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Post by Amit on Jun 14, 2018 19:40:02 GMT
I tried a GE-7 with my K&K, also sound it very noisy! I've a Red Eye, a Baggs Para and a few others - if ever you find yourself near Birmingham and want to have a try.
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Post by jackorion on Jun 15, 2018 7:43:13 GMT
ok - last night was fine during soundcheck, but then the house PA was turned up during my set (way too loud to be fair, why do people insist on cranking everything?!) and I had some low rumble issues and some feedback around the f# - g region.
I got home last night and started looking online at the Grace preamps again - they do look good and full of features but I don't think I can bring myself to spend £1000 on a preamp!
I'm in a bit of a pickle as I think a lot of the issues are coming from poor house PA setups and excessive volume or incompetent sound people - my simplified setup of 'guitar, cable, orchid' works when the sound levels are appropriate for the music, but as they start to get into inappropriate levels the issues with the K&K are arising.
I'm loathe to completely change my setup in order to deal with only those occasions but I think if I'm to continue to use the K&K live, I need to have something in my arsenal which can handle the issues... Obviously I've yet to use the guitar in an 'ideal' situation so I don't know how it will work in those circumstances either...
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Post by scorpiodog on Jun 15, 2018 10:24:29 GMT
ok - last night was fine during soundcheck, but then the house PA was turned up during my set (way too loud to be fair, why do people insist on cranking everything?!) and I had some low rumble issues and some feedback around the f# - g region. I got home last night and started looking online at the Grace preamps again - they do look good and full of features but I don't think I can bring myself to spend £1000 on a preamp! I'm in a bit of a pickle as I think a lot of the issues are coming from poor house PA setups and excessive volume or incompetent sound people - my simplified setup of 'guitar, cable, orchid' works when the sound levels are appropriate for the music, but as they start to get into inappropriate levels the issues with the K&K are arising. I'm loathe to completely change my setup in order to deal with only those occasions but I think if I'm to continue to use the K&K live, I need to have something in my arsenal which can handle the issues... Obviously I've yet to use the guitar in an 'ideal' situation so I don't know how it will work in those circumstances either... Maybe this could be addressed with the sound engineer prior to your beginning your performance. I know some of them are pig headed idiots who think everything is stadium rock, but I have found that a bit of conversation can sometimes bring people on side (and not just in this situation!). I know it's difficult at festivals with short soundchecks and fast changeover of acts, though. Was this gig one of those?
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Post by jackorion on Jun 15, 2018 13:39:13 GMT
ok - last night was fine during soundcheck, but then the house PA was turned up during my set (way too loud to be fair, why do people insist on cranking everything?!) and I had some low rumble issues and some feedback around the f# - g region. I got home last night and started looking online at the Grace preamps again - they do look good and full of features but I don't think I can bring myself to spend £1000 on a preamp! I'm in a bit of a pickle as I think a lot of the issues are coming from poor house PA setups and excessive volume or incompetent sound people - my simplified setup of 'guitar, cable, orchid' works when the sound levels are appropriate for the music, but as they start to get into inappropriate levels the issues with the K&K are arising. I'm loathe to completely change my setup in order to deal with only those occasions but I think if I'm to continue to use the K&K live, I need to have something in my arsenal which can handle the issues... Obviously I've yet to use the guitar in an 'ideal' situation so I don't know how it will work in those circumstances either... Maybe this could be addressed with the sound engineer prior to your beginning your performance. I know some of them are pig headed idiots who think everything is stadium rock, but I have found that a bit of conversation can sometimes bring people on side (and not just in this situation!). I know it's difficult at festivals with short soundchecks and fast changeover of acts, though. Was this gig one of those? This is true and, to be fair, at a lot of my gigs I do get a chance to speak with the sound person and explain the sound I'm after and the 'vibe' of the music and a fair amount are low-volume 'folk-y' gigs so they 'get it'. Last night there wasn't a sound person as such, but the headline act was running the sound as well as meeting the audience etc so there's not really any blame to be placed there but it was the sort of gig where having a bit more control over my own signal would've been really handy. A little while ago I looked into the idea of buying a mic splitter and a DI with the idea of taking my AER Compact 60 to gigs as a monitor - my thoughts then were I'd split my vocal mic signal and send one line to the FOH and one line to the mic channel on my AER, then split the guitar signal and send one line to FOH and one to the instrument channel on the AER. I'd then kill the monitors completely and control my own stage sound from the AER which would be independent from the FOH mix. My thoughts behind this was a) I can get a good onstage sound from my AER and a good onstage sound is probably the best way to inspire oneself into performing well and b) the sound engineer can then do whatever they like with the FOH because they've got a completely 'flat' signal. If I was to add a good EQ pedal into this signal chain that could notch out a few troublesome frequencies then I might be on to something... it'd be a bit more of a drag to setup, but wouldn't actually take any longer than getting a monitor mix right and it's only two extra cables... hmmmmm.... the plot thickens...
