K&K pure mini very low output

[gerryc123]

Hello all.
for any of you that wanna know what the level of a pure mini really is, I recorded my acoustic guitar straight into Pro Tools from the following sources.

First I set my level using my strat, lead pickup to set my level.
Then I recorded My PIEZO through my onboard preamp in this order.

1. My Piezo thru my Takamine with the preamp volume on my guitar 100% with the EQ bypassed.

2. My K&K pickup with the K&K preamp

3. My K&K direct.

I played the exact same thing 3 times.

Some had me convinced there was something wrong with my setup and I agreed so I needed to find out for sure, since all my testing was not showing any install or wiring issues.

Yes! I removed the pure mini and installed a brand new pure mini EXACTLY to K&K's specifications.

My findings....NO DIFFERENCE except time and money. so here are the real figures based on the my main meter on my pro tools out. CLEAN.

If my electric guitar is ZERO

Here are the numbers

Electric Gtr - Zero ( 0 )
Piezo Pickup out of Takamine full volume no eq (- 4db)
K&K pure mini with K&K preamp full volume (-12 db)
K&K pure mini pickup direct in ... no preamp (-26 db)

A K&K pure mini direct is roughly -26db lower than an electric plugged in direct. Here is an an image

https://photos.app.goo.gl/zcwCNftCQozNEgEb8

Eureka!

So THIS is why the pure mini would not work in my Takamine preamp, too low output. And the pure mini may be "Loud" as a passive pickup but it is not Loud in general. A lot of work, but there it is. I shall move on.
Cheers,

Gerry C

[dnf777]

Its clearly not for you. While no piezo will match the miniature AC generators we call pickups, that level makes me question material or method. Seems a little excessive for a properly functioning system, IME.

[Rudy4]

The first K&K Pure Mini install I did was in a guitar that I previously used with a Fishman Rare Earth humbucker soundhole pickup.

When the install was finished I compared the two and there really wasn't much difference in output when plugged directly into my amp.

I've never noticed any "low output" on the dozen K&K Pure Mini installs I've done for myself and others.

I'm glad that you've defined your particular problem, but the normal user experience with K&K Pure Mini pickups does not replicate your results. The vast majority of users have never complained of "low output".

I shall also move on.

[gerryc123]

Originally Posted by Rudy4

The first K&K Pure Mini install I did was in a guitar that I previously used with a Fishman Rare Earth humbucker soundhole pickup.

When the install was finished I compared the two and there really wasn't much difference in output when plugged directly into my amp.

I've never noticed any "low output" on the dozen K&K Pure Mini installs I've done for myself and others.

I'm glad that you've defined your particular problem, but the normal user experience with K&K Pure Mini pickups does not replicate your results. The vast majority of users have never complained of "low output".

I shall also move on.

The tech at K&K thinks the wood of my Takamine either the body, bridge or both is thicker than normal. The K&K preamp has an EQ that I cannot bypass. What preamp would you recommend that would not color my tone just boost my signal?

[ljguitar]

Originally Posted by gerryc123

The tech at K&K thinks the wood of my Takamine either the body, bridge or both is thicker than normal. The K&K preamp has an EQ that I cannot bypass. What preamp would you recommend that would not color my tone just boost my signal?

Hi g-123
Which K&K preamp do you currently have?

I don't own preamps any which don't color tone - I want to affect the tone.

The output of a K&K is strong. If you don't want to affect tone (with tone controls), pass it through the chain unaffected at each level and only add gain.

[martingitdave]

My passive K&K pickups are very high output. I'm surprised by your results.

[Doug Young]

Hi Gerry, we've been talking about this offline, and it seems easier to share my thoughts here, and I'll also post my attempt to reproduce your experiment. very interesting issue, and the whole thing of comparing output between different pickups is something that doesn't get that much attention.

It's hard to know what's going on, but it seems like it could be a couple of things, ranging from expectations, to gain staging, to some install or wiring issue, or anywhere in between. A few random observations:

1) There's no standard for pickup output levels. Even with electric guitars, outputs are all over the map. Same with acoustic pickups. But we have gain controls and so on to adjust for that. You're trying to use a Helix (I think?), which is nice since it has programmable presets that you can use to adjust between guitars.

