Fishman Tune-O-Matic Powerbridge Pickup for LP Style Guitar

I installed this on a Washburn WI-64. This pickup-bridge cost almost as much as I paid for the guitar, yet the difference it made in the sound was worth every penny - and that was with a passive installation (no powerchip preamp needed, and therefore no battery, either).Construction: I was pleased to see "Germany" cast into the bridge frame of this piece. Each little saddle-piece has its own wire running down to a very small, etched pc-board from which the lead wire exits to tap into your guitar's pick-up network. The adjusting screws for each string-saddle worked smoothly yet without any buzzing. The build quality is top-notch.Installation, mechanical: I was concerned at first that the body-mounting blocks were smaller than the originals in my Washburn - until I realized that it meant I could simply remove the old adjusting screws and insert the new mounts into the old bridge's mounting holes and tap them into place. I used a plastic handled tool so I wouldn't scratch anything. They went in easily and yet securely. When in place, the new bridge-height adjusting screws threaded in smoothly and with perfect spacing for the new Powerbridge. Because it was so mechanically precise, I did have to work it carefully to align both sides at the same time - but it could not have been any simpler. I unscrewed the coil cover off the nearest humbucker and threaded the Powerbridge wire down through the guitar body into the controls cavity without a hitch. I did file out a small notch so that when I put the humbucker cover back on, it wouldn't pinch the signal lead from the Powerbridge.Installation, electrical: I soldering the lead from the Powerbridge in a parallel mode to the other two coil pickups, so that it is always "on" with full signal. I can turn the volume on either of the original coil pickups to zero and play with just the Powerbridge sound, or I can blend them in in any manner with the existing volume and tone controls on the guitar. It works beautifully with the pickups in both humbucking and single coil configurations. The Washburn doesn't have tone controls for its pickups, instead, it has a "VCC" control that gradually sweeps from a full-humbucking wiring to the electrical equivalent of a single-coil via the center-tap of the guitar's two pickups.Sound: Stunningly rich and complex. As the first reviewer observed, it's not quite an acoustic sound - but there are so many more overtones, you may sometimes prefer to use it instead of your dreadnaught. I almost always run my guitars (acoustic and electric) through some kind of stereo chorus, and when I do that with the Powerbridge and listen with a stereo speaker set-up (or better, headphones) it creates an almost three-dimensional sound field. When I play the "harmonics" on my strings, the Powerbridge brings them out better than I ever imagined - not just the octaves and fifths, but even some others that my acoustic has trouble reproducing. However, I do appreciate having the magnetic coils to provide the "bottom end" in the sound spectrum, and don't expect to play it without using it in combination with at least one of the two magnetic coil pickups as well.Switching/blending: I am so enthusiastic about this, I've posted it before my next phase of experimenting, which will involve drilling a hole in my guitar to add a volume control to the Powerbridge wiring. It's perfectly usable without that - but I love to tinker with blending - so it's the next step I'm going to take.(11-1-2011) Finally installed a passive control for it and created a 3-minute video which shows the installation, the wiring, and demos some of the new sounds possible. I would have linked it here, but links won't post, and I've had difficulty uploading the video to amazon directly. You can search for it on YouTube with keywords Fishman Powerbridge Passive Installation Tune-O-Matic. It's on a black Washburn WI-64.

I upgraded the bridge on my Epiphone Les Paul 60s Tribute Plus. I wanted the acoustic like sound of the piezo pickups, and this sounds great. Two great surprises for me - the installation was amazingly easy on the Epiphone. The mounting posts are an easy press fit into the existing, larger metal screw holes of the old Epi bridge. Just tap them right in with the back of a screw driver or small hammer. No wobbling, no drilling and the perfect spacing! The second surprise the slots in these saddles are fabulous for any string size to avoid sustain killing buzz where strings don’t come out the slot correctly and hit the sides of the slots. This was a problem a big problem on my original Epi bridge, and this fixed it completely. I feel like I’m playing on a very high-end LP now with this upgrade.

