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Old 06-01-2022, 01:33 PM
DavidE DavidE is offline
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Default I hate feedback. K&K help needed.

I have a K&K (don't know which one) installed in my Martin OM41 Special and I've tried it in my Bose S1 straight in and with a K&K Pure Preamp. I can't get any decent volume without a ton of feedback.

What's the secret?
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Old 06-01-2022, 01:38 PM
lschwart lschwart is offline
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Where are you playing it, and where is the guitar in relation to the speaker?

Louis
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Old 06-01-2022, 01:56 PM
guitarman68 guitarman68 is offline
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K&K are famous for that - at leat in some guitars. Can sound great in others.

A few suggestions:
- Look inside the guitar and check the placement of the cables from pickup to endpin jack (should not contact the top)
- Bring down the bass in the K&K-preamp
- Experiment with placement of the speaker in relation to the guitar
- Put the speaker on a stand
- Try a preamp which offers high pass filtering (HPF)
- Install James May's Ultratonic / K&K - kit (will work wonders)

I had that in some guitars, and after switching from K&K-preamp to RedEye everything was easy - for whatever reasons. K&K / RedEye is a perfect match !
These days I mainly use UltraTonic, Dazzo and Schatten HFN through a Grace Felix.
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Old 06-01-2022, 02:09 PM
GCWaters GCWaters is offline
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For me, it was cutting the bass on my amp way back, almost to zero...I could then bring it up a little with the pre-amp, if needed....
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Old 06-01-2022, 02:22 PM
DavidE DavidE is offline
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Originally Posted by lschwart View Post
Where are you playing it, and where is the guitar in relation to the speaker?

Louis
I've been doing this for 50 years. I understand this issue.
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Old 06-01-2022, 02:23 PM
DavidE DavidE is offline
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For me, it was cutting the bass on my amp way back, almost to zero...I could then bring it up a little with the pre-amp, if needed....
So essentially, I can't get a decent amount of bass with this pickup. That's what I'm finding.
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Old 06-01-2022, 02:25 PM
DavidE DavidE is offline
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Originally Posted by guitarman68 View Post
K&K are famous for that - at leat in some guitars. Can sound great in others.

A few suggestions:
- Look inside the guitar and check the placement of the cables from pickup to endpin jack (should not contact the top)
- Bring down the bass in the K&K-preamp
- Experiment with placement of the speaker in relation to the guitar
- Put the speaker on a stand
- Try a preamp which offers high pass filtering (HPF)
- Install James May's Ultratonic / K&K - kit (will work wonders)

I had that in some guitars, and after switching from K&K-preamp to RedEye everything was easy - for whatever reasons. K&K / RedEye is a perfect match !
These days I mainly use UltraTonic, Dazzo and Schatten HFN through a Grace Felix.
The last thing I'm going to do is spend money on yet another preamp. The K&K pickup with the K&K preamp should allow me to get a good amount of volume with a reasonable amount of low end. And I'm not buying add ons. I'll put in a UST before I head down that road.

Last edited by DavidE; 06-01-2022 at 02:33 PM.
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Old 06-01-2022, 02:37 PM
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Methos1979 Methos1979 is offline
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The S1 can be very finicky with regard to positioning both in relationship to the guitar and which position you place the amp. The S1 has an 'auto' EQ with regard to each position that is different. Then of course there is the ToneMatch positions as well. I have found that placing the S1 on the floor tilted back is the worst position for feeding back regardless of position. Best is on a pole. Sitting straight up on a chair is second best. I'll assume you've also tried the three ToneMatch positions? There is no rhyme or reason to which of those will sound the best either. You have to try them all. Last, depending on the size of the room you're playing in, just moving a foot in one direction or another will affect feedback with the S1 regardless of the guitar. The S1, with its 3 articulated speakers going in different directions, while great for spreading tone far and wide for such a small speaker can also be a feedback monster in small rooms with a lot of reflective surfaces and loud volumes. The K&K pickup in a highly resonant guitar can be a beast to tame at high volumes. I found that dialing back the bass on the S1 itself - sometime all the way back - can work best. And of course a feedback buster in your soundhole will also work wonders.
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Old 06-01-2022, 02:47 PM
DavidE DavidE is offline
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Originally Posted by Methos1979 View Post
The S1 can be very finicky with regard to positioning both in relationship to the guitar and which position you place the amp. The S1 has an 'auto' EQ with regard to each position that is different. Then of course there is the ToneMatch positions as well. I have found that placing the S1 on the floor tilted back is the worst position for feeding back regardless of position. Best is on a pole. Sitting straight up on a chair is second best. I'll assume you've also tried the three ToneMatch positions? There is no rhyme or reason to which of those will sound the best either. You have to try them all. Last, depending on the size of the room you're playing in, just moving a foot in one direction or another will affect feedback with the S1 regardless of the guitar. The S1, with its 3 articulated speakers going in different directions, while great for spreading tone far and wide for such a small speaker can also be a feedback monster in small rooms with a lot of reflective surfaces and loud volumes. The K&K pickup in a highly resonant guitar can be a beast to tame at high volumes. I found that dialing back the bass on the S1 itself - sometime all the way back - can work best. And of course a feedback buster in your soundhole will also work wonders.
That's interesting. The S1 on the pole has the most bass. I haven't cared for the tonematch on the S1, so I just keep it off. I'll try the other positions. Most of my gigs require loud volume, so the K&K is not the pickup for those gigs. Oh, and I did put a feedback buster in the soundhole. ;-)
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Old 06-01-2022, 03:01 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by DavidE View Post
That's interesting. The S1 on the pole has the most bass. I haven't cared for the tonematch on the S1, so I just keep it off. I'll try the other positions. Most of my gigs require loud volume, so the K&K is not the pickup for those gigs. Oh, and I did put a feedback buster in the soundhole. ;-)
I find the ToneMatch in the Mic position to be the best for most of my guitars plugged straight into the S1, oddly. The one difference is my RainSong dread with Element StagePro (UST) prefers the ToneMatch off.

