Official Luthiers Forum!

Hi Guys

I'm doing a bit of work on a friends Archtop and he's thinking about having a pickup installed.

I've been searching around and apart from the floating neck pickups I came across the 'K&K PureArchtop' pickup. http://www.kksound.com/purearchtop.html.

This system looks pretty good and easy to install etc.

I was just wondering if any of you have used it or have any opinions as to whether it would be a good option or not?

Many thanks

Mat

I have used K&K's on acoustics but not on an archtop. I plan to try a set on my next archtop however I will also install a standard humbucker pickup on the neck. The reason for this is that while the K&K's have excellent sound reproduction.. I don't believe they will give you that fat/warm archtop sound that is traditional. Also, while the K&K's are very good... you really need a preamp to go with them. On the acoustics I use the external dual channel preamp. One of the issues with this arrangement is the tone controls are small pots that are inside the box. I've been thinking of building a preamp that is inside the archtop that has contols for both pickups... but I don't have it thought out completely yet.

Hi Mat,
I've used the Kent Armstrong pickup that mounts to the end of the fretboard extension. The one that LMII lists for around $140 is good, but the one I use is the hand wound one that's a bit more money (don't remember how much). It has that sweet traditional jazz sound.
Craig

I recently installed a K&K Pure Archtop on a Maccaferri copy (petit bouche -- no way am I going to do any more internal pickup installations on those!!). Dieter at K&K highly recommended the Pure Archtop for this, the customer was willing to gamble, I liked the 10 minute installation (and no bruises from reaching inside). We plugged in, he played, and all was just fine. He called after his gypsy gig that night to say how happy he was with the pickup.

My take is that for acoustic archtops, it's a good option. For that jazz/mag pickup sound, it wouldn't satisfy. Too woody, if you will. And I second Kent's pickups. They're the standard among fine archtop builders though there are other very, very good pickups available.

Rick Davis
Running Dog Guitars

Thanks for your responses guys, it's very much appreciated and most helpful
Mat