Harley Benton HB-T

I bought this for my yamaha guitarlele. I've wanted a microphone that you can attach to your instrument without making any bigger operations (e.g. drilling a hole in the body to fix a cable terminal). I decided the try this little microphone because of its price and the easy way to fix it. I can only report what my experiences has been while using it with my yamaha guitarlele...

1. sound

The Sound is okay. I think it's a little thin but that is what I'd expected anyways. However for live perfomances it's absolutely okay. It's an easy way to mike up an acoustic intstrument if you don't want to or cannot use a diaphragm microphone.
I'm standing while playing the guitarlele so it's a little bit disturbing to have a microphone postioned in front of your instrument

2. quality

To be honest I had expected a little more even if the price is that low.
I attached the cable terminal with a tape so that i could not move anymore and the cable was not under tensile strength. After playing the third time there has been a loose contact. Maybe this was just bad luck and another one would have better quality i don't know.

All in all I would say that this is a cheap solution for someone who's looking for an easy and fast way to mike up his acoustic instrument for some live shows.

When I was researching about contact pick ups I found this one to be accessible enough for the basics of a contact mic but without expecting much from it.

After several trials in different acoustic instrument I have to say that the sound quality is around OK but don't expect a great quality, specially because I tried to record a guitar and the was almost nothing sounding, it took me to level up the gain as much as possible to capture some decent sound, the bad thing here is the increase of noise you get when recording with so much gain, so in that sense is not the best experience and result.

I also did some experiments with this pick up attaching it to small percussion instruments and tried to get some samples and it was ok but nothing too clean, for more experimental things can be fun to use because of the noisy background you can get and if you are the type of user who likes to improvise.

I would say that to amplify acoustic instruments for a simple live session can be handy but nothing too elaborate, if you want also to do some experimental recordings (surfaces, unusual sound sources, etc) can be also handy without much expectations.

I am using this one to get some "acoustic" sounds out from electric instruments (guitars and basses). It's not really something you would recommend when doing things by the book, but it can have yield some interesting results. Quite frankly, contact mics can be pretty bad, and this really isn't. I would definitely recommend getting one.

The adhesive provided in the kit works perfectly. I have the impression it won't leave any stains on the wood, but so far I haven't tried on my 'matte' instruments. It's very easy to install, although if you have never done this before it might require some tweaking around to find your instrument's sweet spot.

As I am mostly using the sound from the mic blended with the original electric sound, the signal chain I use is very simple, and I connect it straight to one of the inputs on my audio interface. From there it is very easy to adjust the levels and add any effect you wish through Logic or any other DAW.

I could notice that the mic works very well, with very little noise and quite a good volume. I definitely recommend it, even as an impulse buy. It is definitely making my recordings more interesting!

I bought this pickup because I needed to amplify a 5 string banjo for live performances. It served the purpose very well, but then again, I didn't have very high demands regarding the sound quality. I was looking for a functional low cost solution and in that regard, I am very satisfied.

As per instructions I found on some banjo sites, I placed the pickup on the bottom side of the banjo head, right under the low D string area of the bridge.

The sound output is low as one would expect it from a passive pickup. Instead of a dedicated preamp, I use an overdrive pedal with the level and tone set to max and drive somewhere between 30 % and 50 %.

When recording, the one notices that the sound is lacking in treble, but compared to a microphone, it has more low end, so it the two signals complement each other nicely.

I bought this just for fun because the the price is so ridiculous. Just wanted to test does this work at all. Also magnetic pickups in sound hole which I've used previously are not nice for finger picker.
I set the pickup to my Martin OM21 and played it to Harley Benton acoustic amp which I've reviewed too. I play ragtime and Hawaiian music so I want just a pure uncomplicated guitar sound. I was so surprised that this transducer really works at least for me. The best place to set up it is behind the bridge at treble side. It gives good basic sound that doesn't need any EQ adjustment from amp.
Only negative thing to say is the mounting. I play sitting and don't use a strap. So there is no place to mount the jack: I don't want to glue the sticker to guitar body. I made a small disk of plastic for the jack sticker which I can mount to end pin. It's not beautiful, but works some how, the jack is in wrong place for my sitting position. I will use the pickup at my next gig.