressure of the saddle on the crystal strip. This helps to take a lot of the quack out apparently.
@Twang well, even the best bigtones are by no means perfect but pickups are always a compromise. Despite the huge plethora of options out there, there are still only two basic technologies that all the manufactures are using (i.e. piezo or magnetic.) Piezos will always have some quack and brittleness and magnetic pickups will be highly compressed, colored, and lacking in highs. The difference between manufacturers lies mostly in where these sensors are mounted and what sort of tone shaping via a preamp is used to remove any unwanted artifacts. Otherwise, it’s just the same technologies being repackaged and marketed as some sort of miracle solution but I still don’t think we’re any closer to producing a 100% natural sound with a pickup.
As far piezos go, the bigtone has always been a popular option on Gypsy guitars because the sensor is mounted inside the bridge which has two advantages. 1) Much higher feedback resistance compared with top mounted sensors (you can really crank a bigtone up to rock concert levels!) and 2) a clearer, more fundamental rich tone which is so much easier to work with. The top mounted sensors always pickup the too much of the internal reverb of the guitar which results a ringy sound, especially at higher volumes.
The only exception to these technologies would be Schertler’s offerings which include the electrodynamic DYN pickup and the electrostatic Basik pickup.