Fishman Neo-D guitar soundhole pickup - Review

The Fishman Neo-D is a soundhole electromagnetic pickup for steel-string acoustic guitars.

Fitting involves clamping it into the soundhole and is quite easy to do. I found I did not need to remove the strings, however I did loosen the strings quite alot and retuned the guitar afterwards. It is fairly easy to transfer the Neo-D from one guitar to another.

It comes with an integral lead with a 1/4inch jack at the end which you can plug straight into an amplifier, mixer, pre-amp, or D.I.box.

The Neo-D is passive which means it does not have a battery, which is a plus for me because it means I never have to worry about battery level.

The Neo-D is single-coil, like all single-coil pickups it sometimes picks up a little mains hum, but it is easy to avoid this by simply moving away from mains leads and sockets. If you are ultra-fussy about mains hum, Fishman also make a humbucker version.

There are no volume or tone controls, however this is no problem. You can adjust volume and tone on your amplifier or mixer.

I play finger-picking and the Neo-D is great for that. If you do mainly strumming you will need to be careful not to hit the Neo-D and knock it out of the soundhole. This happened when I lent the guitar to a friend so now I lend it only to fingerpickers and never to strummers.

The sound quality of the Neo-D is great in my opinion, and several other musicians have commented that it is good too. I personally prefer it to the usual under-saddle piezo type.

The integral lead is fine for occaisional use. However if you plan to use this pickup alot in always the same guitar, or plan to do gigs with it, you may find the lead hanging out of the soundhole to be a nuisance. If so, I suggest that you get a guitar technician to install an endpin jack on your guitar, and wire the Neo-D through that. That is a skilled job so best leave it to a professional.

I installed the Neo-D on my Washburn D50 guitar. I installed an endpin jack on the guitar and wired the Neo-D through that.

I use this guitar with the Fishman Neo-D fitted for gigs and for busking.
I am very pleased with it.
10 out of 10.

Here is the Official Fishman page for the Neo-D.

You can buy the Neo-D at various music shops including Dolphin Music.