K&K Pickups??

[Kyle76]

I recently installed a K&K in my Larivée. I love it, but I don't have experience with any of the others. It's a simple install. Rather than use the install jig, I took the advice of someone here and attached the three transducers by hand with doublestick tape on my fingertips.

[Psalad]

K&K is bass heavy, Lyric is bass light. Really depends on whether you are with band or not/etc.

[merlin666]

DTAR? Takamine Palathetic?

[bjstewa]

Originally Posted by Tcmeyer28

I'm looking into getting a pickup, and I keep hearing about K&K...was wondering if anyone has used them and has any input on the quality??

I like the Lyric the best. It's what I purchased after researching quite a while. Here is an excellent demo that compares a Lyric, a K&K and a Fishman UST on the same guitar...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=smWDdTCKDGg#t=265

Just to muddy the waters, you can also combine a 2nd pickup fairly easily with the Lyric to get the best of both worlds (although I haven't felt the need to do so).

I'm very happy with the Lyric. Just my two cents.

[Treenewt]

Originally Posted by earri

Yes, quite easy to install, with a little patience. (there are numerous youtube instructional vids). The only difficult part is drilling out the endpin (if needed; Eastmans [and some others] come pre-drilled). Notwithstanding, I took a guitar to a tech once to drill out the endpin, he did it while I waited and charged me nothing. My only advice upon installing K&K; do some practice runs until familiar with the procedure, so as not to have a regrettable incident with the super glue.

Plus one. Easy to install, but the end pin drilling can wig you out if you're not comfortable with such things.

[GELewis]

Here is a prior discussion on the same topic:

http://www.acousticguitarforum.com/f...d.php?t=381426

[Rmz76]

The K&K gets the love around here. I'm a fan of the Anthem. It's blend feature gives you a lot of flexibility in tone for transitioning between solo and full band scenarios.

[ljguitar]

Originally Posted by Tcmeyer28

I'm looking into getting a pickup, and I keep hearing about K&K...was wondering if anyone has used them and has any input on the quality??

Hi Tcm…

Yes, the K&K raised the quality of all 4 of my guitars over undersaddle, Baggs Elements, and Baggs LB-6 pickups.

It is the best for the money in my opinion. Great output signal, decent sound without a preamp and even better with a preamp.

Natural, and full sounding. Only place it might run into trouble is in the middle of a full-on rock band with wedge monitors at your feet.

So much depends on the guitar, I really don't want to vote. On my J-35 the K&K was awesome, but on my LG-2 the Lyric sounds even better.

[jseth]

I have both the K&K (Goodall Grand Concert) and the Anthem SL (Mark Angus F-40), and I like both of them... with a few caveats, of course!

I play pretty much ALL styles of music (no classical, polka or shred metal!), and I need a sound that covers it all, as well as sounding like the guitar in which it's installed. The Anthem does a nice job of that, not completely foolproof, but with a bit of adjusting, it sounds very good for my purposes. I would NOT suggest installing it yourself, unless you have a reasonable degree of acumen in such matters...

I don't like that the Anthem has a battery in my guitar. I don't like that the Anthem has a degree of "violating" the unplugged tone and volume of my guitar... and I'm a bit tired of having anything between the saddle and the bridgeplate/bridge on my instruments. I use my Anthem-equipped Angus for stage use...

The K&K sounds nice to me, although I do NOT like the tone without a preamp in front of it... I got a K&K PURE XLR preamp that can use phantom power instead of a battery or an adapter/wall wart. I LOVE that aspect of the K&K, plus, with that preamp, the pickup sounds wonderful with little or no twiddling of eq dials.

The K&K does NOT pickup anything from the string noise or the natural "breathing" that happens with an acoustic guitar. Were I to use that guitar on stage, I would throw an SM-57 in front of me, for just those aspects I mentioned... not so much for overall volume, but to capture more of the guitar's nuance... I can very much understand why so many players use the K&K coupled with an internal microphone.

I also like the fact that the K&K install is VERY non-invasive, having no discernible impact on that Goodall's tone or volume while unplugged... although the install seems simple enough, I didn't do it, preferring to have a knowledgeable professional work on my Goodall... (actually, I had James put it in...)

There you have it, my two cents... definitely go to Doug Young's site and spend some time listening to a bunch of those sound samples of different pickups; well worth the time spent...

[Marshall]

Of those in the poll I'd be more likely to vote for the K&K. But my fav is the Schatten HFN. Much like the K&K (soundboard transducer) but easier install and remove (if need be). And sounds just as good. Maybe better.

[Doubleneck]

K&K Trinity: condensor mic blended with mini is just a winner

[Vancebo]

I've owned all of those in your poll. Here's my order and why:

4) Fishman - Does not acoustic at all. But it's what we accepted for so long and put up with and some of us learned to loathe it.

2) Tie: The K&K alone is closer to acoustic sounding. But not enough by itself. I was never lucky enough to get one that sounded balanced. I had them installed in Taylors, a Goodall and a Collings. All of them needed serious EQ work to sound decent. Part of that time was user error in using EQ properly. They were muddy and lacked definition. Later in my journey when I actually started using eq more effectively I appreciated it more. This would be my first recommendation to people looking for a simple plug-n-play pickup. Needs to be paired with a mic IMO. I had this combo through a Pendulum SPS-1. After the flirtation, I decided to go simpler.

The Anthem has a soft corded piezo element that sits under your guitar's saddle. Not a great way to go IMO. The concept of the Piezo and mic with a crossover point is very good. Still yielded an acoustic sound. The full version had a lot of stuff on board. If I did it again, it would be the SL version.

1) The Lyric. Needs good EQ. Sometimes extreme. I can get enough bass since my guitar has a lot of bass anyway. I can play solo or with my loud church band. No problems. My sound people have liked the Lyric better than any one of the myriad of pickups that I have tried over the years. I have never heard my guitar through the FOH mains so I can't say what they are doing after they engage a high pass filter etc. But I trust them. I like what it sounds like through my monitor, my Bose L1 and my Schertler Unico. It gives me all of the body taps, string squeaks, etc. Everything my ears hear when I sit in my home and play unplugged. Some people don't actually want that. But I do.

Finally. A tie with the Lyric. I am getting more infatuated with the ES2. I am wanting a single source easy set-up. The Lyric gives me that, but the ES2 gives me the fat bigger-than-life bass that I sometimes want. It is very mic like in it's tonal character without the need for a mic. It has a crisper attack than the K&K and still has all the meat to the tone. It is tempting but I have been holding off.

[Mking]

I have the K&K mini pups in my J-45 and HD-28V and in some signal chains the heavy bottom of these pups must be addresses because the guitar picks up a lot of bass overtones, as in thumping when playing finger style. Straight in to my Ultrasound amp I don't get this at all. You have to make sure the impedance isn't miss matched

[Tcmeyer28]

I'd just like to thank everyone for their replies and feedback on this topic. All of you have made this decision much easier for me and appreciate that very much.