The FanTaStick Western + Volume Control is a premium undersaddle transducer for steel-string guitars. It was developed to stay true to K&K's mission of capturing the most natural guitar sound possible.

Other undersaddle pickups tend to overemphasize the signal from the strings and lose the corpus vibrations that makes a guitar unique. We created a super-light production technique to solve this problem: Only ultra-thin material surrounds the piezo-crystals to ensure that the corpus vibrations reach the crystals with virtually no interference. This means that electronic post-processing to improve the sound is not required. Additional, this production method also has the benefit of making the FanTaStick extremely flexible to fit any arched base.

To balance the volume of each string, we measure each crystal separately within a nano-inch range. Only six crystals of exactly the same height are combined in one FanTaStick. Each crystal is fit in according to a defined direction of polarization. Even playing in "open tunings" is possible, because the FanTaStick can function with lower string pressure than many of its competitors.

The FanTaStick can be directly connected to an amplifier or mixer. However, we highly recommend one of our K&K preamps for optimum adaptation of impedance of this extremely high-ohmic pickup to standard line or amplifier inputs.

The Volume Control is a non-destructive, plug-and-play addition to any single-source passive internal transducer system. This passive volume control works without a battery. It does not boost the volume, but it allows you to turn the pickup signal down. Please note that we usually mount it further under the soundhole edge so it acts as a thumbwheel.

Technical Specs

FanTaStick Western + Volume Control (for steel-string guitars)

• Possible E-e string distance: 54mm - 58mm
• Height: 1.6mm
• Width: 2.3mm
• Cable length: 1 ft.