K&K mini Pickup sound alot better with Preamp?

[Thisisme]

hello I have a k&K mini equipped acoustic and I was wondering if you get much better results in tone with using the k&K pick up with a K&K preamp when being played though your acoustic guitar amp?

I'm aware it will be much better when your pluuged into a PA live because it allows you to have tone control but I was wondering if there's a significant difference when used with a acoustic amplifier?

[KenL]

I have never used a preamp with a K&K. I've always plugged straight in to the PA or my acoustic amp, and it sounds terrific.

I've had a Genz Benz Shenandoah 150 for a long time. It EQs nicely, and has plenty of FX.

[SalFromChatham]

There is an often talked about impedance match issue with k&k pickups.

I know that the use of

1) Boss TU3-w tuner
2) Fire Eye Red Eye preamp
3) k&k pure XLR preamp

All improved my sound into my Fishman stick and Loudbpx Artist.

Some in this board say that issue is overrated, and some agree with me. Plenty of threads in the Acoustic Amplification forum... check them out.

[JayBee1404]

Originally Posted by themissal

There is an often talked about impedance match issue with k&k pickups.

I know that the use of

1) Boss TU3-w tuner
2) Fire Eye Red Eye preamp
3) k&k pure XLR preamp

All improved my sound into my Fishman stick and Loudbpx Artist.

Some in this board say that issue is overrated, and some agree with me. Plenty of threads in the Acoustic Amplification forum... check them out.

K&K themselves agree with you - the following is from the 'Troubleshooting' section of their Installation Instructions...

"Impedance mis-match issue: Acoustic amps and most competitors’ preamps are designed to work best with undersaddle pickups or other very high ohmic piezo pickups. They feature extremely high input impedance (5-10 meg), which boosts the bass response. Most competitors’ pickups need this high input impedance to boost their weak bass response.The Pure has a strong low-end response. It is overkill to boost it.

The Pure sounds best with input impedance like 500 k to 1 meg. If you experience excessive bass response, plug the Pure Pickup straight into the line input of a mixing board -- you’ll see that the excessive bass response is gone."

All of the devices you List above fall into the '500k to 1 meg' category, as do Orchid's Acoustic Pre-amp, and their Muting DI, both of which I use.

[Quickstep192]

I just got a K&K Mini in my guitar. The first time I used it, I plugged it straight into a house PA and it sounded awful. But, it sounded fine plugged straight into a Fishman acoustic amp. I’ve since gotten the K&K XLR pre-amp and I’m hoping it will improve performance when plugged into a PA.

[brancher]

Originally Posted by Thisisme

hello I have a k&K mini equipped acoustic and I was wondering if you get much better results in tone with using the k&K pick up with a K&K preamp when being played though your acoustic guitar amp?

I'm aware it will be much better when your pluuged into a PA live because it allows you to have tone control but I was wondering if there's a significant difference when used with a acoustic amplifier?

The short answer is, it depends on the guitar, amp, cable length, instrument size and tonal characteristics, etc. The preamp is designed to boost your signal and allow you to shape the sound a bit. Sometimes you can get great sound with just your amp and a K&K (particularly with larger guitars), but sometimes you will want to shape a little (example, my Yairi Rosewood slope dread is pretty bassy, so I often use the Pure mini Preamp - run thru the effects loop return - to pad the bass down and scoop my mids a little).

If you do use a K&K pure preamp (or any other preamp I would assume), I'd recommend you use the return port on the effects loop. That bypasses the built-in preamp fussiness in the amp itself and sends your shaped tone directly thru the amp....

As usual, ymmv....

[sublro]

Some people have found that preamps with that high (10meg ohm) are ok if you just turn down the bass, some say they get great sounds with no preamp. My experience across several k&k- equipped guitars over the years has been all over the map. So it can be highly dependent on the install in your particular guitar where and how the sensitivities of the pickup manifest. And keep in mind that the k&k starts out having a pretty hot signal with very healthy amounts of bass in most installs.

After Lots of experimentation I've found the headway edm1 preamp. It's low impedance (which for me had made a difference in removing the low midrange "tubiness" that ihave experienced with 10mOhm preamps), makes it sound alot better than the raw signal (to be fair many preamps do) and has one control that most preamps lack which i found to be key. it is an adjustable filter knob that blocks all bass below whatever frequency you dial in. Once you realize that natural acoustic tone generally has less bass than most amplifier signal chains provide, AND that feedback starts with overloading somewhere down in those lower frequencies, it's easy to understand the value of "cleaning up" that part of the frequency spectrum from the get-go. This is especially true if you are playing with a band, and doubly so with a bass player, both of which make the bass response of the acoustic guitar even more redundant and possibly problematic as they will cause sympathetic vibration in the soundboard of acoustic guitars at performance volumes.

Once i got hip to proactively managing the low end by cleaning it up, instead of inadvertently boosting it and then attempting to turn it down, the k&k becomes truly consistently outstanding.

[sublro]

duplicate message

[RustyAxe]

All the stuff about impedance matching aside ... when I installed my first K&K years ago I was seriously disappointed. I added the simple Pure preamp and all was good. I almost never use one of my K&K equipped guitars without a preamp.

[jonfields45]

To my ear, the 10M input of Fishman amps sounds a little off with my K&K equipped guitar. The Fishman input stage is a single MOSFET transistor biased with a bipolar power supply and a single 10M gate resistor to ground. It is exactly the type of circuit K&K warns about. I have a simple electric guitar booster pedal that takes care of the problem and does not bring in a bunch more tone controls redundant to the ones already in the amp, but many preamps are suitable (though maybe not Fishman ones...). This also works perfectly, a single 1M strapping resistor which I plug into my Fishman Loudbox Mini Charge.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B_D...ew?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B_D...ew?usp=sharing

[Woodstock School Of Music]

Originally Posted by RustyAxe

All the stuff about impedance matching aside ... when I installed my first K&K years ago I was seriously disappointed. I added the simple Pure preamp and all was good. I almost never use one of my K&K equipped guitars without a preamp.

The same thing happened to me

[gfirob]

Best K&K - preamp setup bar none is the Tonedexter IMHO. If you are not familiar with it, check out Doug Young's review and demo on Youtube. There is nothing like it.

[Thisisme]

thanks for all the replies everyone it is helpful. I don't want to get a different pre amp than the K&K one as I like how small it is and don't want to spend £200. I think I might buy the K&K preamp if I dont find it much difference I will return it. I have an Isolo for when I do acoustic gigs which is buy far the best acoustic pick up ever. its basically a mic but I cant use the isolo for when I'm busking and playing outdoors (if its windy) because I'm very close to my amp when I busk so It will feedback. and it has a lower output than a K&K

[AeroUSA]

Get a ToneDexter

[RustyAxe]

There are MANY suitable preamp/EQ/FX/Boost/DI units available. Tonedexter seems to be the AGF flavor of the month. Go back a year or two and see what the previous contenders were.