I'm finally putting a pickup in my old acoustic guitar.
I've seen great things here about the K&K Sound Mini.
I'm planning to go with the Ultra Pure Western Mini which will include their small, in guitar, pre-amp. They sell it through their outlet at a very reasonable price.
Any advice or opinions are welcome.
Thanks!
I've got a K&K mini on one of my guitars, which I use with a Baggs PADI. It sounds really, really nice. I seem to have some sort of issue with it momentarily cutting out when I play percussively, which I'm in the process of figuring out whether it's a bad connection, or inherent to the design.
I ordered a K&K outboard preamp for a friend overseas, and I wasn't too impressed with the controls. It seemed a bit cheesy. I didn't plug it in to see how it sounded.
Several guitars in different colors
Things to make them fuzzy
Things to make them louder
orange picks
OK, I just checked the K&K site.
They say the cutout problem comes from the pickup overdriving the PADI, and causing it to cut out, and the pickup is fine. Supposedly due to the ultra-high Z of the PADI.
I'll mess around with the input trimpot, and possibly a nice 1Mohm resistor on a dedicated guitar cable and see if that does the trick. The PADI really allows you to dial in a sound.
Several guitars in different colors
Things to make them fuzzy
Things to make them louder
orange picks
K&K sells a volume control for the pickup. You could probably make your own and tuck it in the sound hole.
I'm gonna go ahead and order the Ultra Pure Western.
Most folks prefer the minis. I'm guessing because they are less mass on the soundboard.
Several guitars in different colors
Things to make them fuzzy
Things to make them louder
orange picks
I ordered the minis with the in-the-guitar preamp.
Did you install yours yourself? I read the manual. It looks fairly straightforward.
I had a pro do it, but I'm not good with anything that involves more than a screwdriver. Lots of folks do it themselves with good results.
Several guitars in different colors
Things to make them fuzzy
Things to make them louder
orange picks
I'll be doing it myself. I'm pretty handy with things like that.
I just dialed back the input gain on the preamp, and they were right. No more cutout.
Several guitars in different colors
Things to make them fuzzy
Things to make them louder
orange picks
The pickup and preamp showed up already!
I'm a bit nervous using super glue on my guitar, but I'm sure it'll be fine (actually, I'm more concerned about damaging the pickups than the guitar!)!
It's done. It wasn't hard at all. It sounds fine though I don't have a PA or acoustic amp here. I tested it through my bass amp.
Excellent!
Several guitars in different colors
Things to make them fuzzy
Things to make them louder
orange picks
cool, bass amps work great for keys and acoustics. clean tone and usually a decently flat response.
"don't worry, i'm a professional!"
I was dying to hear it. It was really bassy at first, then I realized I had the bass on the amp cranked. When I eq'd the amp flat, it sounded good. The pickup's pre-amp has gain and eq trim pots on it.
I'll probably get to plug it into a little PA tomorrow at a jam at my Cousin's (my band's harp player) house.
If you have a respectable home stereo system, you may note excellent results with the K&K pickup on an acoustic guitar plugged into the auxiliary or mic input. Set the amp or receiver's tone an' EQ controls to "flat" an' work from there.
HTH
"When injustice becomes law then rebellion becomes duty."
I've had a K&K Trinity system in my 810 since I bought it in 2002. Gees, 7 yrs already.
I've been through a number of preamps, Rane AP-13, Dtar Solstice, Ultrasound DI, PADI, Taylor K-4, BBE Acoustimax. I like the PADI best and just using the pickup. Dual sourcing with the mic got to be a pain, although I do also have a Baggs MixPro which is awesome and I may be going back to it.
I also use an Aphex Acoustic Xciter in the FXloop of the PADI. It really brings out and tightens the lowend and adds clarity to the highs, they sing.
I have the full size pickups in mine, but also have a spare set of mini's. I didn't realize the mini's were that much smaller really. Thought they were all about the size of the standard middle one.
Did you use the jig method?
http://www.frettech.com/kk/
http://www.kksound.com/pdf/jig.pdf
http://www.dickeyguitars.com/dickeyg...kkinstall.html
Kap'n, I had your same issue, and Deiter talked me into buying one of their preamps to deal with that cut out. It solved the problem but I miss the PARA and all the shaping of the sound. Even when I screwed around with it, it would still cut out on me.
Mine's still working fine with the gain trimmed all the way back.
Several guitars in different colors
Things to make them fuzzy
Things to make them louder
orange picks
Great to see you Kap'n!
I was having issues with mine being really bassy, almost like the bass pickup was way louder than the treble pickup. I checked and they all appeared to be installed fine.
I actually considered installing separate trim pots for each pickup.
Instead, I turned the gain down, the bass all the way down, the mids low and kept the treble at the middle detent and it sounded great at home.
I also tried it without the built in pre-amp. It sounded just as bassy and w/o the EQ controls it couldn't be as well balanced. I actually have it set so there's LESS gain with the pre-amp than without it!
I'll be plugging it into a PA tonight. I think it'll sound great.
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote