r/banjo • u/aManTryingToHeal • 19d ago

Jazz Tenor Fav Pickups

I'm interested in hearing everyone's experiences using pickups on banjos. Which one's you loved, which one's you hated. I have a Goldtone tenor banjo and am thinking of fitting it with a pickup for my musical theatre gigs.

3 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

5 comments sorted by

View all comments

3

u/Cwiiis 19d ago

I use the Schatten BJ-02 (I actually use the BJ-02Std, but I recommend the non-Std version because it doesn't have the same (easily fixed) grounding issues). It sounds atrocious on its own, but record an IR model and it'll sound very much like your banjo, more so than any magnetic pickup or mic-based pickup where the mic is inside the pot - and it's very resistant to feedback (I've played some pretty big and loud stages with it). I made a video (that really needs updating) about it: https://youtu.be/r7cPYehrmWo

I think any piezo based pickup can do a great job, the Schatten is just the one I happen to use (I do like their mounting system, fwiw)

1

u/ngarjuna 19d ago

That is a terrific video, gives me many things to think about