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Post by dreadnought28 on Jun 15, 2018 14:03:06 GMT
If anybody in this thread is interested I have a Dtar Solstice for sale. Same preamp as used by Martin Simpson.
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Post by PistolPete on Jun 15, 2018 14:33:30 GMT
I recently had K&Ks put in my two gigging guitars & I've had similar issues to you. At the moment I'm using a Fishman Platinum Stage pre-amp, because it was what I owned anyhow, but I've just taken the plunge and ordered a Red-Eye Twin so I will report back and let you know my experiences.
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Post by Amit on Jun 15, 2018 14:41:22 GMT
I’ve got the red eye twin too, ordered a ‘customised’ version with the 2nd channel being setup to provide power to the microphone of my K&K Trinity. Sounds ok, but for me I slightly prefer my existing k&k preamp into the Baggs Para DI setup. The Red Eye is a good and solid bit of kit though.
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Post by Cams on Jun 15, 2018 15:19:56 GMT
I use a Line 6 Relay G70 for two guitars so I can switch guitars with the button on the device. My main guitar has a full-fat Anthem and I go through a Venue DI with bass at 9 o'clock, cuts at 500Hz and 2KHz, slight presence boost and trebles flat. The other guitar has a Wavelength UST and goes through a Baggs Para Acoustic DI. I don't have that to check the settings right now. What I've taken to doing for my solo shows with only one guitar is route the pedalboard into a UAD Apollo Twin and use UAD plugins on my MacBook Pro. It's works like a dream. That's probably getting up there with the Grace Felix cost wise, but boy is it versatile. I got the idea from seeing Pierre Bensusan with an Apollo rackmount device on stage.
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Post by Cams on Jun 15, 2018 15:31:31 GMT
That's a great idea and one I've toyed with myself. The AER has a DI out but the problem there is that that would put out guitar and vox summed. Splitting sounds like the way to go.
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Post by jackorion on Jun 15, 2018 15:56:05 GMT
I use a Line 6 Relay G70 for two guitars so I can switch guitars with the button on the device. My main guitar has a full-fat Anthem and I go through a Venue DI with bass at 9 o'clock, cuts at 500Hz and 2KHz, slight presence boost and trebles flat. The other guitar has a Wavelength UST and goes through a Baggs Para Acoustic DI. I don't have that to check the settings right now. What I've taken to doing for my solo shows with only one guitar is route the pedalboard into a UAD Apollo Twin and use UAD plugins on my MacBook Pro. It's works like a dream. That's probably getting up there with the Grace Felix cost wise, but boy is it versatile. I got the idea from seeing Pierre Bensusan with an Apollo rackmount device on stage. I have a UAD Apollo and have considered doing this also, but it seems like a bit more hassle than I’d be comfortable with - plus I don’t like the idea of using a computer to adjust things for some reason - having ‘real’ controls to turn seems more appropriate, like I wouldn’t be fully present if I was using a computer... But I bet it is versatile! And I ran my guitar through the 610-b preamp model the other day at home and it sounded great!
