Taylor Big Baby - will K&K Pure Mini be a good option?

thecolourbox

Hi all, I either need to add a pickup to my Taylor Big Baby guitar, or purchase a new (to me) electro acoustic. I think the pickup will be the more cost effective option as the Taylor is worth precisely nothing were I to sell it to find a new purchase. 

I've tried a couple of Fishman soundhole pickups and for various reasons they just don't really work very well for me. I'd like to use it with IRs which I already have, and for that purpose I've found (via help from ttony) that I prefer the piezo sound.

Research has suggested that the K&K Pure Mini seems as good a deal as any, £92 from Thomann. 

Is there a similar cost effective option I'm missing that might offer something better or different than that one? 

EDIT: it's for accompanying my voice. Mostly play finger picking and strumming, don't typically use a pick, and I like silk & steel strings

Thanks

BillDL

IF you do decide that the K&K stick-on transducers are what suits your needs and the guitar the best it might be wise to compare them to the much cheaper but well respected Journey Instruments equivalents, in particular the 3-transducer passive JourneyTek EP001K system.

Although they seem to be US-based they have a UK store and you will see the 3-transducer £45 (and the 4-transducer - for classical guitars where there are no bridge pins and all 4 will fit on the bridge pad - £50 versions here:

https://www.journeyinstrumentsuk.com/category/electronics

Oddly enough their only authorised UK retailer (Macari's London) sells the EP001K plus the £17 passive stick-on sound hole volume control for only a few quid more than the Journey Instruments store EP001K on its own:

https://www.macaris.co.uk/ep001k-pick-up-plus-volume-control/p/p10957

and the EP001K on its own for a few quid less:

https://www.macaris.co.uk/journeytek-ep001k-pick-up/p/p7285

(perhaps they charge carriage and the Journey store don't)

@FelineGuitars once mentioned that he sells JJB contact transducers that he referred to as "all but identical to the K&K but a fair bit more affordable":

https://www.thefretboard.co.uk/discussion/comment/3800117/#Comment_3800117

Other comments in that particular thread may be useful to you.

thecolourbox

That's very helpful info indeed yes, thank you. Very grateful. I'll see if there's anywhere UK based who sell the JJB ones but the Journey one from Macaris is looking very promising. It's a cheap guitar, will be going through IRs etc so I suspect that will do the job perfectly well

Teyeplayer

You could just buy direct from jjb, postage is next to nothing and there’s no import duty. I’ve just fitted one to my Larrivee and it sounds good. 

Teyeplayer

Or there is this seller on eBay: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/166727050905?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-127632-2357-0&ssspo=lHeKTs5gRr2&sssrc=4429486&ssuid=1nT2gcMVSUK&var=&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY

thecolourbox

Teyeplayer said:

You could just buy direct from jjb, postage is next to nothing and there’s no import duty. I’ve just fitted one to my Larrivee and it sounds good. 

I need to do it pretty quickly unfortunately, to give me time before a booking to get it fitted (I can't do it myself) and to get it integrated into my setup as well. There's a seller on eBay, so it's between that and the Journey one at Macaris.

The only trouble now having watched the install video, is whether I trust the guitar tech near me to do it all as there looks like a lot to go wrong, with the drill and with glueing them in place

Teyeplayer

It’s seriously not that hard. I’m 99% sure Taylor deliberately use an enlarged strap pin so there’s no drilling involved. Fitting is relatively easy with a bit of cardboard, bluetac and a little superglue when you are happy with placement. 

Teyeplayer

This installation technique would work with a jjb pickup: https://www.cavalierpickups.com/frettech/kk/index.html

thecolourbox

Teyeplayer said:

This installation technique would work with a jjb pickup: https://www.cavalierpickups.com/frettech/kk/index.html

Thanks but that looks like the stuff of nightmares for me, no way I could do that

thecolourbox

Are you of the opinion that the jjb is worth the extra over the Journey then?

I don't really know anything about acoustic guitars (hence why I've got a cheap and nasty one I suppose) so assume I'm an idiot and you won't go far wrong

BillDL

As far as I can tell they are all just the same thing inside i.e. small piezo-ceramic discs that probably cost about 10p each (and used to be used in novelty greetings cards that made sounds when you opened them), but encapsulated in resin and then all wired together with shielded cable.  THAT's what you are paying for.  Not the disc or the resin capsules, but wiring it all together into an assembly.  The actual transducers will be the cheap and generic component of all brands.

Teyeplayer said:

This installation technique would work with a jjb pickup: https://www.cavalierpickups.com/frettech/kk/index.html

That's a well illustrated and described article.  I would only add one observation, that it is much safer to use a "Step Drill" to enlarge the strap pin hole because it stays centred, whereas a large normal drill bit can wander off line and oval the hole.  It's actually a whole lot easier to do than the article's multiple images and step-by-step explanations would imply. Most of it's just the planning to make sure you don't make an arse of it.  The easiest part is following how you planned it at length, as is most often the case.  I wouldn't go as far as to suggest that a trained chimpanzee could do it, but ............... nope, it's hands will be too big and that prehensile thumb isn't quite dexterous enough to accurately position the glued-up discs - it would probably also stick its finger to the disc, then lick its finger and stick its tongue to the disc and its finger.  I would suggest doing it yourself 

Teyeplayer

thecolourbox said:

Teyeplayer said:

This installation technique would work with a jjb pickup: https://www.cavalierpickups.com/frettech/kk/index.html

Thanks but that looks like the stuff of nightmares for me, no way I could do that

If as I suspect the strap pin is already a large one that means no drilling, you would find the latter process of making a mini jig and aligning the pickups relatively straightforward. As @BillDL says, it’s not a challenging process. I found it a little fiddly in places, but nothing that wasn’t in my ability (and I’m really crap at this stuff). 

