Official Luthiers Forum!

I'll set the scene..
I have some acoustic gigs coming up in a month and have up until now only really done gigs playing electric guitar...so I'm a sort of acoustic amplification noob.
One thing I do know is I'm not particularly fond of the piezo pickup sound whenever I've had a chance to plug one in..I'm sure there is some good ones but they don't sound all that natural to me..
The other thing I don't want to do is cut any holes in my guitar other than a hole for a jack.

This leads my research down to a few options ..magnetic soundhole pickups or something like the "KKsound" or "Pickup the world" varieties.
I like the look of the KKsound gear.

Has anyone had any experience with the pure western and the trinity systems? Is there a big added bonus with the microphone on the trinity?
Also , I like the look of their preamps especially the pur XLR..I like the idea of having control over EQ and volume and gain on a belt clip or within easy reach..

And this is the thing thats confusing me most.
If I decide to buy an acoustic amp do I need the preamp at all..Can I plug straight into the amp with something like the "Pure Western".

How do you folk amplify your acoustics and what pickup and or preamps/acoustic amps do you recommend?

Cheers Grant

i have used the KK stuff a lot ... pretty much all the variations as well ...

My personal preference these days is the simplest ... pure western into one of the preamps, (I am now lusting after the new tube driven one), and then into either a good amp (again, the best one I have heard lately is the Fishman loudbox 100) or directly into a good PA - i have played into both the Fishman solo amp (nice) and the Bose systems (unreal - the absolute best acoustic tone for a PA). A friend/client came over with a loudbox a couple months ago, and it creamed my old Trace Elliott - it sounded so boxy after hearing the loudbox. The bottom end was so full, even with a baritone, and the anti feedback control worked so well I could sit 3 feet in front of it, at the same volume my trace would be howling, and take my hands off the guitar and NOTHING - I was very impressed. It also sounded so transparent.. just true acoustic tone.

I do have a guitar with the trinity, and I do like it - the mic is there for a bit of depth/ambience really - its not like you will get good mic tone form it, it feeds back too easily to usre at any volume.

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Tony Karol
www.karol-guitars.com
"let my passion .. fulfill yours"

hi grant
my experience as a user of many acoustic pickups trying to get “that sound” in many situations has led me to the conclusion that, as with most things in life it’s about compromise. I use K & K Western minis in my main giging guitar (a big Lowden “O” ) which feeds back uncontrollably at about 190 Hz. (G?) and about 1800 Hz. to a lesser degree so the compromise is to put a parametric Eq. in line. I use the wee Danish T.C Electronics Dual Parametric which also buffers the signal into an AER Compact 60 which goes to the mixing desk in bigger venues.
yours Geordie

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In my opinion, and as such, based on 18 years of playing( which I realize is just crumbs), if you want the best sound you should use a high quality microphoine. Forget all the pickups. Use a mic costing at least $100 and a preamp. It is a pain hovering around a mic, but in my opinion a good mic is the closest thing to a truly amplified guitar clean sound.

Thanks everyone.

I'm just wondering. In a live situation do you guys just use the pure western by itself or do you blend it with either a UST or mic?
I'm mainly going to be using it in small low volume duo/trio situations with no drums.. Do you think the pure western is fine on its own?

Tony,....I'm wondering if you have heard the L R Baggs Para DI and how it compares to the K & K preamps?

The L R Baggs Para DI does not seem to work well with the K&K. Their own system works great.

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Wisdom is justified by her children

Cheers Mark,.... I've been reading that this is the case..
so I'll definitely go with the K&K preamp thats matched for the pickup.

Hmmm ... I have not read that .. I know thats what Stephen Bennett uses, and he has played my baritones thru his ... just a pure western plugged straight in. In fact he will likley being doing that again next week so I will check and see. But that last time he was up here, it sounded pretty fine to me - maybe his is an older version ???

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Tony Karol
www.karol-guitars.com
"let my passion .. fulfill yours"

I'm with Tony, to my ear my Baggs works fine with both the K&K and PUTW #54 but it is a newer one with a gain control. I put a PUTW in a fellows guitar that ran it through a Baggs PADI and it was not that great. Not enough signal. Turned out it was an older model without a gain control. Maybe that's where the warning came from.
I'd call Deiter at K&K. He'll give you the straight answer.
Terry

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It's not what you don't know that hurts you, it's what you do know that's wrong.

Not enough signal sure isnt a KK problem ... I only use the minis, and my baritone with those was WAY louder than Stephen's Morris SB model - he had to turn the ParaDI down some ...

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Tony Karol
www.karol-guitars.com
"let my passion .. fulfill yours"

When I talked to Deiter he helped me thru some things since I have a mic on this system. Otherwise its staight to the sound board when not using the mic. Deiter is great to work with.

