Acoustic soundhole pickup round-up

1. Fishman Rare Earth
Active
£159 (single-coil)
£195 (humbucker)

A popular active option offering 300-hour battery life and fitting acoustic soundholes from 92mm in width. Fishman also produce the Rare Earth Blend (a serious outlay at £389), which includes a mic to attempt to blend your guitar's natural acoustic tone with the magnetic pickup sound.

2. Shadow SH 330
Passive single-coil
£51.65

Kudos for the maple case from the German company - it's certainly different to the look of most others out there. A four metre cable is attached to run to your preamp pedal or amp. Shadow also offer active single-coil and humbucker soundhole pickup models but no others come in a natural wood finish like this.

3. Sunrise S-2
Passive
£199

Players who favour the Sunrise include Ben Harper, Michael Hedges and John Butler but be warned; it's a limited edition because only 1,000 are handmade by Jim Kaufman every year.

4. LR Baggs M1
Active
£194.95

As seen on screen fitted to Jeff Bridges' Gibson J-45 in the film Crazy Heart. He's not the only one either; Tom Petty and David Gilmour have also been spotted with them. The M1 features a volume control and up to 1,000 hours battery time.

5. EMG ACS
Active
£148.99

EMG might be most readily associated with active humbuckers for modern metal tones these days but they have a softer side too - as favoured by none other than Nickelback mainman Chad Kroeger. This pickup comes with a replacement end pin jack for fitting so isn't instantly removable if you choose to install it that way.