Krivo pickup?

klaatu · November 2013

We normally gig with Ischell Inside Boxes, but last Saturday we encountered horrendous feedback problems with the house PA (for still unexplained reasons) and switched to our Krivos. Feedback went away, volume was improved, and the sound, while somewhat electric, was more than acceptable.

ihscout · November 2013

Has anyone tried mounting one of these pickups
on a D-hole?

Michael Bauer · November 2013

I just laid it out over Selmer #103, and it should work fine. You'd have to mount it on the bridge side of the sound-hole, and I haven't checked the sound out there, but I can't imagine why it wouldn't work. It would be closer to where you'd be picking, and I don't know if that would affect the sound. My wife's asleep now, but if I get a chance, I'll try it tomorrow and let you know.

ihscout · November 2013

Thanks,it would be good to know how this
pickup performs on a D-hole before I buy one.

forrestt · November 2013

I've played a couple of gigs with my Krivo on my d-hole this month and it actually sounds great. It's less tinny than it sound on my oval-hole.
The only drawback is that the pickup mounts closer to the bridge than I'd like because of the d-hole. On my ovalhole I put it halfway over the soundhole right against the fretboard. Because of the placement on the d-hole it gets in the way of my picking.
Besides I really like the Krivo pickups and the way they sound - no feedback!

Michael Bauer · November 2013

ihscout--

I put the Krivo on Selmer 103 and it worked just fine. A lot will depend on where you pick, and what kind of neck angle you have. I tried it right at the bridge side of the "D", and it sounded really good, but it was getting whacked by the pick a lot, and made a very audible click when I hit it. I tried moving it back to just in front of the bridge, and it was easiest to play there, but it might take some fiddling with both pickup and amp knobs to get the very best sound, as the string vibrations there are much shorter than up by the sound hole. I put it half way in between and it sounded fine as well, but since the Krivo is a wide pickup, I still smacked the front edge of it with the pick on occasion.

The Selmer has a shorter back and less severe neck angle than most modern guitars, so there isn't a lot of room between strings and body for an imprecise picker like me. I would say that it might be easier to avoid hitting the pickup on a modern d-hole, but I don't have one around to try it on.

The Krivo is a wide but very shallow pickup, and works really well on my vintage guitars, where the strings run much closer to the body more often than not. There seems to be a lot more space between strings and body on modern guitars. One reason I didn't buy the Peche, besides not liking it's electric sound so much, is that it is very tall and narrow, and was clearly designed with modern guitars in mind. I couldn't use it on many of my vintage guitars, because it would foul against the strings. I wanted to test it at a gig last summer, but it couldn't fit under the strings of the guitar I'd chosen.

So it fits, but you'd have to see if you like it with your guitar. I know Michael has a generous trial period with pickups, so you'd be able to test it out, risk free.