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Wisdom is justified by her children

In a situation like that I'd also go for the mic set up too. Piezo's sound awful IMO but they do allow you to run all over stage and do sliding splits on stage while picking with your teeth

I've had the best sounding results using transducers into a pre amp with EQ. I think EQ is key to any accoustic/electric set up. The other good thing about getting a quality mic is that it's a bit more versatile and can be used for recording and for other instruments. Just a thought.

This is cut and paste straight off the K&K sound website.

Q: Can I use other manufacturers preamps with the pure?

A: Competitors' preamps may work, but chances are that you will have an impedance mismatch.


Most competitors' preamps are designed to work best with undersaddle pickups or other piezo pickups which require extra high ohmic inputs. They feature extremely high input impedance (5-10 mega Ohm) which boosts the bass response.


Their pickups need this extra high input impedance to boost the bass response, because most of their pickups sound tinny in passive mode. The Pure has a healthy bass response to begin with. It is overkill to boost it with extremely high input impedance.


If you use an LR Baggs Para DI Preamp, for example, you may experience an extremely high bass response with the Pure system which in return may lead to boominess. You should turn down the bass to compensate. Usually the tonal clarity is a lot better if you use K&K preamps with K&K Pure pickups.


All K&K preamps feature 1 mega Ohm input impedance, which is considered a high impedance but not super high one.

Are you talking about undersaddle quacksticks, in which case I agree, or soundboard transducers, in which case I mostly don't.

In a real live situation, an internal mic starts to feed back VERY shortly after you can hear it, no surprise, when you put a mic inside a box. Of course, you CAN notch filter/eq--depends on how much crap you want to carry around, to be able to hear your guitar. I figure, an internal mic situation works best, where the level is such that you could be using an external mic.

Caveat: yes, most SBTs need some sort of low-end rolloff when levels start getting around playing-with-drums, levels.

I just bought a whole lot of piezo discs & Mogami cable...

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https://soundcloud.com/jeffreylsuits/he ... -runnin-13

Here we are on a board that deals entirely with building acoustic guitars, discussing how to get the AUDIENCE the hear our wonderful instruments.
We're into a topic that adds as many variables to the equation as tonewood selection.
The halls are all different, the stages are different as are noise levels in said halls and on said stages.

Break it down to the essences of the matter. Do we want to reproduce the sound of the wonderful instrument or AMPLIFY it? In some cases the two things can be completely separate and sometimes they work together.

If we use a magnetic pickup, we're talking about amplification, because you won't have the sound of the instrument, but the sound of the strings themselves.
A mic inside the instrument will pickup the sound of the inside of the instrument, which is different than the sound outside the instrument.
Piezo will give the sound of a hunk of ceramic crammed between the saddle and the bridge and the soundboard.
A mic on the outside of the instrument will give the sound just outside the instrument, which is probably the sound we're listening for, but it also picks up sounds from around the stage as well.

This is a great topic and one that begs discussion. Each of us probably has something different that works, but is probably a compromise of factors.
When I'm on stage, I use an LR Baggs Dual Source run into a Boss AD-5. This is old school stuff, but I get the best tone possible that is as close to a reproduction of the tone of my instrument. There's a bit of interior mic sound, some smooth, but still piezo tones from the Baggs saddle pickup, and a little bit of processing, graphic and parametric eq from from Boss unit. It works for me, and I can get results (nearly) every time I plug everything in.

That said, the best tone I've EVER heard from the same instrument came from a gig where I hooked everything up, strummed a chord in front of an audience of 2,000 and NOTHING HAPPENED. I grabbed a Shure SM81 (like the one you've seen in vintage James Taylor PBS specials) that was on a nearby stand, pointed it at the lower bout of the soundboard and went with it. The sound from that mic blew away the years of tweaking and testing and tinkering that I've done with my set up. However, I can't use it in a typical stage situation because it picks up everything else on stage.

Your best solution is going to be found in testing, tinkering and compromising what it is you are looking for in a sound. Whether it is reproduction, amplification or a combination of the two to get your tone, it probably won't be found in one simple and inexpensive unit.
Unfortunately, like most things in this game, you get what you pay for. If you want fantastic tone, you're going to have to pay for it, both in cash and invested time.

That's my take, but I think an important one for discussion.

Dave Livermore

"Piezo will give the sound of a hunk of ceramic crammed between the saddle and the bridge and the soundboard."

If you're talking undersaddle, agreed, BUT-- soundboard transducers are a different ballgame. All, except for B-Band (as far as I know), are piezoelectric.

