Miura Guitars U.S.A. recently launched their second pedal offering dedicated to bassists, the K3 DI & Preamp.

This visually colorful follow-up to the visually stark M2 Compressor, shares a common trait with its predecessor: it adds little, to no, color to your natural tone. In short, you plug and play while enjoying a crisp, bright, and slightly more musical sound.

“Many players love the sound of our onboard K3 bass preamp so we designed and built the K3 DI & Preamp as an external pedal so bassists wouldn’t have to remodel their bass to get the Muira sound,” said Hiro Miura, founder of Miura Guitars USA, Inc.

The Preamp

Since the signal coming out of a bass is somewhat anemic, preamps are used to boost the signal before it reaches the amplifier. Bringing the signal up to “line level” allows the bass to work with power amps, mixers, etc. These preamps can be in the bass or in an external device like the Miura K3.

Preamps also lower the impedance, balance the signal, and even color the tone. The catch, however, with preamps is they can add to your bass’ tone. Many bassists will select their preamps to get, or to avoid altogether, that coloring.

“Because the Mid EQ is a pot, rather than a switch, players are able to find their preference seamlessly,” Miura said. “A switch only allows the user to set to a limited range, but the pot enables a wider range of selection.

“The K3’s Hi freq switch also allows the selection of a sound range, a characteristic combination of a single coil pickup and a humbucking pickup. As a result, the noise is extremely restrained, keeping the sound warm, natural, and very clear.”

The DI

One of the critical functions of a DI box is to convert unbalanced high impedance signals to balanced low impedance signals.

“Since our DI uses a full-scale EDCOR transformer, it can not be compared to a simplified DI,” Miura said. “You can think of the K3 as a high-quality DI with supreme sound quality…that comes with a preamp.”

Features

The K3 is a ruggedly-built pedal featuring bright pink and gold graphics. The features include:

• VOLUME: Controls the volume of OUT and DI OUT.
• BASS: Controls the low range (20Hz Peak).
• MIDDLE: Controls the mid-range. The frequency of the mid-range can be adjusted by MID FREQ.
• MID FREQ: Sets the zone of the mid-range to change. The range of the zone is 160Hz to 4kHz.
• TREBLE: Controls the high range. The frequency of the high range can be adjusted by the HI FREQ switch.
• GAIN: Controls the gain width (10dB to 22dB) of the sound signal coming through.
• G-LIFT: ON/OFF switch for the ground lift.
• PAD: Decreases the signal of LINE OUT and DI OUT by -15dB.
• EQ: ON/OFF switch for the EQ parts.
• LOOP: Switches the flow of signal of Effect Loop IN/OUT.
• HI FREQ: Switches the zone of TREBLE to 12kHz or 18kHz.
• DC 9V: DC 9V, over 150mA, center minus.
• LINE IN/OUT: ¼”
• EFFECT LOOP SWITCH: The signal connected to this IN/OUT can be switched ON/OFF by LOOP.
• DI OUT: XLR out.

The Miura is currently in limited production with a suggested retail price of $379.99 and can be purchased from authorized Miura Guitars USA, Inc. retailers.