Trance Audio Amulet M Pickup M-VT

[Mking]

What do any of you know about the Trance Audio M pickup? How does it compare to the K&K pickup? Thank you.

[Petty1818]

Originally Posted by Mking

What do any of you know about the Trance Audio M pickup? How does it compare to the K&K pickup? Thank you.

If you do a search, you can find a lot of threads and posts on this pickup. To get started though, I can give my two cents. I have tried both. The benefit of the Amulet is that it uses tape so it's easy to experiment with placement and/or remove it. Installation is pretty straightforward. The sound takes a lot less eq than the K&K. It's more hi-fi and cuts through the mix a bit better. The downside for me is that I found it to be a bit too hi-fi. I could never get the Amulet to sound warm enough and it was a bit thin on the higher strings. I find when strummed hard, it has a very noticeable piezo quality. With that said, others love it so that's just my opinion. I also had people complimenting me on my sound so maybe I am just picky!

The K&K uses superglue so that's a con, but it's a lot more predictable. Placement is straightforward and you typically know what you are going to get. The Amulet can be a bit of a nightmare trying to find the sweet spot. The K&K does need an external preamp and will require eq. However, I find it to sound warmer and fatter than the Amulet. The Amulet is hi-fi and the K&K is a bit woodier. Both have characteristics that bug me a bit, but I tend to enjoy playing K&K equipped guitars a bit more.

[SpruceTop]

Originally Posted by Mking

What do any of you know about the Trance Audio M pickup? How does it compare to the K&K pickup? Thank you.

Look for my demo threads in this Amplification section of AGF. I like the Trance systems but the whole installation process is too esoteric for most players but shouldn't be so. I install the Amulets with Henkel Loctite 6-Minute Epoxy and I'm the only one to do so as far as I know. Suggestion: Get a K&K or better yet get the Ultra Tonic 3.2.

[stevecuss]

Originally Posted by Petty1818

If you do a search, you can find a lot of threads and posts on this pickup. To get started though, I can give my two cents. I have tried both. The benefit of the Amulet is that it uses tape so it's easy to experiment with placement and/or remove it. Installation is pretty straightforward. The sound takes a lot less eq than the K&K. It's more hi-fi and cuts through the mix a bit better. The downside for me is that I found it to be a bit too hi-fi. I could never get the Amulet to sound warm enough and it was a bit thin on the higher strings. I find when strummed hard, it has a very noticeable piezo quality. With that said, others love it so that's just my opinion. I also had people complimenting me on my sound so maybe I am just picky!

The K&K uses superglue so that's a con, but it's a lot more predictable. Placement is straightforward and you typically know what you are going to get. The Amulet can be a bit of a nightmare trying to find the sweet spot. The K&K does need an external preamp and will require eq. However, I find it to sound warmer and fatter than the Amulet. The Amulet is hi-fi and the K&K is a bit woodier. Both have characteristics that bug me a bit, but I tend to enjoy playing K&K equipped guitars a bit more.

This is exactly my experience with the Trance. It is a fantastic pickup solution for a lot of folks.

As you chase K&K, you can muddy the waters by searching for other excellent sound board transducer pickups: Dazzo, Schatten HFN, Ultratonic.

Us SBT veterans have learned that this type of pickup is highly subjective to position, how it is attached and the physics of the guitar you're installing it into.

Every pickup comes with their own 'down side.' My preferred choice: HFN. The downside is very low output requiring a decent outboard preamp.

The Trance downside, in my opinion, is what was listed above.

[SpruceTop]

Using Henkel Loctite 6-Minute Epoxy to install the Amulets seems to enable a more forgiving positioning of the Amulets. The nice thing is the setting time for the epoxy gives 4 to 5 minutes to get the Amulets located exactly where you want them and I'd recommend just locating them per the Trance installation diagrams.

The Henkel Loctite 6-Minute Epoxy installation also adds more bass and warmth to the signal while reducing the trebly brittleness that the recommended tape installation usually introduces in the signal.

[Cuki79]

Petty said it all.

* For me Amulet needs to have tone pot to be relevant with red tape. (it's a bit more than fine tuning)
* Amulet is relevant thanks to the red tape.
* If epoxy was to be used I'd probably considered a passive solution like Dazzo or James May ultratonic.

There is no magic solution. Certain guitars work with certain pickup. It's a match. Even James May said that bridge plate flexibility and how close to the bracing count.

At the end of the day I think UST and K&K are the most predictible, although they might be the very best for your specific guitar.