I have a Takamine electric acoustic guitar - EF349. (Built on Sunday 10/10/82. 23rd guitar made that day. LOL!) It's mahagony and is still beautiful after all these years. I bought it new. It's been a great feeling and sounding guitar. It has the plastic brown three sliders - treble, bass, gain on the top. I used to play and record with it a lot but I have rarely played it in years. Today I decided to plug it in the Emu interface with the signal going to Realband and no sound.

The problem is that the preamp which is battery powered has stopped working. You loosen the strings to get your hand through the hole and there's a little brown box that snaps out which holds the battery. Changed batteries, tried different cords, cleaned contacts with contact cleaner - dead as a door nail.

I'll keep it regardless, sentimental value...

Any ideas what's wrong? Is this an expensive repair? Should I even bother trying to get it repaired? Are there other options besides the built in preamp?

Sorry for all the questions and thank you for your advice and help.