K&K is the new star in acoustic guitar amplification. The growing popularity of its Pure Western pickup has garnered it a Gold in the Acoustic Pickups section of Acoustic Guitar Magazine 2008 poll. One of the offerings from K&K is the Trinity Mini. For the purposes of this review, the sound clips were all recorded using a Timothy S10J with the Trinity Mini superglued on the baseplate of the guitar. The microphone was placed in a way such that the mic head is positioned near the base of the neck of the guitar.
Installation
There are two ways to fit the Pure Mini pickup onto the guitar. You can either tape mount it, or super-glue it with the included adhesive. The latter is supposed to provide the better sound, so we went with it. For this version of the Trinity pickup system, the pre-amp is located outside of the guitar, shown here. There is another version of the Trinity pickup system, the Onboard Trinity System that has the pre-amps inside of the guitar. The downside of this type of installation is the slight damping of sound caused by the extra weight inside the guitar. The endpin fitted into the already available guitar jack of the Timothy S10J so it was just a matter of replacing the current Fishman endpin with the K&K one. As always, if your guitar does not have a guitar jack hole, we advise the drilling to be done by a competent guitar tech. The K&K Trinity Mini comes supplied with a stereo cable, which is used to connect from the guitar to the pre-amp. This system comes with stereo capabilities, which will be demonstrated in the below sound clips.
The pre-amp is pretty configurable in terms of eq. However, it is not very intuitive, as you can see from the picture. Using a mini screwdriver, which is attached to the side of the insides of the pre-amp, you can adjust the low, mid and high eq settings of both the pickup and microphone to your liking. However, it was difficult to see which setting each eq knob was at because there is no indication of the setting on the circuit board. The included guide printed on the underside of the cover simply tells you which knobs to adjust for what setting you want.
Sound
Acoustic purists have always struggled with guitar amplification. Acoustic guitars amplified have always sounded somewhat piezo-y, or electric. Most players settle for a compromise in tone, feedback and authenticity.
First, we tried the pickup alone option. This was achieved by simply rolling the microphone knob on the pre-amp to 0.To my ears the sound of the K&K pickup is still somewhat electric, but an improvement over the average pickup. A melodic finger-style of playing suited this pickup, as heard in the clip below. It sounds pretty sweet!
Next I tried to play percussion with the pickup only option.
The knocks on the guitar body were not as prominent as I would have wanted. Definitely not as loud as if I recorded it with a microphone.
Next, I dialed in the microphone 1/3 of the way in. Immediately I heard an improvement in the pickup of the percussive playing.
The melodic finger-style playing sounded a tad more natural. Here is the clip.
I decided to try the K&K Trinity stereo capabilities. Connecting a mono cable each to the left and right output of the pre-amp. First I played melodically. Note that in this clip, I dialed up the microphone to be of the same volume as the pickup so that it would not sound unbalanced.
This is a good way to amplify your guitar if you have the luxury of two channels into the mixer. However, I wouldn't not pan the two channels so far apart as it sounds a bit unbalanced, especially in the percussive playing where it was evident that the microphone channel picked up the percussion much more than the pickup channel.
A test with my monitor speakers turned up revealed that there is a limit to how much of the microphone channel you can dial in in real-life. One way to get around this would be to use a sound-hole cover, but still there would be a limit.
Conclusion
Dual source pickups are getting more popular with acoustic guitarists who realize that having more sources is a good way to get a more acoustic sound, or at least, make the amplified sound bigger or sweeter.
Actually the sound of the K&K Pure Mini pickup alone reminded me of B-Band AST pickup. B-Band's AST is somewhat brighter though, and didn't really sound great by itself. (It was supposed to be paired with a UST in the configuration I tried it in.)
Overall I would recommend the K&K Pure Mini pickup alone for those who are on a budget and want a sweet sound for finger-style. To allow percussive playing to be heard, you will need the microphone in the blend.
This pickup configuration is suited for small venues. In a large band setting where you have to fightthe drums, I would not recommend this pickup as the feedback threshold is not as high as say, a piezo or magnetic pickup.
All in all, the Trinity mini is a good, versatile pickup for finger-style players in small, intimate settings.
