I can’t see any cushion material under the side pieces, looks like metal on wood but can’t really tell. I use my LR Baggs drop in a lot on my different guitars. Just takes a small amount of tightening to hold with the non slip cushion tabs. You Get the option of letting the small wire hang outside the guitar to connect to your guitar cable for my guitars that have no permanent jack. I can move it between guitars in under a minute, no need to loosen the strings. Plus the separate magnet heights under the strings are adjustable with the Allen wrench they supply to get the output even across the strings. I also use a “Body REZ” box in line when using a magnetic pickup to add the deeper body sound of an acoustic. Great stage setup for guitars with no pre installed pickups.