What's the guitar? Dread? Where do you generally have the S1 positioned in relation to you? Not good that the feedback buster doesn't work - that's usually the best and easiest way to kill off feedback, I've found.

Sometimes these wide dispersion speakers can be their own worst enemy. We eventually went over to the EAE D6-58 for more inputs and power and the more conventional narrow dispersion was better for mitigating feedback issues at high volume but at the cost of wider coverage. You just can't win.

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Old 06-01-2022, 03:42 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by DavidE View Post
The last thing I'm going to do is spend money on yet another preamp. The K&K pickup with the K&K preamp should allow me to get a good amount of volume with a reasonable amount of low end. And I'm not buying add ons. I'll put in a UST before I head down that road.
I believe the saying is, "throwing the baby out with the bath water."

I have a K&K in my OM-21. I typically have to cut the bass as it has plenty, I use either the eq in my Play Acoustic and/or a Sunn Audio Stage DI-2. But I don't run any Bose stuff so can't comment on that. I do find the HPF on the DI-1 or my Udo amp to be useful with the K&K.

But if you're talking real loud (like drums and electric guitars loud), then a sound hole mount pickup would be my first choice.
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Old 06-01-2022, 04:58 PM
lschwart lschwart is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by DavidE View Post
I've been doing this for 50 years. I understand this issue.
That's good. You didn't provide any details about those issues, so I didn't want to offer advice until I knew more about your situation.

As others have noted, if you know what your doing in terms of the room and your speaker position, the main thing with a K&K in a resonant guitar is going to be low-end EQ. For me, a HPF and/or a feedback notch filter usually does the trick. With a little tweaking in terms of the cutoff/slope of the HPF and/or the center frequency of the notch, you should be able to reduce the feedback without too much of a trade-off in terms of low-end--although, as you know, it will differ some, room to room.

On the other hand, if real, thumping low-end is what you're after, you might just consider a different sort of pickup for that guitar. I use a mag for exactly this reason in a very resonant Taylor 410.

Louis

Last edited by lschwart; 06-02-2022 at 09:44 AM.
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Old 06-02-2022, 06:18 AM
sublro sublro is offline
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I completely understand your disinterest in installing anything else.

that said, if you do want basically the sound of the K&K AND to completely put the feedback issue to bed, the James May Ultratonic will do that. I have one in my OM-21 and can hold it right in front of my S1 at considerable volume with no feedback. it works to the specific anatomy and resonances of the individual guitar it's installed in.

For me, the effort to get it installed was well worth it. I had a years long love/hate thing with K&K in several guitars previous to that.

FWIW / YMMV....
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Old 06-02-2022, 07:27 AM
GCWaters GCWaters is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by DavidE View Post
So essentially, I can't get a decent amount of bass with this pickup. That's what I'm finding.
That's interesting....I used a K&K preamp and didn't have a problem with bass or with volume (after cutting the bass at the amp). Wish I could help--maybe it's an installation issue?
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Old 06-02-2022, 07:42 AM
sublro sublro is offline
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Picture that the disks on a K&K are your ear, pressed up against a very thin wall with a very loud party and a loud sound system playing music right up against that wall on tje other side. That’s essentially what a soundboard transducer is up against - think about how moving your ear even minor amounts would change the resonances hitting your ear. That’s why it is both the idiosyncrasies of the individual soundboard that the K & K is installed on, so small positional differences in install can change the relative emphasis of different frequencies. I believe that is what accounts for the very different experiences of different people with K & K pick ups and all soundboard transducers for that matter. Sometimes pretty plug-in-play and all is well, and other times it’s just very difficult-to-eliminate feedback issues.

not to sound like a plug, but that is specifically what the ultratonic addresses. It gives you a set of dip switches built in, so you can then plug your guitar in and listen to where that individual soundboard and transducer placement is over-emphasizing certain frequencies and notch them out, to greatly reduce the susceptibility of that particular guitar to feedback.
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