Fishman rare earth microphone with K&K pickup

[gerryc123]

Hello all.
My apologies my last post was using the wrong terminology for the microphone I was looking for.

Basically i'm using a K&K under saddle pickup.
I wanted to add a microphone similar to the fishman rare earth blend.

I have tried the fishman but do not like the magnetic pick up. I do have the k&k Trinity pro. With the K&K preamp and Microphone but I am not crazy about it and would like to try a different microphone that does not require phantom power.

As always your recommendations are greatly appreciated!!

Thanks a bunch
Gerry c

[negriljerry]

[I had the Fish Rare Earth Mic Blend, hated it and flipped it. Mic = useless, pickup is mag, and all mags sound like mag. I have an Infinity Matrix Mic Blend in my J-45, what a mistake. Again, mic is useless and I dislike the undersaddle compared to a basic Baggs.]

I hadn't used my Martin with a K&K on a gig in years due to the undefined and mushy sound. "Natural"? Sure, just not useful in a stage setting. Bought a used K&K XLR preamp, makes all the difference in the world, much more focused.

One caveat: the K&K pre runs 9V, either via battery or phantom. If you're running this always-on pre on battery you have to monitor the battery status fairly regularly or risk distortion. They could have made changing the battery harder but not really - there's two very tiny screws that hold the top on, they just beg to get lost when changing. I'm just gonna tape them on somewhere in case I sell it someday, and use tape to hold the top on.

And phantom? Unavailable unless of course your mixer/amp has it, and you go directly in bypassing any and all FX or volume pedals. Bad design.

[mike o]

Probably a dumb question. The Fishman has a rotary dial where you can blend mag signal out. Did you try that?

[Jinder]

That’s curious, when I had a REB the mic was my least favourite factor…boomy, woolly, indistinct, horribly feedback prone.

To make a mic work in an acoustic guitar it has to have an aggressive HPF on it somewhere along the line so it provides air and detail without being called upon for anything in the lower mid/bass area…that’s sort of universal logic. The REB preamp delivers a flat mic signal which booms like crazy when even dialled in slightly at stage volumes. NB this may have been altered in later iterations-I owned an early one.

The Seymour Duncan MagMic is to my ears vastly superior in every way. The mic is useable and is properly EQ’d/high passed at the onboard pre so the blended signal can be output to a mono lead/input and sound toneful and useable right off the bat. I have put countless hundreds of concert hours on the MagMic in my Dove and it’s universally loved by sound engineers, audience members, collaborators and fellow players alike.

I’m digressing from the original Q here, of course…I would very much recommend trying your K&K with a different preamp. I don’t care very much for the K&K preamps, I have a Pure unit and it’s pretty uninspiring compared to others out there. Not sure how other pres would fire up your Trinity mic but there must be options out there…

[Dok]

I just installed a Rare Earth Blend in my HD-28V. It sounds equally as good as the K&K mini that's in my J-100. A couple tips:

You have to point the REB mic in a pretty counterintuitive way. I get the best sound pointing it at the bridge toward the high e string. It's almost diagonal, and it's barely pointed at the strings at all! And then it's blended at 50% with the pickup. Sounds fine.

My pedalboard consists of a tuner pedal > sonic stomp, set to about 8:00 on the bass contour (acting as a bit of a high pass filter, as mentioned upthread) and 2:00 on the processing knob. I think the input impedance of the pedal, which is acting as a preamp, is important here at 1 MOhm, which is what K&K specifies as the sweet spot. I've read in several places that's really important for getting a good sound out of the K&K, so you may want to try that before switching to anything else.

Good luck!