2) In general, I'd expect many electric pickups (humbuckers at least) to have higher outputs than most acoustic pickups. But it can vary widely. When comparing pickup's I'd stick to comparing acoustic-to-acoustic. Comparing an acoustic pickup to an electric, which are often made extra hot to support overdrive, can be misleading. By comparing the acoustic pickup against a pickup that may be designed to be hot enough to drive an amp into distortion, you may be starting with the wrong benchmark.

3) Comparing passive and active pickups gets confusing - active pickups have a built-in preamp.

4) Impedance matters with passive piezo pickups like K&Ks. You can plug an electric guitar or many active pickup systems into very low impedance inputs and be fine. A passive pickup will likely lose lots of bass and lots of volume.

5) The comparison between the K&K direct and the K&K thru a preamp all the way up is sort of expected. If the preamp adds 20db of gain, then the output would be expected to be 20db hotter than the input.

6) You're putting the K&K in a Takamine, right? Most people choose a Takamine for the pickup system, so I'm not sure there's a lot of precedent for putting a K&K in that kind of guitar. It's possible, given the integrated pickup/bridge system in a Takamine than K&K won't get the vibration they expect.

7) I'd still suspect some kind of wiring issue with your situation. The K&K should not be that quiet. That or impedance (see 4 above).

I'll follow up with the experiment on levels I did.

[Doug Young]

I did a quick levels comparison, playing the same little lick on 4 different guitars with 4 different pickups, all direct into my UAD Apollo guitar input without adjusting the gain or levels between guitars. Here's what I got:

Screen Shot 2021-02-23 at 10.49.16 AM.jpg

First sample is an Eastman electric with a humbucker. I'll call that level "0" like you did.

2nd is a Baggs Anthem. Active pickup with a builtin preamp. I'd consider this pickup a good "standard" acoustic benchmark. Level is -12 db down from the electric pickup, so from this we can say that the electric pickup is much hotter than a "typical" acoustic preamp, even an active one.

3rd is a Trance Amulet M. Active pickup with built-in preamp. it's hotter than the Anthem, quieter than the electric. -9 db down from the electric, but 3db hotter than the Anthem.

4th is a K&K. -5db down relative to the electric, but a whopping 7db hotter than the Anthem (6db corresponds to sounding roughly twice as loud).

So I'd say this experiment confirms that an electric humbucker (this one, at least) can easily be much louder than typical acoustic pickups. However, it also confirms my experience (and what many others here are reporting) that the K&K's output is quite hot, significantly hotter than even some active acoustic pickups.

So what's going on with your setup? I'm not sure....

[James May]

Doug's results are in line with what I expect. A K&K is typically about the same as a P90 on an acoustic guitar, which is ~6-10dB lower than a humbucker on an electric guitar.

So, how to explain your results. I can only thing of two things that could cause such low readings as you are seeing:

1. The bridge plate is incredibly thick or incredibly stiff. The less the sensors can bend, the less signal you'll get out of them. On your guitar, I would not expect that.
2. You are plugging into a line level impedance like ~10K-20K, rather than an instrument input with impedance of ~1M. This would rolloff a lot of the bass and a lot of the signal energy.

[Rudy4]

Originally Posted by gerryc123

The tech at K&K thinks the wood of my Takamine either the body, bridge or both is thicker than normal. The K&K preamp has an EQ that I cannot bypass. What preamp would you recommend that would not color my tone just boost my signal?

I've used K&K Pure Minis with a few different pre-amps such as the PADI and even through my old multieffect pedal, a Digitech RP200. I've also used it straight to a passive direct box and out to a PA, as well as whatever active DI the stage guys were providing. The Pure Mini works well in a variety of situations and has never been a problem for me, even running it into a guitar amp.

Any preamp with a 1 meg or higher input impedance is usually fine if you're feeding something that's effected by impedance mis-match.

