"I’ve waited 20 years for this system. Finally every sound an acoustic guitar can produce, in one flexible, simple pickup system. It’s your guitar but in 3D. The 'everything' pickup."

  When I was developing the JGM guitar, the toughest bit was putting together one simple pickup system that could do everything: Hear the entire instrument, and reproduce every sound the acoustic guitar could possibly ever make. It had taken me 25 years of experimenting to achieve, with guitars full of pickups, wires, batteries.

  Thankfully, Fishman delivered. I've been using the Fishman Rare Earth Mic Blend for many years as the backbone of my sound. It combines a magnetic humbucker for clarity, power and warmth, and a condenser microphone for natural air and realism, and percussive response. But they added a new element for me, called the PowerTap, which is a sensor mounted to the wood which delivers that third dimension, including endlessly deep rich bass but - miraculously - with no feedback.

  And those 3 elements - magnetic, mic and sensor - can be mixed with two blend-wheels hidden within easy reach inside your guitar. Or you can split the 3 elements, and connect them to separate channels on your amp, mixer or interface, and process them all separately with whatever EQ and effects you like.  

This is the dream, basically!

And now, Fishman have decided to release it as a standalone product, the PowerTap Earth Pro, and as my signature pickup system!

  I'm honoured and delighted. I hope people love playing with it, to find whatever perfect acoustic guitar sound is inside their head, or experimenting to find sounds I've never imagined. 

I made a playthrough video, using only the sounds from the PowerTap Earth Pro, playing my instrumental tune Check You're Still Breathing. 

Video link: https://youtu.be/hrvx-MdNksA

And especially for guitar nerds, here's a full breakdown of the pickup system, where I demo each of the three elements separately and explain why I 🤍 them : 

Video link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ycU6CWoa594