Located in Waterloo, Canada, Schatten Design builds pickup systems for a wide variety of acoustic musical instruments, including acoustic guitar, resonator guitar, upright bass, cello, violin and viola, banjo, harp, piano, bouzouki and mandola, mandolin, ukulele, dulcimer, autoharp and more.

Schatten technicians hand-build and test each pickup system individually to ensure the highest possible quality. Only the finest materials are used in pickup construction and design. The majority of their pickups are purpose-built to match the frequency range and resonance of a particular instrument. The exceptions to this are the Dualie series of contact pickups which can be used on any instrument with a soundboard, and the VVM series which are designed for either violin or viola.

The Schatten HFN series is specifically designed for acoustic guitar. There are models available for both steel and nylon string guitar, as well as the HFN-S2 series for archtop guitars. The HFN pickups are available in a passive design for use with an external preamp, or with a high quality preamp built into the endpin jack. Schatten also offers the UST-1 coaxial undersaddle guitar pickups.

The BJ-02 pickups are for banjos of all types. The BJ-02 sensor was specially chosen to handle the increased resonance of a banjo head, while at the same time reducing feedback. The BJ-02 pickups are available with a variety of jacks, including a beautiful rosewood model and one model that includes a volume control. There is also the new BJ-02M pickup that combines the BJ-02 sensor with a high quality internally mounted condenser microphone.

Schatten makes a number of pickups for resonator guitars, including the RG-03 series for spider bridge resonators, the NR-2 series for National Resonator style biscuit bridge guitars, and the TC series of pickups for tricone resonators.

For band and orchestra, Schatten makes bridge replacements with embedded piezo sensors: the V-02 series for violin, and the VR series for viola. For cello there is the C-12 Standard pickup, and for upright bass the RB series which is available with or without a preamp, or with an additional fingerboard sensor for slap and rockabilly.

Other Schatten pickups include the M-05 mandolin pickups; the BM-1 bouzouki/mandola pickups; the CH-1 and CH-3 pickups for harp; the LP-15 ukulele pickups; the D3-Std and HD-2 pickups for Appalachian and hammered dulcimer; the P2 dual sensor pickup for piano; and the AD-01 pickup for autoharp.

Blue Star Music is proud to be an Authorized Schatten Design Dealer. We were the first dealer for Schatten products in the United States, and we carry the entire line of Schatten products and highly recommend these high quality pickup systems.