Mic inside my acoustic?

[pick me]

I am sure it has been discussed, did a search and found nothing, My question is, I have the K&K pure mini installed on my Martin, and have notice some using a small mic along with the pickup inside the guitar, can I install a mic, how is that done, meaning do I need to make another hole?

What mic are most of you using? Thanks in advance.

[Paultergeist]

A microphone inside the body can be quite prone to feedback.

[Doug Young]

Originally Posted by pick me

I am sure it has been discussed, did a search and found nothing, My question is, I have the K&K pure mini installed on my Martin, and have notice some using a small mic along with the pickup inside the guitar, can I install a mic, how is that done, meaning do I need to make another hole?

What mic are most of you using? Thanks in advance.

This is very common. K&K sells the Silver Bullet mic to go with the K&K, but there are many others. You simply use a stereo jack and put the mic on the ring. Then you need a 2-channel preamp to mix the 2 signals. Yes, mics are somewhat prone to feedback, but you can add just a little mic and get a big improvement in your sound. And a mic doesn't have to mean feedback. Tommy Emmanuel plays at paint-peeling levels, and gets much of his sound from an internal mic. It all depends on your amplification setup, speaker placement, and controlling the volume that reaches the mic.

[ljguitar]

Originally Posted by pick me

I am sure it has been discussed, did a search and found nothing, My question is, I have the K&K pure mini installed on my Martin, and have notice some using a small mic along with the pickup inside the guitar, can I install a mic, how is that done, meaning do I need to make another hole?

What mic are most of you using? Thanks in advance.

Hi pm…

No you don't need another hole in the guitar. As Doug Young mentioned, it only requires a stereo input jack with K&K to add a microphone. And if your K&K is recent, the jack that it came prewired with is a stereo jack and ready to add the microphone.

I use K&K Pure mini and K&K internal mic on 4 acoustic guitars. It requires either the K&K internal preamp (not my first choice at all) or a two channel external preamp/blender. It is a very natural sounding pickup rig.



Feedback is always a possibility but can be controlled fairly easily with wise choices in monitor placement.

I have used my rigs on very aggressive stages and managed them without feedback being an issue. And I run a hot microphone (hotter than the pickup).

Hope this helps…

[Tomm Williams]

I use the Trinity system which uses both an internal and a bridge plate mic. While adjusting the K&K pre, I found that by cutting the lows to the internal mic, and then cutting the highs to the bridge plate mics and then blending, gave me the tone I was after and very good GBF. I found that it was the internal mic with low frequencies specifically that we're giving me feedback issues.

[pick me]

Originally Posted by ljguitar

Hi pm…

No you don't need another hole in the guitar. As Doug Young mentioned, it only requires a stereo input jack with K&K to add a microphone. And if your K&K is recent, the jack that it came prewired with is a stereo jack and ready to add the microphone.

I use K&K Pure mini and K&K internal mic on 4 acoustic guitars. It requires either the K&K internal preamp (not my first choice at all) or a two channel external preamp/blender. It is a very natural sounding pickup rig.



Feedback is always a possibility but can be controlled fairly easily with wise choices in monitor placement.

I have used my rigs on very aggressive stages and managed them without feedback being an issue. And I run a hot microphone (hotter than the pickup).

Hope this helps…

Sorry for taking so long to get back to this, life got in the way again.

I installed the K&K pure mini a couple weeks ago on my HD-28 Martin, so I am guessing it is one of the recent models you are talking about. When I installed the end pin jack, I do not recall seeing anything that made me think something else could be attached. I guess I need to know how the stereo jack can be added to this 1/4 jack, so both the pickup and the stereo can be used? I have an external preamp with mic, and pickup with blender, that appears to be capable of being used for the mic.

[Doug Young]

Originally Posted by pick me

Sorry for taking so long to get back to this, life got in the way again.

I installed the K&K pure mini a couple weeks ago on my HD-28 Martin, so I am guessing it is one of the recent models you are talking about. When I installed the end pin jack, I do not recall seeing anything that made me think something else could be attached. I guess I need to know how the stereo jack can be added to this 1/4 jack, so both the pickup and the stereo can be used? I have an external preamp with mic, and pickup with blender, that appears to be capable of being used for the mic.

The K&K comes with a stereo jack, and has for as long as I can remember. There is an extra lug on the jack that allows you to wire another pickup to the ring, as in this photo:

http://www.cigarboxguitar.com/wp-con...-Annotated.jpg


The mic Larry is showing you is the "Silver Bullet", but are lots of other choices. If you use a passive system with an external preamp, that preamp has to be able to supply power to the mic. preamps like the DTar Solstice, K&K Quantum, etc, have that ability.

[pick me]

Originally Posted by Doug Young

The K&K comes with a stereo jack, and has for as long as I can remember. There is an extra lug on the jack that allows you to wire another pickup to the ring, as in this photo:

http://www.cigarboxguitar.com/wp-con...-Annotated.jpg


The mic Larry is showing you is the "Silver Bullet", but are lots of other choices. If you use a passive system with an external preamp, that preamp has to be able to supply power to the mic. preamps like the DTar Solstice, K&K Quantum, etc, have that ability.

