Roger’s Ultra Tonic Conversion Adventure

[RogerPease]

Roger’s Ultra Tonic Conversion Adventure

I’m deliberately riffing off of “Dave’s Ultra Tonic Adventure” found here:
https://www.acousticguitarforum.com/...d.php?t=543204
Check out at least the first post of that thread, including the photo of the Ultra Tonic pickup.
After post #1 by Dave that thread kinda went OT to the use with Tonedexter, which is ok but less about the Ultra Tonic pickup. So I thought I’d start a new thread with my experience converting a K&K Mini to a full Ultra Tonic.

I have a Martin CEO7 that I previously installed a K&K Mini in. I followed that latest instructions for K&K to mount the treble disk in line with the 6th string, not between the 5th and 6th. After that install I nicknamed it “Boomer” because of all the low-mid mud in the plugged in sound. Now with the guitar ToneMatch on and tweaking the bass down and the treble up I could get a usable sound through the Bose S1 Pro, but I didn’t want to be tied to the S1 for the ToneMatch.

Through a Fire-Eye Red-Eye it was still too muddy, not enough EQ. I bought a Fishman Platinum Stage and with that I was able to get a good sound through the S1 with the ToneMatch off — I call the Platinum Stage my little “problem solver”. Very useful tool. — but with some pretty radical settings.

So not wanting to do such drastic EQ I felt there were two options:
- rip out the K&K and install something else, like a Schatten HFM maybe, or
- go all in and buy an Ultra Tonic Conversion Kit from jamesmayengineering.com

You can guess which way I went: all in.
James now has a conversion kit with an extra K&K compatible disc so you can upgrade to a full Ultra Tonic pick up. Sounded good to me: in for penny, in for a pound.

James has very clear install instructions with photos on his site. The new small 4th disc and the larger “feedback suppression element” come already soldered to the Ultra Tonic daughter board. Stripping and soldering that tiny coax from the other three K&K discs requires a bit of skill so this is not a project for the total beginner, but it’s not crazy hard either. A fine tip soldering iron is required or get your friendly local guitar tech to do it.

After that you restring the guitar with the jack hanging out of the sound hole. Dave’s tip of using light double-stick tape to temporarily secure the jack to the pick guard is a very good one.

After all this you have set the switches on the jack to balance the feedback protection for the best sound. Like Dave I used the “by ear” method. I was able to pretty quickly narrow the desired choices down to just two. Being me I fussed over that final decision for probably twice as long as it took to narrow it down to those two. :-)

My unscientific guess is those switches either set the center frequency of a notch filter or the shoulder roll off frequency of a high pass filter. Either way the effect is very noticeable and the feedback suppression is very effective. I had the S1 setting level, up on a table about 15 feet away outdoors. I had the volume cranked up pretty loud to overcome the direct acoustic sound of the guitar. I had to keep my hand on the strings all the time or it would feed back. Once I got close to the correct switch setting I could take my hand off the strings with zero feedback. I doubt it’s a total solution for all places and volumes but hey, every bit helps. This helps.

How does it sound after all that? As Dave noted it still sounds like a K&K pickup but that is not at all a bad thing. The low mid mud is really gone and it’s much better balanced. The guitar sound is now thoroughly usable straight into the S1 with the guitar ToneMatch off and worse with it on. Through the Fire-Eye it sounds fine now, too, and the treble level control comes into its own. Using the Platinum Stage EQ I can still get some minor improvement in sound over direct to the S1. I can use the sweepable mid differently to modify more of the upper mids, with all the settings a much closer to flat and I’m not living and/or dying by the HPF switch.

Bottom line: I’m very happy with the Ultra Tonic Conversion. It worked for me to bring the required EQ settings back near flat and gives me a good straight in sound. I’m going to have to come up with a new nickname for the CEO7.

If your K&K sounds muddy this conversion could be a fix for you. If you’re happy with how your K&K sounds you still might benefit from the feedback suppression from the Ultra Tonic. And James has designed in a way to have an external on/off switch for the feedback suppression if you want. Clever.

[Vancebo]

I have never been one of the lucky ones to get a balanced K&K. It’s nice to have a really smart solution available now. I doubt I will ever part with my Dazzos but if I got back into the experimental phase again it would be fun to try this one out.