Anyone replaced an undersaddle piezo with a K&K pure mini (or similar) using same guitar preamp?

Stratavarious · February 2022

As it says in title.

I prefer the more natural sound of the K&K type glued to the underside of the top near the bridge.

Anyone reused the onboard preamp/eq with a piezo swap? Will be a mid price Yamaha.

Andyjr1515 · February 2022

The K&K is a transducer and not a piezo. I'm pretty sure that the pre-amp can't be used as the K&K signal strength/impedance/etc/etc would not be matched.

I looked into something similar when I built Matt Marriott a dreadnought acoustic a couple of years ago. I fitted the LR Baggs Anthem AND the K&K Pure Mini into the guitar so he could choose a mix depending on the venue.

I started off with similar thoughts that I could simply switch the K&K and feed it through the LR Baggs pre-amp but the wise sages around here pointed out the above problem.

In the end, I fitted two outputs so that he could use either or both depending on the venue with neither being compromised by the other.

There was a fortunate spin off, by the way, because it also gave us an almost unique opportunity - to do an A/B comparison playing the same piece at the same time on the same guitar!

Here it is - he does a full demo (as always, best listened through headphones) and then talks a bit at the end of the settings and differences he found - on important one being the massively higher output of the totally passive K&K :

TINMAN82 · February 2022

You might want to consider the K&K trinity pro system- it’s a pure mini plus small internal microphone setup. I’ve got the version with outboard preamp (in my Martin 00028ec) but they also do a version with internal pre-amp like the baggs anthem.

If you plug a standard mono guitar lead in, the trinity just functions with pure mini alone. Using a stereo lead as supplied into the K&K preamp you add the mic too…it makes quite a big difference, adding “air” and sounding more natural.

Stratavarious · February 2022

Thanks for the feedback.. very useful

i might bypass the internals then and use a second K&K output, i am also doing a mandolin and they might be able to share a floor preamp.

ICBM · February 2022

Andyjr1515 said:

The K&K is a transducer and not a piezo. I'm pretty sure that the pre-amp can't be used as the K&K signal strength/impedance/etc/etc would not be matched.

Not so, the K&K is also a piezo. It's a contact pickup rather than an undersaddle one but it's still a piezo element. The impedance is very similar to any piezo UST and a preamp designed for one will work with it.

What it won't work with is a preamp designed for something like a B-Band pickup, which is a polarised capacitive element pickup - so you may need to know what technology the existing pickup was before trying it.

Stratavarious · February 2022

ICBM said:

Andyjr1515 said:

The K&K is a transducer and not a piezo. I'm pretty sure that the pre-amp can't be used as the K&K signal strength/impedance/etc/etc would not be matched.

Not so, the K&K is also a piezo. It's a contact pickup rather than an undersaddle one but it's still a piezo element. The impedance is very similar to any piezo UST and a preamp designed for one will work with it.

What it won't work with is a preamp designed for something like a B-Band pickup, which is a polarised capacitive element pickup - so you may need to know what technology the existing pickup was before trying it.

I have a few bits to try before I fix anything,

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Anyone replaced an undersaddle piezo with a K&K pure mini (or similar) using same guitar preamp?

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