Artec Memphisys 66 OSJ

I now have an electric parlor guitar thanks to this humbucker. I knew my guitar's soundhole would be too small so I was prepared to cut away some wood. Because I'm left handed I wanted to position the humbucker upside down so I shaped the bridge side of the soundhole to fit the humbucker. My woodwork skills were good enough and it turned out great! I only paid 40 euros a couple of years ago at an auction for the vintage parlor guitar made by Suzuki Violin Company made in the 70's. The string action is quite low on my parlor guitar so I had to remove the rubber pads under the side plates of the pickup to make the pickup action go low enough to prevent string contact when playing the upper frets. This aspect turned out perfect also. My string action is unchanged and the distance of the pickup magnets is perfect after I adjusted them all to the same height as the lowest one with a screwdriver. Plenty of clearance now. My parlor guitar sound absolutely beautiful with amplifier and effects. Fitting this humbucker to my old guitar was scary to do since I had to cut the soundhole and make it shaped to fit the pickup. I did have to measure very carefully and mark the areas with a pencil to be cut and filed away. But I'm very satisfied with the result. Please don't do what I did unless you are absolutely certain that you won't ruin your precious guitar. For normal sized soundholes, I believe this fits straight in without any need for modifications. The cable can be neatly duct taped onto the side of the guitar the input jack can be attached to the strap button.

I have always found hybrid acoustic/electric guitar interesting, ever since watching the Nirvana Unplugged thing on MTV. I really liked Kurt Cobain's tone from that event. I had always assumed that the the guitar he was playing was some kind of homebrew, but that wasn't the case. Kurt's guitar is a Martin 15e, made in the 1950's, and pretty rare. Anyway that's what I was after, not too sure that the Artec Memphisys 66 OSJ delivered, but that's not to say that I didn't like what it did deliver. A distorted sound from an acoustic is definitely a novel, original sound, which I liked very much. The Artec Memphisys 66 OSJ does also provide a decent clear tone, OK not exactly an acoustic sound, but then if that's what you are after, then you'd be better with 1 of the 100's of piezo pickups. The only gripe I have, is the volume and tone controls are a bit hard to access. This is pretty minor thou, I mean at least they are there. Fitting the Artec Memphisys 66 OSJ, was a breeze, it has 2 screws and captive nuts, that create a clamp, which is padded, which attaches the pickup to the sound hole of your acoustic. I fitted the Artec Memphisys 66 OSJ, with the strings off, and it took me just a couple of minutes. All in all, a great little addition to your tone arsenal, I have used it to add dimension to home recordings. It's a nice looking thing too, and appears to be very well built, and cheap too. I really don't know how they can do this type of quality at this price. I can definitely recommend the Artec Memphisys 66 OSJ, do yourself a favour and get one.