Since I don't really know any serious mandolin players in person, figured we could talk here.

I've got the usual problem. (Sometimes) Play mandolin in a rock-and-roll band, got the piezo pickup, no-where near enough gain on any pa, get drowned out, when the band is quiet enough, just sound like tin.

So, I'm hoping to go through this methodically.

First, the pickup:
(Yes I have a shitty mandolin, really, really shitty. This summer I should have the money to drive to Frisco or LA and find a shop and, well, shop. So, I accept that even perfection in my amplification will render a very faithful version of an awful mandolin. Not contesting that.)

I have a K&K Twin Spot, got it based on high reviews every mandolin forum I've been on. I have the semi-permanent version.

How does one go about finding the sweet spots on any particular mandolin? What am I looking for? Whatever it is, I'm pretty sure my guess #1 was wrong.

Second, gain:
There's never enough. I plug into a DI box. I slam the gain on my pre-amp on my little mixing board. I slam the fader up to 12. I run the main output hot (so all my other channels have to run really low to compensate.) Mandolin is still the quietest thing on my send. Also, at live shows the soundmen always complain, like the last gig, "there's not enough gain in the world for your mandolin!"

What do you all do about getting enough gain out of a totally passive pickup like the Twin Spot? Specialized DI/Pre-amp boxes? Boost pedals? Carefully scaled transformers?

Third, tone:
My god the tin. Even above and beyond the actual sound of this mandolin. Nothing but an unnatural honk in that 2-4kHz range, and it's not just an eq hump to tame with a notch. Taming enough with eq also removes so many other qualities of the mandolin I might as well be playing a shaker, because all I'll have left is pick noise.

Of course, I suspect this as a lot to do with placing the pickups in the sweet spots in the first place.

Still, tone is a major issue. Are there any homebrew options to correct the tone? Put another way, what do the units like the Fishman DI Boxes do under the hood, and is it all feasible to attempt such without shelling out bucks I probably don't have?

Bit of a long post I know, but hoping we get some good mileage out of this for everyone.