I installed it on a Crafter SEG300 Semi-Acoustic Guitar (BB King Lucille replica).I installed it with the Powerchip (internal volume set on maximum), the 3-Way Toggle Switch and with the Stereo Jack Output.I had already heard the Fender version and I was amazed. Turns out that I like this one even more! I don't know if in some way the Semi-Acoustic Semi-Hollow body adds something since I don't understand if the guitar construction would affect the sound of a piezo pickup... but... it's AMAZING!Made a blind test with a friend that is a great musician and he couldn't tell that wasn't an Acoustic Guitar he was hearing... I truly believe that this unity is a TOTAL acoustic guitar replacement for musicians looking for versatility and to add some acoustic tones on gigs with fast breaks between musics or to simply add an acoustic sound blended or when you're on a budget!ADVISE: The Powerchip is a Battery Eater so be advised to buy a Rechargeable one or look for a solution such the 1Spot adapter for use with a 9V AC Adapter. As soon as you start to hear you sound CRAP, replace the battery and everything will be ok!

I've used PowerBridges (and installed them myself) in three of my guitars. They work fantastic. No, it doesn't sound exactly like an acoustic guitar, but it gets you there, for live performance, in ways that are simply grand.This particular style sounds better than the hard-tail and trem versions I've had on Teles and Strats, too. For some reason, on a Les Paul, this just gets you even further than it did on the other guitars I've used the other PowerBridges on.I did the passive installation, which leaves your guitar's function the way it used to be when you use a mono cable.Great buy.

This does not fit on to a standard bridge as described, you'll likely have to pull the existing bridge posts and replace with less quality ones. I was not willing to do that and returned the unit. Bummer, I really liked the fact it had one cable and spent considerable time working out how to wire it. It would have been easy to make it fit, but it doesn't. I have an Epiphone Alleycat and a Les Paul, it would not fit either one. Maybe it would fit an off brand guitar, who knows.The instructions are OK, but only deal with "typical senarios", which mine never are. I am an Electonics engineer so I was able to work it out, but the professional installation recommendation is a good one, if you want to go this route.If they spent more money on the product doing what they profess and less on the packaging, I would have been very happy.

Meet my expectation. It does sound like acoustic guitar. Mix with my regular humbuckers, they sound great with wide range of frequency. However, the volume of the piezo is weak in comparing with humbucker. The preamp or separate amp is need for piezo.

Alles super, tolles Gerät!

Monté sur une Gibson Les Paul Slash 2013.Pas eu besoin d'utiliser les pièces de fixation car identique à celle d'origine.Très bonne finition.

Super easy to install - I took it to my guitar shop where the helpful man drilled a discrete 2mm hole from under the bridge into the bridge pick-up cavity (for the sake of £5, I wouldn't bother doing it yourself - in an LP, the wood is super hard and it was nice to have someone else's insurance covering it!). Fed wire through and simply replaced the mono jack plug with the stereo jack - 30 min job for unskilled me - make sure you have a supply of spare wire and heat shrink in case you need to chop up the existing wire a little.Now if I plug a mono lead in, I get electric, and if I plug a stereo lead in, my Electric signal goes left through my standard rig and the acoustic one goes into an active DI. I cannot recommend the L.R.Baggs para acoustic DI enough. Adds a huge amount of warmth into the sound and gives this passive pick-up a welcome boost.While it won't give you that "mic-ed acoustic" sound, it gives you a cleaner and better acoustic pick-up sound than you will find in many mid-range guitars

I did a lot of online research before selecting this product, it didn't dissapoint. I installed this on my Les Paul 60's Tribune on a Saturday morning in a couple of hours. I chose to do a passive installation with a switch so I either have the powerbridge or the humbuckers (no blending) and out through the standard mono output.Through my acoustic amp I needed more gain, treble and mids than my acoustic guitar but with some reverb and chorus it sounds great.Played in church last Sunday and it cut through the mix much better than the standard electric setup, I didn't tell anyone what I changed but had comments after about how good it sounded.The only reason I didn't give this 5 Stars was the fit of the bridge mounting posts was a bit sloppy compared to the Gibson setup, that said it seems to stay in tune ok still.Didn't want to cut into my Les paul to install so brought spare set of pickup mounting rings and a back cover set. I mounted a low profile push button switch in the back cover and notched the pickup ring to feed the wire from the powerbridge to install (see attached pics).