USTs are picking up & amplifying the very beginning the sound of an acoustic guitar, the string crossing the saddle, which is why it sounds like an attack, with a note stuck to it.

I think in a dual source system, the UST would make a great bass source--they do that real well, sans feedback--and some manner of SBT, w/ low end rolled off, would make a great sound. I fooled with that in a guitar that had come with a Fishman dual source, replacing the Fishman UST with a PUTW
Aircore (no longer made), and, finally, a Baggs I-beam in lieu of the (worthless, IMO) mic. It sounded quite good, but there was not enough mixing/eq-ing flexibilty, and I ended up taking the whole thing
out, and replacing with a K&K, passive.

I tried the K&K internal dual-source preamp as well, but that didn't do it for me, either--couldn't roll enough mids & highs off the quackstick, to make it a bass-only source; I've wondered about the Baggs similar system, but that's all.

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https://soundcloud.com/jeffreylsuits/he ... -runnin-13

I'm not familiar with the K&K pickups, but I agree that the USTs all sound terrible to me. I've never heard anything that sounds as good as just playing into a decent mic. That said, I think the best sounding "amplified acoustic" guitar sound I've heard was Richard Thompson playing a Lowden with a Sunrise soudhole pickup. Although it doesn't sound like an acoustice guitar exactly, it doesn't sound like a strat either.

For years, actually decades, I've used a Bill Lawrence soundhole pickup into an old Fender Vibralux Reverb; sometimes using an LR Baggs pre-amp, sometimes not. Honestly, I've never quite got the hang of adjusting all those little knobs on the Baggs. Although it never sounded as good as playing into a mic, sometimes it seems necessary - like playing with percussionists and so forth. Recently, I got a Fender Acoustasonic Jr. and I really like the way it works and it sounds pretty good to my ears.
Walter

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Walter Lay
"It's taken me so long, but now that I know
I can see. All that I do or say, is all I ever will be"
- Billy Joe Shaver

Jeffrey,

I was talking about a nice mic mounted to a boom stand on stage. For quite stage settings as the OP described IMHO this is the best way to go at least for the sake of tone. It's always a lot easier to just plug a guitar into an amp or even a PA but it will lack tonal quality. And all I am saying is that IMO the transducer like the pure pickups sound better then piezo. I have and would do so again used piezo for rock gigs as it's just easier to control and gets the job done.

Yeah, amplifying acoustic guitar live is one set of compromises, or another...or reinventing the Telecaster...

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https://soundcloud.com/jeffreylsuits/he ... -runnin-13

I recently found a Baggs I-beam at a good price and bought it. I haven't installed yet, as the guitar I'm planning to put it in isn't finished yet (koa OM cutaway...). I hope I will like it. Any comments about the I-beam...?

They can sound really, REALLY, good; they are EXTREMELY finicky (in my experience) about placement.
I wonder about an Ibeam, wired parallel with an undersaddle, a la PUTW's "quackbuster" setup.

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https://soundcloud.com/jeffreylsuits/he ... -runnin-13

I found the Ibeam to sound pretty good in my number 1, I liked the tone better than a piezo .. but then I put a KK trinity in my Dragonfly and there was no comparison .. it blew the Ibeam away - and it would go a fair bit louder before feeding back ... needless to say the Ibeam is long gone.

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Tony Karol
www.karol-guitars.com
"let my passion .. fulfill yours"

Tony, I'm not sure that it's fair to compare the I-beam with the KK trinity. The KK trinity is 3 times more expensive... I bought the I-beam for about $112. I liked that it had a volume control for mounting inside the sound hole. I was going to get the K&K mini but impulsively bought the I-beam...

true Steve .. but you can get the pure western and a preamp for about 200 ... which is the trinity without the mic half .... and that alone is still way better sound than an Ibeam, with more headroom for volume .. I mean if all you want to spend is a hundred bucks, well, it will work, and it will sound OK ...

At a store where I did repairs for a while, the owner had one of my guitars with both an Ibeam and a Fishman in it (this is while I still thought Ibeams were it). He liked the FM because it went louder prior to feedback, I didnt like the quack. The tone from the Ibeam was better IMO, we were plugging into a couple different Genz Benz acoustic amps .. but again, once I heard a KK that I had to install for a customer there ...

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Tony Karol
www.karol-guitars.com
"let my passion .. fulfill yours"

After I posted that last post I realized that it was pretty stupid... If you want better sound, you need to get what gives it to you... even if it costs a little more... I wonder if the "foam" mounting tape on the I-beam would have a bearing on the sound. The K&Ks mount with CA. Do you think it might be better to mount the I-beam with CA instead of the foam tape that is supplied?