Belt-Pack Pedals / Acoustic Preamp

J

Joben Magooch

Well-known member
Hi all,

I'm wondering if anyone has any experience in making their own belt-pack pedal(s)?

I have kind of an unusual circumstance. I have a new acoustic inbound which has a K&K Pure Mini pickup installed. General consensus is that it will sound its best running thru some sort of preamp. K&K does make their own Pure Preamp for this purpose, which is designed to be belt-mounted. Ginsly's Acoustic Preamp is the equivalent here at PedalPCB.

I won't bore you with the details, but in my particular circumstances some kind of belt-mounted device is probably the simplest solution, so I have a few questions along those lines.

1.) I'd plan on just using as an always-on device with a switched-jack battery disconnect. Omitting the footswitch (but adding a 9V battery), I'm curious as to what would be the smallest-sized enclosure that could conceivably fit

2.) I'm wondering if anyone has any tips or tricks to get lower-profile controls. Standard 16mm pots with "typical" mounting configuration is going to protrude a fair amount and I would worry that you might get your settings jostled around given the belt-mounted nature of the device. I guess there are a few solutions for lock-knobs or simple rubber washers or something, but it would be pretty nifty to get a lower-profile look like is often done with semi-recessed 9mm pot shafts or the like.

3.) I guess probably the simplest thing to do would be to rivet or bolt a belt clip to the lid or something, but I haven't given that a ton of thought just yet. Open to ideas for the best way to accomplish that.

I'm mostly brainstorming and gathering ideas at this point but curious to see if anyone's got any inspiration or pointers!
 
I know I said I wouldn't bore with the details, but here I am anyways.

I almost always play through a wireless pack, and the receiver is a good way away. So running "traditional" pedal/s is not the most feasible thing. I guess I could just send the output to the wireless pack input but that seems inelegant to say the least.

Perhaps I overstated it in saying "general consensus says..." - it seems like there is some debate but from what I can gather the Pure Mini pickup wants at least 1m impedance for whatever it's sending to. The particular wireless pack I typically utilize (Sennheiser G4), if I'm understanding correctly, has an auto-impedance that switches between 40k and 1m. And I *think* that when you plug into a standard instrument jack (tip positive/sleeve negative) it automatically will set to 40k setting.
If I'm reading the manual properly, I'm wondering if actually the simplest solution wouldn't be to make a "crossover" (that's not really exactly the right verbiage I think, but I don't know what else to call it) cable where the TRS (receiver side) ring is connected to the TS (instrument side) tip and that might force it to "see" the instrument in such a way that it auto-sets it to 1m mode?

Of course this does not provide the same sort of control that a dedicated preamp would, but it might be the easiest solution, if my thinking is correct on that....

I'm also curious if the gain control on the PPCB Ginsly's Preamp functions the same as the internal gain trimmer on the K&K. With the K&K, fully CCW is not zero or "off," it's just no *boost*, and noon is the default internal setting - I'm assuming that's the case on the PPCB version as well (default of noon, "pre-amplification" only) but was not sure.
 
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