K&K Pure Western Pickup….The Best?
 

I had a K&K installed in my HD28 immediately after I bought it and I have not had one lick of trouble with it in the 20 years it’s been in there. I have to admit however that when I had it installed I really didn’t know much about pickups and still don’t. It just seemed at the time that whenever I read about someone talking about the pickup in their guitar it was invariably a K&K so I decided to go with it. Just curious is K&K the “gold standard” for pickups or are there other better options these days? Sure can’t complain about mine.

I've installed several because they simply work well in 99% of installations. In many situations they don't even require an impedance matching preamp, and there's no batteries or volume / tone controls to malfunction in the bare bones installation.

There are many players who will post "better" pickups from the latest, greatest category and that's fine. It's always possible to spend twice or three times more for a "noticeable" improvement in tone. I'll stick with the hundred dollar version.

There are also those who go for the reduced cost of the most often mentioned look alike, but I've posted elsewhere, with photos, about the actual difference between the cheaper brand and the K&K.

The "western" was dropped several years ago, it's the "K&K Pure Mini" now.

Professional guitarist and guitar teacher J.P. Cormier highly recommends K&K pickups.

Once in a while a product comes along that works exactly as promised at a reasonable cost. That's the K&K.

I have one in 3 of my 4 guitars. And I've done around 10 installs, several for friends who wanted one due to my recommendation, and they were all delighted with the result.

Timely thread. I’m having one installed in my Iris DF today. My main concern is that I don’t want a pickup that might change the wonderful acoustic tone of this guitar. From everything I’ve heard, the K&K mini is the way to go.

After having a little of everything over the years, it's just hard to justify anything other than the K&K Pure Mini or the (in my estimation) equally great Schatten HFN. They go in so easy, have just the minimum parts and pieces and work great. They sound great and don't need much EQ, I've never really had feedback issues and they are passive so they need zero attention - just plug in and they work.

I have a K&K Mini in all my guitars. There when you wanna plug in and work great. Minimal hardware inside the guitar...

Ok I’ll be that guy.

I just got a 79 D-19 with a K&k in it...this is my first time around with K&K. I have had it about 2 weeks and have been running it through its paces with my solo rig.

I’m not singing any serious praises. It works fine, but like all transducers (so far) it can sing like a duck and does not enjoy an aggressive playing style. I am using either a K&K pre or a GE-7. Both work, to solve the impedance issue. They sound OK but were essential as the mismatch became a real issue going direct; creating weird artifacts.

Not since my 96 Fishman matrix have I been this disappointed. I did have high expectations based on feedback from other players.

In the end it’s the profound quack with a relatively light attack that turns me off about this setup. I have been able to work around it, somewhat, with some EQ and a weird sounding acoustic resonance features from BOSS, but it’s just not natural. Are they ever?


I have had much better results with single and dual source sound hole pickups: Sunrise, Duncan Active Mag and a couple others, each all worked better for my aggressive style.


I’ll do a few shows with this but will probably get a sound hole in her before to long.

I have a K&K in my J-45 and it sounds fine but I greatly prefer the sound of the JJB pickup that is the same basic design. I do not feel that the build quality of the JJB pickups is inferior at all. They don’t have the impedance matching issues of the K&K and the don’t have the overly hot high end sizzle of the K&K. I just ordered another one this weekend as a matter of fact.

Dazzo... head and shoulders above the K&K I had in my Goodall, so far as tone goes. Even using a pre-amp and various eq solutions, I was never all that happy with the tone I got from the K&K. With the Dazzo, I need little or no eq to have the tone be exactly what I want...

Dazzos are a bit more expensive and still hand-made by Teddy Randazzo, so they're still "under the radar"...

I had M1 Passive, M80, Anthem, Dazzo, HFN...

... now I have K&K in both my guitars: HD28 and GS Mini. K&K is THAT good.

PS: installation done at home, by myself, in both! Even the dual source system, the Trinity (installed at my HD28), is extremelly foolprof. It's as easy as it can get.

Certainly K&K is the most popular pickup. They lasted a week in a guitar I bought with them installed already. Then I went to see Teddy Randazzo.

'Best' is just too subjective. The K&K Pure Mini is the Ford F150 of guitar pickups. It's a classic, simple and effective workhorse of a guitar pickup. Minimal presence, no battery, practically bulletproof. If you strum or play with a pick and don't play too loud then it's great.

However, if you play fingerstyle with no nails the tone is muddy and needs a lot of EQ. If you play at really loud stage volumes then feedback becomes an issue. No system is perfect or 'The Best'. I had nothing but K&K's for years in my guitars. I just added the needed EQ for fingerstyle playing and a feedback buster when playing loud.

Over the years I have found that the very best sounding pickup systems were always multi-source. An SBT (like the K&K) combined with a UST, or an internal mic, or both! Then run through something that can tweak each signal and combine them for maximum best sonic tone.

Better yet, get a multi-source system with a guitar built around it and all your preamp and EQ tone shaping is done for you via onboard controls for maximum ease of use. Those are your Matons, Takamines, and Cole Clarks.

Up to this point, I've had k&k pure minis installed in 1 MLJ Acoustic dread, 1 Martin 000, and 2 Larrivees. I've run them though a Tonedexter.

However I'm planning a slightly different route with a Schatten HFN on the new Iris DF. After researching it a bit, I'm finding little advantage with continuing with a k&k pure mini. In fact, dependant on how well the Schatten sounds, I might be able to get away without tonedexterizing the sound, and using a different preamp with the Iris.

All theory with the HFN until I get it installed and actually try it.

The HFN would still be in my guitar if I could get it balanced correctly. That's the main complaint with the HFN.. it's very difficult to get the low and high E as loud as the middle strings. I think that's where the K&K, Dazzo, Trance etc have an advantage. Having 2 or 3 piezo pickups stuck to the bridgeplate allows for a perfect balance. The HFN being an all in one unit, struggles sometimes as the bridgeplate is not always perfectly level.