Andoer Clip-on Pickup Pick-up for Violin with 1/4" Jack 2.5M Cable Compact Professional

I want to get a word of caution out there right away, before gushing over this pickup. I have purchased four of these pickups, and decided to keep two of them. One of them arrive with a broken tip (the rubber-tipped portion that goes into the soundhole / f hole, and is hidden from view) so I sent it back. The other one that I returned sounded pretty terrible, and I am certain that it was not due to user error. Even the two good ones that I decided to keep sound different. So -- keep trying if you don't get a good one on your first purchase! I am lucky that the first one was really good, because I probably would have returned it and not gotten another if the first one was not a good one.That being said, this little pickup is amazing for the price. I was planning to purchase a used electric violin on eBay for somewhere between $325 and $550, when I read a violinist blog entry about the best violin pickups. There were a bunch of pickups priced around $125 to $250, and then this thing. Since it had free returns, I figured it was worth investigating. I got the first one, put it on my violin, and plugged it into my Fishman Loudbox Mini. I was happily surprised. With just a little bit of tweaking on the amp, I was able to get it sounding pretty great. I plugged the violin into a looping pedal, and was able to listen to just the sound of the violin coming through the amp (it is hard to get a true sense of the sound while playing live, with the violin right next to my ear).I was looking for a pickup because I regularly play violin at our church, and we were using a little mic on it. But this mic picked up everything nearby (drums being the biggest offender), so it was pretty difficult to get a good sound. I tested the pickup out on stage, and the sound tech said that the pickup sounded better than the microphone (a Shure KSM137, I think - a $300 microphone), even when I was just playing by myself.I can't recommend this highly enough. Just be patient, and try out the mic on different areas of your instrument. I've attached the sweet spot on my violin. If it doesn't sound like the instrument, then it may be a bad pickup. The one that sounded bad for me was obviously missing high end.Another note: these types of pickups are sensitive to touch. A light tap on the pickup or cable can be heard through whatever might be amplifying it. If you don't move around much, then you should be fine. But it's just something to keep in mind.

It works well but please be noted that the cord is not long. I love using it but I just had to get an extension cord as the last moment before the concert. That’s why I give a four star. It could be made longer and it would have been even more helpful!

This little piece of plastic has served me well for literally hundreds of gigs, recording, and practicing. I know this sounds crazy. I ordered this on a complete whim just to mess around with a potential cheap backup to my Fishman in-bridge pickup for some country gigs. IMMEDIATELY I was blown away by how awesome it sounds and how quick it is to set up. Just pop it on your fiddle and you're good to go.PROS:- Cheap. as. hell. No, really, it's $5. Do you know what that means? You can order 10 of them for half the cost of most fiddle pickups. Cable short out? It's cheaper than breaking ONE string. Get drunk and step on it/spill beer/set a PA head on it and break it? No guilt whatsoever, just change it out!- The sound... the sound is great. I'm still experimenting with this little thing. I run it through a little tube preamp and it has given me great sound for bluegrass, modern country, classic country, old time, folk, rock gigs -- everything. If you like the natural sound of your instrument, this is the way to go.- Totally removable! Takes about 5 seconds to put in and out of the instrument. If you play some gigs without a pickup and some gigs with, but want to use the same instrument without an ever-present input jack, this is the way to go.- Doesn't mute the acoustic sound at all. Picks up a great representation of the natural sound without the bridge-muting that comes with some VERY EXPENSIVE pickups.CONS:- Okay... so the quality is not perfect. I've had ONE cord short out on me in almost a year of hard use. But seriously... for 5 bucks... who cares?- The 1/4 inch cable is very light and very short. Not a lot of stage room. You may need an extension or a preamp if you're not VERY CLOSE to your PA head.- The pickup moves around a little depending on where it's placed on the bridge. This does a great job of preserving the sound, but a) makes it a little more likely to feed back when you're playing a really loud rock gig and b) sometimes leads to noise of the pickup moving if you bump it accidentally. But hey, who can hear it over the guitarists tuning anyway?TLDR: just order it and find out for yourself.

It works but the cable is very microphonic. You get what you pay for

You can't scrutinize the $10.00 range add on's like this, as long as it works it doesn't have to be Gods gift to the world of pick up's or the rest. It's best for a cheap add on to practice with, the feedback on my amps from it are pretty insane so you will need to fiddle with it along your placement between it and the amp and keep any effects to an absolute minimum. It may be good for getting into some light recording with too, and on the right settings on the amp it will make a cheap violin sound much better. I am still going to retrofit something much more robust in the future and not on the cheap like this, but for now, it's cool to have as an option to use.

1. Awkward installation, the clamp projects above the strings and gets in the way while playing.2. Little or no amplification when used with (for example) a Bose mini-speaker3. Contact with head or wires results in noise or static that is often louder than the notes being played.4. It hardly worked at all when I tried it on a ukulele or guitar (just FYI if you were considering using it for that too).

I tried to use a traditional microphone my daughter's violin for a wedding gig but it didn't work. I bought one of these pickup and stuck a round furniture felt pad (they protect your floor from kitchen chair feet) on the round pickup part. Fit great, sounded awesome and no feedback. I was truly impressed and it did a great job at the wedding. I'm going to get another as a spare.