There also seems very little between the jjb and the journey. Go with whichever will arrive quickest. Then get the strings off that guitar and have a go for yourself, you’ll be pleased you did.  

thermionic

The Taylor GS Minis are designed to take their soundhole pickup, which comes with a strap pin jack which I understand is a quick swap which can be done by the owner. There is also a couple of plastic clips inside the guitar to route the cable.

FelineGuitars

We have the JJBs in stock

we import them from USA and think are very good 

These are the prices we have for them

Note that our pricing factors in shipping, import duty, VAT, and any admin costs and a small sales margin too. They are still great value compared to the K+K and possibly less than it would cost you to import one for yourself.

Prices include FREE UK Shipping

Prestige 220 £50

Prestige 330 £65

Prestige 430C £75

Shadow

The JourneyTek comes with a plastic jig, golf tee and cocktail stick to use for positioning, and bluetak. I don't think the JJB comes with any of that 

SlopeSoarer

Just check the bridge plate has enough room to install them. I haven't installed any on my Taylor GT Urban Ash as it looks very tight.

Also I believe K&K use a smaller disc than the JourneyTek version but don't know for definite.

BillDL

SlopeSoarer said:

Just check the bridge plate has enough room to install them. I haven't installed any on my Taylor GT Urban Ash as it looks very tight.

Also I believe K&K use a smaller disc than the JourneyTek version but don't know for definite.

THAT is excellent advice.  I just had a look at the sizes of the piezo-ceramic transducer discs on the K&K Mini, Journey Instruments EP001K, and the JJB Prestige systems.

K&K Pure Mini transducer discs are 1/2" (12.7mm) diameter.  The installation manual says that the transducer discs will lose about 30% of their output if stuck on with double-sided tape rather than superglue.  While mentioning the positioning of the discs they say that on some bridges they have glued the two outside ones on first then stuck the middle one on with tape between them so that repositioning was possible if they needed to balance the sound.  They say that the middle disc only contributes 15% of the overall output from the three discs anyway (if glued on) rather than 100/3 = 33.33%, so I suppose on a reduced size bridge plate it would be possible to instead use the 2x disc K&K Twin Spot version.

Journey Instruments EP001K has larger diameter discs of 20mm.  Something I hadn't noticed on their product page before now (look under collapsible specifications section https://www.journeyinstrumentsuk.com/product-page/journeytek-passive-3-piezo-pickup-ep001k) is this which is not ideal.  They do not have a twin disc version.

"Note: If installing on a guitar with narrow x-bracing under the saddle, such as a Martin Jr or Taylor GS Mini, one or more of the piezos may hang off of the edge slightly".

The JJB Prestige-330 transducer systems with 3 discs give the option to choose 15mm or 20mm diameter discs, whereas the Prestige GS-330 comes as standard with 15mm discs.  I'm not sure of the disc size in the Prestige-220 system (i.e. only 2 discs), but on their site it suggests these as an alternative for smaller guitars like "parlor" ones.

BillDL

For comparison and easy visualisation to check layout before committing, a UK 5p coin is 18mm diameter and a 1p coin is 20.3mm diameter.  Bear in mind you will need clearance of 2 to 3 mm for the ball end of the string to fit up against the bridge plate without it fouling the edges of the discs.

Stratavarious

I don’t need IRs with my K&K equipped guitar..  it’s by far the most natural sounding one plugged straight into PA.

Cirrus

I really liked the K&K I popped in my Taylor GS mini. I found that the tone was overly warm/middy plugged straight in to a flat PA system, but that the overall sound - the transient response, the balance between string and body tone etc - was great. I used a little acoustic preamp pedal to EQ out the midrange and add some top end, and it was my favourite live acoustic tone ever - way better than any plinky/twangy under-saddle piezo stick or boomy mic setup. My current acoustic is a Martin that came with the full ~£300 LR baggs anthem dual setup and if I was starting from scratch with that guitar... I'd get the K&K pure mini and a cheap preamp pedal.

ICBM

If you’re going to *only* drive an IR-based system, an undersaddle piezo strip actually works best - it’s a bit more difficult to fit than a K&K, but if the bridgeplate isn’t big enough it’s the only real option.

My Gibson has that, because Gibson put a tooling hole right in the middle of the bridgeplate just where the centre pickup of the K&K would be - but since I run it through a modelling preamp it’s fine.

If you want to hear what it sounds like -

https://www.thefretboard.co.uk/discussion/comment/3915426/#Comment_3915426