JESSE GREIST: My name is Jesse Greist, and I am a sixth-grade teacher here at the Cloud Forest School during the days. Many times at night, on the weekends, I earn some extra cash as a folk musician here in town in Monteverde, Costa Rica.

I have a pickup that actually did not come with this guitar. It was a gift from a friend. It's a Fishman, and the thing that's amazing about this piece is that unlike a lot of pickups that need a battery, and, you know, the battery might die in the middle of your set, this is a magnetic pickup so it actually remains off, inactive, as long as there is not an electrical feed. The minute I plug it in, the magnets actually begin to pick up the vibrations of the strings. Like I say, it's a fantastic pickup. It usually involves a little bit more input. You have to put the volume levels pretty high on your PA when you're using it, but it's a terrific pickup and it has held up incredibly well here in Costa Rica. The only part of it that I've had a tiny bit of trouble with is the screws that are actually holding it here have got a little bit of rust on them, but I find, like I was saying with the other, with the guitar in general, that if I put just a tiny bit -- you have to be careful with how much on this piece that I use -- just a tiniest bit of mineral oil on a piece of a towel and put it down on the screws that I can keep them in pretty good shape as well.

The peg here for the guitar strap was a regular peg, so we removed that, and with the Fishman actually came this piece that you drill in through the slightly bigger hole from where the pig was -- I'm sorry -- from where the peg was, and then this is an actual pickup, okay -- I'm sorry -- this is an actual 1/4" input here so your cable will actually go right here and then the electronics are all inside here. There is not an equalizer with this one so all you've got is a volume up or down. But like I said, it's a pretty simple system and it requires absolutely no maintenance.

You know, just like what they say with so many cars, the more stuff that's automatic, the more stuff there is to break. So I mean I found, you know, other people who have electronics automatically built into their guitars, you know, they'll have their EQ go out. They'll have their little amp go out or one of the other will start buzzing. I've had no problems like that, so here it's actually a pretty good system for these elements, especially because you know like a lot of times somebody might discover that their battery is dead before I show and they can run across to the CVS or whatever, you know, across from where their gig this and just pick up a new battery. Here, if my battery is dead, I have to wait until Monday until there's something open where I can get a new battery, so the magnetic system works really, really well here.