Bill Lawrence A-300 Compact Magnetic Soundhole Guitar Pickup for Small Guitars

You will probably need to loosen the strings, or install the pickup during a string change while no strings are on the guitar. The cord near the pickup, needed to be left inside the guitar (under the guitar top) so that the pickup was not held elevated up against the strings. The pickup had very little room remaining after it was installed in my 3 1/4-inch sound hole. Because of having to loosen or remove the strings to remove/install, I leave the pick installed between playings. The pickup has the quality sound of other Lawrence pickups I have used.

This is a nice little pickup. I needed one for my Gretsch Jim Dandy -- a parlour guitar with a very small soundhole, which won't fit the usual no-install soundhole pickups. The sound is very good. The downsides are a short, thin cable that does not detach, and one of the three parts that have grooves for the soundhole is a bit off. This seems like a production issue. I had another one of these but lost it, and that one did not have this issue. I bought an extension guitar cable to give me more slack. I may take this to a local guitar shop to have it installed permanently, which is an option, but beyond my capability.

I started off learning the guitar with an acoustic. Throughout the years, I've heard people play an acoustic-electric and I admired the sound that resonated from their guitar. Hearing their guitars made me want an acoustic-electric guitar badly but I never had the money to purchase one. After doing some research on pickups for acoustic guitars, I decided that I wanted one - now since I couldn't afford an acoustic-electric, I obviously couldn't dish out a lot of money for a pickup either. Sooo I stumbled upon this product and it had really great reviews online so I knew I wouldn't be disappointed - and guess what? I love this product simply because it does what it's supposed to do and it doesn't distort the natural acoustic sound so it doesn't sound like a full on electric guitar. I would recommend this product to anyone who is on a tight budget but are looking to amplify their guitar's sound while maintaining the natural beauty of acoustic guitars.

Bought a “new” item, paid for a new item, was expecting a new item… the new item I paid for.Look what I received.Caution.

I bought this to use with my Baby Taylor...great sound, but I did have an issue with it fitting correctly. Would give it four stars, but the spring had a sharp bend in it near the pu and that kept it from fitting tight, square, and level with the strings. I straightened the bend the best I could and it fits better, but not perfect. I am concerned about the spring breaking if I try to adjust it more. Don't know why it would have been bent like that, unless it has been 'used/abused' before. Would return it for another, but need it right away.

Build like a Lawrence and sounds like a Lawrence! This pickup offers nice upper-end articulation with an unobtrusive bass frequency response. The best part is it's ability to reject feedback - The A-300 isn't nearly as susceptible as the Baggs mic system that I grew up playing.Also, it sounds great with some heavy overdrive... who knew?

Plain and simple, this is a very accurate, true-to-tone acoustic guitar pickup. It doesn't sound processed or "fake" like the piezo's did to my ears. Much more "woody" and airy then most pickups I have tried.My only gripe with this pickup is with the design. It feels haphazard to me, what with the spring arm keeping it in place. However, I am sure I will get used to swapping it in and out as time goes on. I would recommend this pickup to someone looking for an affordable way to amplify their acoustic guitar.

I tried this with my outstanding Eastman E20P guitar, which has a 3 1/2” sound hole. The pickup is supported by three hard plastic ovals that press against the edges of the sound hole. However one oval couldn’t seat properly because the cord comes out the side and presses against the sound hole. If I bent the cable to a hard ninety degrees, the ovals would seat, but when I let go, one oval would be forced away again and the pickup would threaten to fall into the guitar and wouldn’t stay level. This design flaw could have been easily fixed by having the cable come out of the bottom of the pickup or the back, but as it is it is useless.Second problem, the strings on my guitar are 3/8” above the top, but the pickup is 1/4” below the strings. At that height, the sound is very uneven, with the E strings hardly picked up. If I raise the pickup to 1/8” below the strings, the pickup sounds very good, but there is no way to adjust the pickup height! Again, as it is it is worthless.I tried this with a Roland MiniCube. Set to acoustic modeling, it sounded quite a bit like an acoustic guitar. Set to Clean, my guitar sounded like a decent jazz guitar, which is what I wanted. But given that I can’t adjust the height or make it seat firmly, this is a waste. A bit of designing could make it so much better.