Anyone who has played acoustic guitar for some time will be no stranger to the name LR Baggs. LR Baggs is an acoustic amplification company that has won numerous awards for its undersaddle and soundboard transducer pickups.
The M1 Active is one of the latest offerings from LR Baggs designed to compete with the venerable Sunrise pickup, and the flock of magnetic pickups from other manufacturers. The M1 Active makes use of its TriAxial Dynamic Technology which essentially is a stacked humbucker with the humbucker on the top sensing the string sound., and the humbucker at the bottom sensing the body sound, making the overall sound more three dimensional.
Installation
Installation of the M1 Active can be done easily with a single screwdriver. The pickup is slotted into the sound hole like any other pickup. It fitted easily into my Goodall Concert Jumbo guitar, but potential buyers should check with LR Baggs if the dimensions of their guitar's soundhole will accommodate the pickup. As long as your guitar's sound hole is not too radical, it should be able to fit the M1 Active.
The M1 Active comes supplied with a Mogami cable on which one end is a 1/8" jack. This end is designed to be plugged into the M1 Active pickup. The other end is shaped for inserting a normal guitar mono jack. This end can also be permanently installed in the guitar. If you do not have a readily available guitar output jack, you will have to drill a hole to facilitate the permanent installation. Warning : The drilling work should be done by a competent guitar tech.
Sound
If you are reading this, you probably will have to come to expect what a magnetic acoustic pickup sounds like. At their very core, magnetic acoustic pickups are simply their electric counterparts stuck across the sound hole of an acoustic guitar. The M1 Active is an improvement upon this design, and the sound shows it. Here it is fingerpicked.
Compared to other magnetic pickups, the M1 Active sounds somewhat more "acoustic". The M1 Active also senses the guitar body, allowing players to play modern percussive techniques on the acoustic guitar in performance. Sound is subjective and some players may not like the sound of the M1 Active. A sound clip paints a thousand words so I'm going to play some percussive fingerstyle here and let you decide for yourself.
To my ears, the percussive elements of the clip is not as prominent as I would like it to be. It still sounds a bit electric but definitely an improvement over acoustic sound hole pickups I''ve tried.
I did notice that the M1 Active pickup responded to accidental scrapes on the pickup by thumbpick or a wild thumb. It gave a clicking sound that was somewhat distracting. Playing songs like "More Than Words" where you have to slap the strings sounded a bit weird because the slapping of the strings sounded a bit louder than the picking.
In a band setting, the M1 Active would shine due to its high feedback threshold. Here's how the M1 Active sounds strummed.
In a band setting, few people are going to notice the subtle nuances in the acoustic sound. If you need loud, the M1 Active is for you. The easy access to the volume located on the pickup is a plus point.
The M1 Active came in useful when paired with a microphone in a studio setting. I was able to get an acoustic sound that was "acoustic with a tinge of electric". It was useful for giving that little bit of extra sustain, particularly in the bass. Here is a clip of the M1 Active paired with the Zoom H4n's onboard microphones.
Conclusion
At its price point, the LR Baggs M1 Active is one of the more pricey options out there. Up the price ladder is the Seymour Duncan Mag-mic and Sunrise. The M1 Active is a good middle ground for those who want a good sounding acoustic sound hole pickup but cannot afford the more expensive options. It is quite a bit more expensive than many other cheaper sound hole pickups but the sound justifies the price. In a band setting, the LR Baggs M1 Active is a no-brainer - get it! Hard core fingerstyle players though, may not be fully satisfied with the sound as it still has a tinge of electric in it.
Out of a total of 10 Singapore flags, we hereby award the LR Baggs M1 Active a competent
