In this post I will review my initial experiences with the Fishman Triple Play. Like most people, I was excited to get some new gear. After watching video reviews online, I thought it would be a great piece of gear to have for performance, recording, teaching lessons online, and notating parts for students. I have taught private guitar students for over 20 years and concert band students for over 14 years.
The installation was more complex than I thought it would be. Every video shows how easy it is to install. However, I had not seen a video that showed an install on an arch top guitar with a Tune-o-matic bridge. The guitar that I was installing the FTP on is a Schecter C-1 E/A. This guitar has an arch top and a TOM bridge.
Fishman supplies a bracket for the main housing that is angled for an arch top so that wasn't an issue. The issue that surfaced was that the FTP pickup has to be very close to the strings and a TOM bridge sits high off of the guitar. There was bracket included for for a TOM bridge. However, unlike other installation videos that show you that you basically slap on the pickup and go, I had to remove the bridge to place the floating bracket on the bridge posts. The bracket does take up some space so I had to adjust my bridge height after I put everything together. Also, because of the added material, the bridge no longer sits flush to the top of the bridge posts.
You can also adjust the height of the pickup once it is attached to the bracket. Even with the floating bracket I had to adjust the pickup to its full height in order to get it close enough to the strings. Fishman provides a string height tool and a mini screwdriver to make this adjustment.
The installation was a little more involved than I was expecting, but I am looking forward to trying out this pickup for performance, recording, and notation. I will hopefully post on those topics shortly. Thank you for checking out my blog and please feel free to contact me with any questions.