Dynafield Acoustech Dynafield IV

Pickup features: Dynamic Feild Coil
Impedence or other specs:

Model of guitar or bass: Churchill Acoustic Guitar
Position: neck
Pickup being replaced: McIntyre
Other pickups on guitar: Sunrise
Artists using this pickup:
You musical style(s):
Reason for pickup change: Wanted a more accurate representation of the acoustic sound of the guitar to blend with the Sunrise's fat low end.

Perceived output level: Low output, but in conjunction with preamp it's adequate
Tone: Very Accurate
Sonic evaluation: I mix the signals from the two pickups in the guitar with a Fishman Pocket Blender preamp. The Sunrise gives a good 'fat' note with plenty of warm low mids and subs, the Dynafield supplies the perception of the 'air' of the instrument, much like a mic would. This pickup is very 'mic-like' and is preferable in my mind to an internal mini-mic, as the Fishman has an unfortunate flaw which has a bit of signal leackage between channels when the phantom power switch is engaged for the mini-mic's operation (which it needs to be for the mic to work). The Dynafield doesn't require power, has a very realistic tone, and can be gained up enough with the fishman unit to be workable in conjunction with the Sunrise.

For which styles and positions is this pickup (un)suitable: As all us Acoustic guys are (pretty much) looking for an accurate depiction of the way our guitars sound, this would work for anything.

Comments: The Installation is a bugger with this pickup. There is a small magnet that has to be attatched to the bridgeplate, and then a coil is suspended under it on a telescopic arm that houses the endpin jack. This is where you could get problems with the pickup arm potentially rotating out of allignment with the magnet. I stopped this from happening by running a bead of sillicone (window sealant) around the base of the assembly before the final install. This has stopped the thing from moving, even with repeated round the world air travel (we all know how rough those baggage handlers can be). There are some potential problems that people could encounter, which I delt with. The first is resonant box frequencies. The problem with the pickup is that it reads the vibrations of the top as if you had a mic really close to the top (the Magnet/dynamic field coil setup works in essentially the same way as a dynamic michrophone, such as an SM57). This means that the guitars box frequency is amplified and needs to be reduced in order for the balance to be right. With a mic this is known as 'proximity effect', ie. to reduce bass resonance you move away from the mic. I put a Fishman Dual Parametric DI in the appropriate effect loop of the Pocket Blender which lets me dial out the overly boomy frequency for my guitar and then I can set the gain very high with no feedback problems.
The other catch is the distance between the magnet and the coil. The recommended spacing is 1mm but in truth you need to experiment. I found that with a gap of .94mm the tone was way too boomy, with it at 1.12mm there was harly any signal, with a gap of .73mm it was just right. SO... some fiddling around is in order, not easy with no vision (you have to do all this with the thing inside your guitar), but worth the effort. I've always been a do-it-yourself fellow when it comes to stuff like this.
I've been playing solo shows for 12 years.
This has been a significant step towards the ultimate plugged in tone for me. The guy who makes these is named Dave Wendler and he can be reached through Ozark Instruments on the web. Good guy too.