I am a new member. Purchased an L1 with the subwoofer. I have several acoustics I have equiped with K&K Pure western mini pick ups. Anyone have a favorite preset with this pu. Thanks

Welcome, sadie! And thanks for purchasing your L1 system! Have you had an opportunity to gig with it yet?

That Pure Western Mini looks like a way cool solution. Fairly popular around these forums, too. Here's what a quick search revealed...

Have you tried it with Preset 00 (flat)? If so, how'd you like/dislike it? You might also audition the curves in the 40-49 bank. I'm confident that with a bit of experimentation and critical listening, you'll get it dialed in nicely. Please let us know how it all goes and if we can be of any help...

All the best,

Chuck

I've not experimented with all the presets but #40 is working well for me. Lets us know which works best for you.

Hi, Sadie.

Coming into this discussion late, but my luthier buddy (Tony Karol, www.karol-guitars.com) installs a lot of K&K.

He built a beautiful Cedar over Padauk Signature model for a friend of mine, equipped with a Pure Western Mini setup.

It sounded very good for a passive piezo setup, but we could never quite seem to dial it in through EQ.

The guitar didn't really come into its own, until I lent him a K&K outboard preamp. It was the smallest, least expensive one they make, but it made a HUGE difference. Totally woke the guitar up.

Going through the preamp, and with the EQ set flat, the guitar now sounds best on preset 00.

I would strongly recommend picking up a proper piezo preamp in order to really do your K&K-equipped guitars justice. If you go with an outboard model, then you can share it amongst all your guitars.

Did you try the backpacker preset? Maybe it's just the Martin backpacker, but I needed a preamp for any other PA etc., until I tried the special setting on the Bose. Now my little travel guitar sounds big and full without the preamp. I noticed, thankfully, that this preset is also on the T1.

Respect

The K&K mini is a SBT (Sound Board Transducer). Not the the same as traditional UST (under the sadle)Piezo systems!

From K&K's website - Advantages of the Pure System: The special Pure surface transducers transmit a significant portion of the soundboard because they are not as close to the strings as an under-saddle pickup. Each of the three transducers is designed to pick up a specific string pair, but also "listens" to the adjacent area around the bridge. The Pure pickups are not under pressure and therefore do NOT sound percussive or harsh. The Pure System reproduces all strings nicely balanced, a known problem with under-saddle pickups. The Pure System sounds great just in passive mode! Unlike under-saddle pickups which passively sound thin and trebled-only, the passive Pure System puts out a nicely balanced, warm, full range signal.

The mini by itself does not require a pre-amp if your guitar cord is 10' or shorter. If you're considering an outboard pre for the K&K SBT definitley use K&K's pre for matching impedance. Lot's of folks have excellent results with this set up for sure. Makes sense to bypass the Bose EQ and dial up 00....

This message has been edited. Last edited by: mike o,

Well, I tried a ton of presets tonight, and several sounded ok. But I went back to the straight 80Hz High pass, then boosted the highs quite a bit on the remote (about 10dB). I'd probably normally use less high boost, but the strings are a little dead.

Then I cut the mids about 2dB. This dialed it in pretty close. It didn't sound bad with the mids flat, just more "electric" sounding. Pulling them out made the top shimmer and the bottom more bell like. It was still amazingly full on the low end, even without a preamp. Much of that is the guitar, but these K&K's are awesome pickups.

The interesting thing was the highs. I would never, EVER think of boosting highs with a piezo UST. Ugh! So I was very tentative about bringing them up in this setup. But what I discovered is that the SBT style K&K can handle a lot of high end boost without getting harsh. Even 12dB wasn't offensive. It actually opened up the "air" quite a bit and made it very "condenser mic" sounding. In fact, I have to say it's the closest to a condenser any of my guitars have ever sounded when using only a pickup.

I'm going to try to borrow the impedance matched K&K preamp at some point to try out. But for now I'm close enough to be quite happy.