LR Baggs Pickups, Preamps, and Amplifiers • Shoreline Music

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LR Baggs makes some of the best guitar pickups and preamps available. They are widely used by pros, including Phil Keaggy, Allison Krauss, Doyle Dykes, Pete Townshend, the Dixie Chicks, Vince Gill, and more. As the world's #1 LR Baggs dealer, I guess that puts us in good company (well, it's not like Phil Keaggy hangs out in our shop or anything like that). LR Baggs' onboard systems combine smart design with awesome tone, their outboard preamps are the industry standard, and even Lloyd Baggs' original pickup design, the LB6, still outshines more modern pickup designs. From top to bottom, you'd be hard-pressed to find a pickup line that's as diverse and well-regarded as this one. Here's what they offer:

[Click here for pricing and ordering info]

LR Baggs Pickups and Pickup Systems:

Radius - If you've ever been to the LR Baggs booth at a NAMM show (that's the music industry trade show), you have undoubtedly seen Bo Radis, the manager of Baggs' pickup production, with a guitar in hand, showing off the latest pickup—not to mention some killer guitar work. Well, his newest pickup design, the Radius for the mandolin, is sure to bring even more crowds to the Baggs booth at the next show (note, too, that "Radius" is a lot like "Radis"). The Radius works on a principle we first saw years ago in PUTW's innovative soundhole pickup: It's a thin film sensor suspended between magnets. The film sensor gives the pickup the dynamics and accurate acoustic response you expect from a good soundboard pickup. But it also protects it from some of the liabilities of typical soundboard pickups, such as sensitivity to placement (the Radius can tolerate any number of placements) and weak signal (the Radius, like K&K's soundboard pickups, can be plugged straight into an amp). And, of course, it comes with Baggs' legendary performance and reliability. The pickup can be mounted to the outside surface of your mandolin with a removable, non-destructive adhesive, or to the inside with VHB adhesive. The package includes adhesive, a 1/4" stereo jack and a side mount jack holder to enable internal or external mounting. (pic on a mandolin )

M1 and M1 Active - Introduced in early 2004, the M1 has spent the past 4 years generating a lot of praise for its easy installation and great tone. I've installed a number of these, and I can report that the buzz is totally justified—this pickup rocks. It's a magnetic soundhole pickup, similar to the Fishman Rare Earth, but its tone is remarkably acoustic for a magnetic. The tone is no doubt helped by its individually-adjustable pole pieces, which let you adjust your string-to-string balance. And what really sets this pickup apart is the flexibility of its installation: You can hardwire it internally or do a temporary installation with equal ease. The pickup is packaged with internal wiring and a long external Mogami cable, all of which meet the pickup with 1/8" miniplugs, so you don't have to solder a thing. This means that you can hard-wire it into one guitar, and then when you want to switch instruments, just unplug the connector and move it easily to another guitar using the external cable. The standard M1 is a passive pickup, and is best paired with an external preamp like the Para Acoustic DI, but the M1 Active adds an internal battery and preamp, eliminating the need for external preamps, all for only $30 more. The Active version also features an onboard volume control, but does not include the external Mogami cable. (high-res M1 pic) (high-res M1 Active pic)

Element Active System - The Element is one of our best-selling pickups. It starts with a low-profile undersaddle element that's more solid than a standard ribbon-type pickup, and adds an onboard preamp with an unobtrusive volume control that mounts right inside your soundhole. For a simple, versatile pickup solution that also happens to sound fantastic, it's hard to beat the $109 asking price of the Element. It's worth noting that every single installation I've done with this Baggs pickup has sounded fantastic. I can't say that about many other undersaddle pickups I've installed. Also available for classical guitar, with a preamp uniquely voiced for nylon-stringed instruments.

I-Beam - Like the PUTW #27 and the B-Band AST, the I-Beam pickup secures to the underside of your soundboard to pick up the full vibration of your guitar top. Also available in an active version that includes an endpin preamp and soundhole volume control. All Baggs I-Beam systems (I-Beam, I-Beam Active) are also available in classical guitar versions, with special notching to straddle the center fan brace of nylon-stringed guitars. (details)

I-Mix - The Baggs I-Mix takes the Ibeam and Element pickups and blends them with a unique onboard preamp. Unlike with the Onboard Systems listed below, this preamp actually hides inside your guitar, with hidden soundhole controls for blend and volume. The internal preamp also includes screwdriver EQ controls. So although you can't exactly fiddle with them in between songs onstage during a set, you can at least have more control than with a generic internal preamp. The IMix Onboard system (listed below) is our best-selling self-contained onboard system, but this internal IMix system means you can get the same great tone without performing surgery on your guitar. I should also note that I've had a chance to play with quite a few of these systems through pretty much every amp in the shop, and I can say without hesitation that this is one of the best dual-source setups around. In fact, we recently sold a used Larrivee that had the Baggs Imix installed, and that guitar had the best plugged-in tone of any acoustic I had heard in ages. So if you're looking for a dual-source setup, the Imix sytems are worth some serious consideration.