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Post by Cams on Jun 15, 2018 16:32:27 GMT
Not being fully present is a real concern Ben. I've watched video of myself tinkering with controls on my MacBook Pro and thought that I looked a little distracted, but I've seen musicians look similarly distracted with their pedal boards, for example Anthony Da Costa - he's a tone monster and seeing him bend down and tweak things didn't detract from my enjoyment, but my friend commented on it. It's worth it to me for the tone I get though. I use the Manley Voxbox channel strip for vocals, so that gives me compression and Pultec style EQ. I have a send to a UMT140 reverb which is sublime. Guitar goes into a Neve 1073 emulation. I have a separate EMT140 FX channel for that which also has the stock UAD delay plug in. Finally, my pièce de résistance is a bx_subsynth Subharmonic Synth. I tried a few octave pedals and returned them in favour of this plugin. I loop bass lines on a couple of tracks and use it for some fingerstyle in dropped D.
It is a ridiculous set up though and I fully understand that. It takes me 45 minutes to set it all up, but I then play for three hours solo and it helps me to keep my set interesting and satisfies my audio monitoring needs. The Apollo Twin is also nice in the way that you can configure your monitoring, so I use panning to have monitor right go into the loop pedal and monitor left straight to the PA.
I've been tweaking for years and don't imagine I'll finish any time soon!
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Post by andyc on Jun 18, 2018 9:34:33 GMT
I've had quite a few K&K equipped guitars, and whilst I think the sound is "okay", I've always struggled to dial in the right EQ in order to get the sound I want. I've used the following preamps; Red Eye Twin, Fishman Platinum, Grace Design Felix, Bose T1, D-Tar Solstice, ToneDexter and Boss AD-2. (Some of the twin channel preamps were used because I had a dual system with a DiMarzio Black Angel). Very recently, I have taken delivery of the Sunnaudio Stage DI - as here: sunnaudio.com/products/stage-diWith the K&K's that I had in my guitar, I've never heard such a good sound. It blows away any other preamp I have ever used. However, I bought this preamp to pair with a set of Dazzo pickups, which are in the process of being installed in my guitar. The Sunnaudio box was designed specifically to be used with Dazzo's and the sound samples I have heard online are simply unbelievable. This combination also has some very enthusiastic supporters over on the AGF site. I should have my guitar back from the luthier by the end of this week, so I will update accordingly. I remain optimistic.... :-)
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Post by jackorion on Jun 19, 2018 8:15:22 GMT
Well I've just bought a ParaEq from Reverb (for £130, half price!) so we shall see how that works out - the plan at the moment is to have a little pedalboard with the empress, the strymon, and either my current Orchid preamp (either on the board or on the mic stand) or I might get one of Orchid's muting DIs so I don't have to bend over to mute the output!
Fingers crossed that'll be enough to dial out the few extra troublesome spots with the K&K...
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Post by jackorion on Jun 21, 2018 6:14:02 GMT
The ParaEQ arrived yesterday - It's not the latest version but, as far as I can tell, the differences are how the power supply works, a lower input impedance (500K rather than 1M), no buffer, and you can't use the boost on its own.
I know there is the impedance mismatch there with a K&K but I'm running a TU3 first in line anyway.
First impressions are it's doing exactly what I need it to do - going through my Orchid and then into my AER (set flat for this purpose), I'm using the Empress for a narrow Q cut at 200, a wider cut at around 800, and for a slightly narrower cut at about 1.5 and it sounds way better than with just the Orchid EQ!
There is a little bit of added noise as I'm using the boost to bring the volume back up after the cuts, but I don't think it would be enough to notice in a live situation (and I have noticed that my Orchid can be noisy through the AER, I wonder if the AER really does provide a full 48v phantom...)
I'm pretty happy with this setup in principle, it means I can leave my Anthem settings on the Orchid and then just kick in the EQ for the K&K guitar - in fact I'd almost go as far to say that the extra bit of EQ has improved the K&K so much that I 'might' prefer it to the Anthem now, but we shall see...
The only annoying thing is that most of my gigs over the next couple of weeks are ones where I wouldn't be taking my Collings anyway so I won't get a chance to test it in a live situation until the end of next month.
I'm also going to spend some time with it today running my two Anthem equipped guitars though and seeing if the Empress helps me dial out a bit of the brightness in my Anthem-equipped Collings - fingers crossed it will and it will end up being a useful bit of kit!
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leoroberts
C.O.G.
Posts: 24,493
My main instrument is: probably needing new strings
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Post by leoroberts on Jun 21, 2018 15:26:33 GMT
I shan’t pretend to have understood any of that, Ben, but I’m glad you do!
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