Curious about ultratonic

[lppier]

My anthem on my Goodall is wonking out and I’m looking for a replacement. Something that is non invasive would be nice - curious about the ultratonic pickup.

Does it have the same impedance mismatch problem as k&k if I use it with a or baggs venue di?

Is it easy enough to install for me to order online and install it myself?

I heard that you can also pair something like a magnetic pickup with it, how does that work?

Thanks.

[Gordon Currie]

James May frequents this subforum, so he may show up soon to answer this question.

You might want to contact him directly:
http://jamesmayengineering.com/contact/

Completely guessing, but I imagine it is very similar in impedance. However, James is a clever designer so it wouldn't surprise me that he had improved on THIS aspect as well.

[martingitdave]

My recollection is that the required input impedance is comparable to a K&K. I don't know for sure with his new single piezo strip, but I assume the same still holds. I would ask him.

[fwphoto]

Originally Posted by lppier

My anthem on my Goodall is wonking out and I’m looking for a replacement. Something that is non invasive would be nice - curious about the ultratonic pickup.

Does it have the same impedance mismatch problem as k&k if I use it with a or baggs venue di?

Is it easy enough to install for me to order online and install it myself?

I heard that you can also pair something like a magnetic pickup with it, how does that work?

Thanks.

I recently converted a K&K mini to Ultra Tonic & am super happy with the results. Just overall better in every way. I, too, would like to know whether the impedance issue that was prevalent in the K&K is the same with the Ultra Tonic. Not a problem with me, though, as I use a buffered Polytone3 tuner/mute at the head of my signal chain & that has taken care of the impedance issues with my K&K equipped guitars.

I highly recommend the conversion for K&Ks & am considering installing the standard Ultra Tonic in one of my other guitars. It already has an endpin jack so I won't need to have a guitar tech drill it first, so I may try the install myself. Would love to hear more from James May & others that have done the install themselves for advice. Looks doable, though.

Frank

[James May]

The K&K impedance thing is a little complicated. Because of the location, the K & K installation results in a very hot and boomy low end. They often recommend using a lower input impedance, say 100k to 500k, in order to highpass the pickup response thereby rolling off the low frequencies. This is a Band-Aid.

The Ultra Tonic, on the other hand, has the low-frequency problem fixed at the source, so it doesn't need any kind of high pass filtering to limit the low frequency response.

It works equally and perfectly well into any impedance from 500K on up. And I should add, this was not a trivial engineering problem when you factor in the passive volume control.

Regarding installing an Ultra Tonic yourself, this is certainly possible. The critical factor will be your ability to position the sensors accurately. If you use my suggestion of the magnets as described in my installation instructions, it should go pretty smoothly.

[fwphoto]

Originally Posted by James May

It works equally and perfectly well into any impedance from 500K on up. And I should add, this was not a trivial engineering problem when you factor in the passive volume control.

Thanks James!

Not really being schooled in electrical engineering I hope this question isn't just plain dumb. I've acted on the advice of folks that seem to really understand things like "impedance matching" & that's why I selected the Buffered Bypass on the Polytune3 to insure an impedance load of 1 MegOhm for the K&K rather than bypassing it. That's all like a foreign language to me but that's exactly the advice I was following.

So my question to you is, ideally, should I continue to use the Buffered Bypass feature of the Polytune3 with my Ultra Tonic converted K&K or should I instead set it on True Bypass?

Frank

[James May]

If you are in true bypass mode, then it depends on what's after the tuner. If whatever it is has an input impedance of 500k or more, you'll be golden. Having the active buffer is fine too of course.

[SongwriterFan]

Originally Posted by James May

It works equally and perfectly well into any impedance from 500K on up.

So I'd still have to "beware" DIs that have say 50k ohm impedance, I guess.

I had a real "interesting" experience once when plugging my guitar with at K&K into a DI that had a really low impedance like that. I've since upgraded to the UltraTonic.

Until I get the ToneDexter trained (again . . . had some install issues with the UltraTonic that are now hopefully resolved), I still carry an EQ pedal just to make sure the impedance is high enough (and I also use the EQ to improve the sound).

[fwphoto]

Originally Posted by James May

If you are in true bypass mode, then it depends on what's after the tuner. If whatever it is has an input impedance of 500k or more, you'll be golden. Having the active buffer is fine too of course.

Thanks. My Polytune3 passes the signal to the ToneDEQ which has an input impedance of 10M (way bigger than 500k, right?) so I guess I should try the True Bypass & see what it sounds like.

Take care,

Frank

[lppier]

Originally Posted by James May

If you are in true bypass mode, then it depends on what's after the tuner. If whatever it is has an input impedance of 500k or more, you'll be golden. Having the active buffer is fine too of course.

That’s great to hear James !