Pickup for a 12 String Acoustic

Westerly Wood

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I always liked the sounds of my Guilds using passive K&K mini. I even plugged straight into the mix and it was a sweet sound to my ears. Now, I might have lower expectations than most, I just want to be loud. Probably should have stuck with electric guitars :)
 

Nuuska

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Time for the impedance matching lecture for newbies. I'll try not to get too technical. It is the nature of piezo pickups that they need the input impedance of the next device in the signal chain to have a 1 Meg ohm input impedance. All soundboard transducers like the K&K mini and all undersaddle pickups use piezo crystals to turn vibration into and electrical signal. Run into a typical mixing board of around 800 ohms, the signal is bright and harsh. It is how piezo pickups react with the next device that determines the frequency response. With acoustic instruments, the first devise could be a pre, a DI box, a mixing board or an amplifier. You need something to match the impedance so you sound good. Virtually all acoustic pres and acoustic amps have the correct value input impedance. Some DIs do, some don't. Some mixing boards have a switch (labeled hi Z). If your guitar has a battery, it has an onboard pre amp so you are good to go. Regular electric guitar effects boxes and amplifiers usually don't match.

Some well known quality devices are the RedEye, the Baggs PARA DI, numerous Fishman products, K&K, etc.Usually money buys mo bedder. I am fortunate to live by Teddy Randazzo, maker of Dazzo pickups. I have them in six guitars. I have six and twelve string Pono parlor guitars. They are identical in every way but the number of strings, but they have different pickup sets tailored to each guitar. The K&K is designed to sound good in the most variety of guitars. It is this compromise that necessitates a lot of EQ. With Dazzos I use little to no EQ. K&K is the one size fits all solution, and maybe the way to go if you are not a sound geek.

Sometimes I think those that sell and install pickups don't want to lose a sale by pointing out the need to buy more gear. I can attest to the lack of this basic knowledge because I co host an open mike. 95% of K&K owners think they can just plug in, and they can if they want a harsh tone. It got so bad I had SunnAudio, another fine local company, build me a DI box we plug everyone into. Now those $4000 K&K equipped guitars sound good.


Howdy

Thanks for telling this again - so I do not have to - I've done that few times :watermelon:
 

Br1ck

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I always liked the sounds of my Guilds using passive K&K mini. I even plugged straight into the mix and it was a sweet sound to my ears. Now, I might have lower expectations than most, I just want to be loud. Probably should have stuck with electric guitars :)

Wanting to be loud is the one reason for using undersaddle pickups, or a magnetic soundhole pickup. Feedback resistance is better. That's the reason Taylors have a magnetic pickup as well as piezos in their system.
 

MLBob

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Removed the Baggs element active pickup that came in my Gibson 12 and had it replaced with a K&K Power Mix Pure passive system. (K&K pure mini coupled with their fantastick undersaddle or double helix soundhole PU .... I'm using the double helix in combination with the pure mini in a shallower-body Studio 24). I feel it gives much better sound, but that's me. A lot also depends on how you've EQ'd the signal at your pre-amp (s) I have the K&K dual-systems in all my acoustics now, and just had the luthier I use order me one he will install in the D-46 I got from GAD.
The pure mini for 12 strings is just the original size pure 3 transducer pickup, and using that or the smaller version may be a function of the room available on the bridgeplate in your guitar. Either should be fine.

Bob
 
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Butch

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For what it’s worth. I could never find a pickup that would give me the natural acoustic sound that I was looking for, so I decided to experiment. I ended up mounting wireless Samson lavalier microphones inside of all of my guitars. It gives you the absolute best, natural, acoustic sound that you could imagine. Best of all, it’s really inexpensive.
 

richardp69

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For what it’s worth. I could never find a pickup that would give me the natural acoustic sound that I was looking for, so I decided to experiment. I ended up mounting wireless Samson lavalier microphones inside of all of my guitars. It gives you the absolute best, natural, acoustic sound that you could imagine. Best of all, it’s really inexpensive.

Man, please tell me more about that. My email is daisydog69@gmail.com
 

crank

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For what it’s worth. I could never find a pickup that would give me the natural acoustic sound that I was looking for, so I decided to experiment. I ended up mounting wireless Samson lavalier microphones inside of all of my guitars. It gives you the absolute best, natural, acoustic sound that you could imagine. Best of all, it’s really inexpensive.

I have been thinking about going with something like that for my 412. The K&K in my dread picks up a full, round, robust sound and is awesome.

My 412 sounds amazing acoustically and kind of lifeless, or possibly not as rich and full when amplified with it's K&K. I use the same Fishman preamp for both guitars. I would love to get much closer to teh 412's acoustic sound when run through a PA.
 

HeyMikey

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Butch, Yes... please tell us more about the Samson system and setup you are using!
 

kostask

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Br1ck's post on impedance matching is perfect, and a great place to start.

The part that often gets left out (and some of the other posts have hinted at it) is that piezo pickups have a couple of things that people need to know about. One of which is that piezo pickups can often overload the first amplifier element (op amp or discrete transistors) due to the low power supply voltage. This is where the DTAR system has made an improvement (and I am NOT saying that this is the only system this way, its just that Rick Turner explained this to me) in that it is an 18V system. While it only has a pair of AA batteries (3.0-3.2V), it uses an on board DC-DC convertor to turn that voltage into 18V. The reason for this is that the "quack" that a lot of piezo transducers put out is the result of input overload. The 18V supply of the DC-DC converter allows the input element to accept a much larger input signal without overloading. I'm pretty sure that there are other preamps that are now using 18V (or more)supplies to prevent piezo "quack".
 
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