Thanks that helps a lot, never took it apart, would not have known what I was looking at anyway. Now I guess I have to take the jack out and take a look at it. The DI I mentioned with the mixer will run my other mic when it is plugged into the DI then run to the amp, can I assume it will then also have power to the mic inside the guitar? I have to say, I am fairly ignorant of such things.

[Doug Young]

This is one of those things that "just works" if you just have the right gear, and is impossible and confusing if you don't. Here's an example of what "just works", just sticking to K&K's products:

K&K pickup on tip of jack, K&K Silver Bullet on the ring
Stereo Guitar cable
K&K Quantum preamp -> amp, mixer, etc

There are other mics, and other preamps you can use, but that's the basic setup. If you start trying to make it work without a preamp that provides the right voltage on a stereo cable, you'll get lost quickly

[pick me]

Excuse my ignorance, having a hard time understanding how to hook the bullet up. Everything I see has some kind of hardware, which would seam to need cutting off for bare leads that need soldering to the jack.

K&K will not be opened until tomorrow, so if I don't get an answer here I can understand, I will ring them up. Is there something I am missing, because I really don't want to pay more for something I don't need, or will be eliminating?

[Doug Young]

Originally Posted by pick me

Excuse my ignorance, having a hard time understanding how to hook the bullet up. Everything I see has some kind of hardware, which would seam to need cutting off for bare leads that need soldering to the jack.

K&K will not be opened until tomorrow, so if I don't get an answer here I can understand, I will ring them up. Is there something I am missing, because I really don't want to pay more for something I don't need, or will be eliminating?

yes,the mic has to be wired (soldered) to the jack. If you haven't done this kind of thing before, I'd suggest taking it to a tech to have it installed. It's not hard if you have experience wiring and soldering, but if you don't, it's easy to mess up. Also, as I mentioned, you need an appropriate preamp to power the mic. Do you have that?

[pick me]

Originally Posted by Doug Young

yes,the mic has to be wired (soldered) to the jack. If you haven't done this kind of thing before, I'd suggest taking it to a tech to have it installed. It's not hard if you have experience wiring and soldering, but if you don't, it's easy to mess up. Also, as I mentioned, you need an appropriate preamp to power the mic. Do you have that?

This is what I have. I can not find the manual, but don't think it did more than just explain each control. I understand the soldering bit, as I said where can I get just the mic with the bare leads or do I have to wast a lot of hardware by cutting some off?
http://www.behringer.com/EN/Products/ADI21.aspx

Just found the manual on line, here it is.
http://www.behringer.com/assets/ADI21_P0293_M_EN.pdf

Also just noticed the pic shows only one switch in the middle, where the manual shows the one I have with two switches, may not make a difference, but thought I should point that out.

[Doug Young]

That preamp will not work. It doesn't have support for a mic. You should be able to buy the Silver Bullet alone from K&K. But you will also need a specific kind of preamp to make it all work. As I said before - get all the right pieces and it's very easy, try to cobble things together, and you'll just get frustrated.

You need:

K&K + mic, wired to the stereo jack, K&K to the tip, mic to the riong
Dual Channel blender/preamp with supports 9 volts to the ring. Safe examples are K&K Quantum, DTar Solstice.

K&K could help you get all set up.

[pick me]

Originally Posted by Doug Young

That preamp will not work. It doesn't have support for a mic. You should be able to buy the Silver Bullet alone from K&K. But you will also need a specific kind of preamp to make it all work. As I said before - get all the right pieces and it's very easy, try to cobble things together, and you'll just get frustrated.

You need:

K&K + mic, wired to the stereo jack, K&K to the tip, mic to the riong
Dual Channel blender/preamp with supports 9 volts to the ring. Safe examples are K&K Quantum, DTar Solstice.

K&K could help you get all set up.

Doug, thanks ever so much for your guidance. Think I will give K&K a ring tomorrow, and decide if I want to pursue this.

[pick me]

Went to K&K website, then called them today, and spoke to a tec. He pointed me to the Trinity Pro upgrade set, which was a little confusing at first, because it only showed the whole package. All I wanted was the pre amp and mic, he then said it would only come with that if I ordered the upgrade set if I already had the pickup installed which I do, then he apologized because there was not a photo of the equipment that did not include the the pickup, but assured me if I ordered the upgrade it would only have the mic, 6 foot jack cable, and the pre amp.

Yes it will still have to be soldered, still don't know what is meant about attaching it to the ring instead of the solder lugs, I forgot to ask about that, he did say it did not make any difference what pure mini I had it would work with either the two lug or the 3 lug. I ask about feedback problems, he said the pre amp has a phase switch that should help with that a lot.

Looking around the dealers they have, the cheapest was Maury's Music for 226.00 I believe, that I had a chance to look at today.

That is the long and short of it, for now, unless someone can guide me to a setup like that for less money, that will work as well.