Onboard Systems - The LR Baggs Onboard Systems pair their most successful pickups—the I-Beam and the Element—with full-featured onboard preamps. Although the Onboard Systems can be installed in any guitar with sufficient depth, the systems are (quite shrewdly) designed to retrofit into the exact hole used by the Fishman Prefix systems that are standard on a number of factory guitars, most notably Taylor and Martin. They even use the same screw holes. The battery for the preamp is stored in the preamp unit, so you don't have to worry about keeping the battery stuck somewhere inside the guitar. The Onboard Systems come in two configurations: The Element Onboard uses just a single Baggs Element pickup with the sidemount preamp that includes EQ, a notch filter, and phase switch. The Imix Onboard uses the same configuration as the internal Imix, but with much better controls on the sidemount blending preamp. Both systems include pickup(s), onboard preamp and strapjack. (high-res Imix pic)

LB6 - A unique saddle transducer, the LB6 doesn't sit under the saddle, it is the saddle. One of my favorite guitarists, Earl Klugh, has said that this is the best-sounding pickup he's ever heard. It's also the pickup James Taylor used for quite some time on his Olson. Available for 6 or 12 string guitars. The "X" version features wider string spacing for fingerstyle players. Please note that, unlike every other Baggs pickup, the LB6 models don't come with an endpin jack. Many players end up soldering these into existing endpin jacks, but if you don't have such a jack, you'll need to order one in addition to the pickup. (details)

Dual Source / Element - The Dual Source combines the signal of an internal condenser mic with the Element pickup described above, but it also includes a separate onboard preamp, and allows blending with a small controller that mounts in the soundhole. The original Dual Source combined the mic with the Ribbon Transducer, but the tone of the Element version is a noticeable improvement.

LR Baggs Amplifier:

Core 1 - The Core 1 amplifier from Baggs is finally here, and it was most certainly worth the wait. There is much to love about this amp. First, it looks really cool. Its sleek curves are a welcome change from every other box-shaped amp. The electronics are based on Baggs' industry-leading Para Acoustic DI, and they include all the tone controls you'd expect. Also, instead of a simple red/green overload indicator for setting your gain, they've added VU meters. The VUs are probably more than any of us will ever need, but it's nice to know they are there. It also features the usual array of effects loops, tuner send, hybrid inputs on both channels, a direct out, and a nifty pre/post switch so you can go direct out either before or after the preamp stage.

But what sets this amp apart is the tone. It is both fat and articulate, with plenty of punch (200 watts!). You can get all the modest nuance of a quiet fingerstyle piece, and then dig in if you need to, losing none of the lows. The amp boasts a revolutionary new speaker design, and while I could probably regurgitate Baggs' marketing material on this, all you need to know is that this amp rocks. It's going to give a lot of popular acoustic amps a run for their money, and now that AER's prices have gone up (a result of the falling dollar), the Core 1 begins to look even more attractive, even if it is 9 lbs heavier than the Compact 60. I recommend it without reservation. (high-res computer generated Core 1 pic) (rear view)

LR Baggs Preamps:

Para-Acoustic DI - This outboard preamp is another Player's Award winner, most likely due to its extensive set of controls and portable size. It's also our single best-selling preamp, by a large margin. If you have a Baggs pickup—or any pickup, for that matter—that needs a little extra tone shaping or a volume boost, it's hard to beat the PADI for sheer versatility and usefulness. In fact, we began carrying LR Baggs gear after I noticed that every fingerstyle guitarist I went to see in concert was using one of these onstage. After doing extensive fiddling myself, it became clear that this was the true Swiss Army Knife of affordable sound gear. (details)

Gig Pro - Because it can clip onto your belt or guitar strap, this is quite a useful little preamp: It's not a floor-bound outboard like the PADI, but because it's external, it can be used to preamp any guitar you want to use it with. (details)

Mix Pro - This does the Gig Pro one better: It adds a mixer so you can dual-source your guitar, but you don't have to worry about all the onboard electronics of a typical dual-source system. (details)

Feedback Master - The Feedback Master is the perfect companion to any Baggs pickup that sounds fantastic at low volumes, but starts to feed back as you crank things up. The FM is a belt-clip/mic-stand preamp like the GigPro and MixPro, but replaces the EQ with dual notch filters and phase inversion, which should be all you need to tame most onstage feedback.

Extras:

Gold strap buttons - Like most pickup manufacturers, LR Baggs offers gold strap buttons for the outside of your strapjack if you want to match gold hardware on the rest of your guitar. We offer these for free with the purchase of any LR Baggs pickup—you can order them on the ordering chart below.

Extra Adhesive Strips - Lots of customers like to experiment with placement on their Ibeam pickups, but the adhesive on the pickup eventually wears out. LR Baggs therefore makes additional adhesive strips, and we offer them free with any Ibeam product. You can order them on the ordering grid below. Please note that the normal Baggs I-Beam packaging already includes several extra strips, so you should only order these if you're considering lots of experimenting with placement.

LR Baggs Pickups & Pickup Systems

Description

Price*

Radius

New mandolin pickup

Revolutionary soundhole pickup

M1 Active

M1 with onboard juice and volume control

Element Active System

Undersaddle pickup with onboard preamp & volume control

$109.00

Element Onboard System

Element & side-mount blending preamp; retrofits into factory-installed electronics

I-Beam (passive)

Award-winning soundboard pickup

$89.00

I-Beam Active System

I-Beam plus endpin preamp and soundhole volume control

$139.00

I-Mix

I-beam plus Element, blended with soundhole controls

I-Mix Onboard System

I-Beam plus Element & side-mount blending preamp; retrofits into factory-installed electronics

Dual Source / Element

Element plus mic, soundhole blend controls

LB6

Unique saddle transducer

$89.00

LR Baggs Amps

Description

Price*

Core 1

Groundbreaking new amp.

LR Baggs Preamps

Description

Price*

Para-Acoustic DI

Full-featured external preamp, EQ, and DI

Gig Pro

External beltclip preamp

Mix Pro

External preamp and mixer

Feedback Master

External preamp w/notch filters

LR Baggs Extras

Description

Price*

Gold strap button

Free with any Baggs pickup purchase.

Extra adhesive strips

Free with any Ibeam pickup. (standard I-Beam packaging includes extras already—only order these if you need more than 3)

*All LR Baggs pickup prices include free shipping anywhere in the US. CO residents add 2.9% sales tax (7.4% in La Plata county). Please see our Shipping page for additional shipping information.