[gerryc123]

Originally Posted by ljguitar

Hi g-123
Which K&K preamp do you currently have?

I don't own preamps any which don't color tone - I want to affect the tone.

The output of a K&K is strong. If you don't want to affect tone (with tone controls), pass it through the chain unaffected at each level and only add gain.

I have the K&K preamp. I'm doing just that, adding gain, then going into my HX Stomp for eq and reverb. Hopefully won't have to touch the mixing board too much. I am going through a Mackie DL 1608, hope to just save the settings and be done.

Thanks

[gerryc123]

Originally Posted by James May

Doug's results are in line with what I expect. A K&K is typically about the same as a P90 on an acoustic guitar, which is ~6-10dB lower than a humbucker on an electric guitar.

So, how to explain your results. I can only thing of two things that could cause such low readings as you are seeing:

1. The bridge plate is incredibly thick or incredibly stiff. The less the sensors can bend, the less signal you'll get out of them. On your guitar, I would not expect that.
2. You are plugging into a line level impedance like ~10K-20K, rather than an instrument input with impedance of ~1M. This would rolloff a lot of the bass and a lot of the signal energy.

Thanks for that, It's probably the bridge plate like you mentioned. As for the line level impedance..I'm just going by whatever the PIEZO output is, compared to what the K&K output is. If I'm going 1/4" from my PIEZO preamp out of my guitar into my board and that is whatever that is, and then I go 1/4" out of my K&K preamp to the same input on my board and it's -10db lower. Then I gotta turn it up. Have to make it work or buy a new guitar.

On my gig, I play a Fender Strat for 20 songs and my Takamine for twenty songs let's say. All my presets for my Strat are saved and sound great. I have the backing tracks in Pro Tools and tweaked all my guitar presets in HX Native, exported them through Helix Edit into my Stomp so at the gigs I just play. Sounds great.

I did the same with my Takamine but really hated the PIEZO quack so I installed the K&K. I set aside a day to tweak to my acoustic presets for the new pickup but realized that even with the K&K preamp the level was quite lower than the PIEZO output and that I wasn't expecting that. I doubted my install or if the pickup was defective, so I had a luthier reinstall a new pure mini, same exact level.

I'm strapped in now at the studio, coffee is on and the phone is turned off. Lol. I'm gonna make this work

G

[gerryc123]

Originally Posted by Doug Young

I did a quick levels comparison, playing the same little lick on 4 different guitars with 4 different pickups, all direct into my UAD Apollo guitar input without adjusting the gain or levels between guitars. Here's what I got:

Attachment 52120

First sample is an Eastman electric with a humbucker. I'll call that level "0" like you did.

2nd is a Baggs Anthem. Active pickup with a builtin preamp. I'd consider this pickup a good "standard" acoustic benchmark. Level is -12 db down from the electric pickup, so from this we can say that the electric pickup is much hotter than a "typical" acoustic preamp, even an active one.

3rd is a Trance Amulet M. Active pickup with built-in preamp. it's hotter than the Anthem, quieter than the electric. -9 db down from the electric, but 3db hotter than the Anthem.

4th is a K&K. -5db down relative to the electric, but a whopping 7db hotter than the Anthem (6db corresponds to sounding roughly twice as loud).

So I'd say this experiment confirms that an electric humbucker (this one, at least) can easily be much louder than typical acoustic pickups. However, it also confirms my experience (and what many others here are reporting) that the K&K's output is quite hot, significantly hotter than even some active acoustic pickups.

So what's going on with your setup? I'm not sure....

Yes Doug I agree, the issue doesn't seem to be the pickup since the first one was replaced by an experienced luthier two days ago. The levels I got were the same. He as well as Vance, the tech from K&K, believe the problem lies in the thickness of the bridge and or the thickness of the wood body itself, Thank you so much for spending the time. It means a lot Doug truly.

I will use the K&K preamp with my new setup and just get it to sound as good as I can. I'm sure I will get there.

Cheers Doug!
Gerry C