Amplifier for K&K Pickups - seeking Advice

That’s the only thing i can think of to say, any keyboard amp right?  

I can’t remember the name of that amp with the chorus build in it that i always used to use. Was it a Roland? I forget. But the pickups sounded great coming out of that. 

The "best" amp would be the one that works best in a particular venue for a particular style of music.   Yeah, something like the Roland that Tony mentions is great in most places.   I think that is a solid choice.

If I ever get a set of pickups for myself, I think I would prefer to use a PA head and a powered speaker or a pair of powered speakers.   The speakers could be reasonably light because there is not a real need to crank out bass pitches (unless your effects are doing something like an octave splitter... which is a REALLY cool sound on vibes with pickups...).

If you were to start with something like the QSC Touchmix 16, you would have a nice, lightweight (5.4 lb), 16 channel mixer with good preamps and a fair amount of onboard processing (Reverb, EQ, Compression/limiting, Echo, Chorus) and enough I/O to allow you to loop out to any effects pedal or outboard unit you may wish to use.

For the speakers, you could get lots of different somewhat less costly pairs that still sound good, but I would stick with QSC for that as well.  Both the K10 and the K12 have good, clean 2000W Class D amplifiers, so you will have the power you need to play with a louder group.  The K10 is about 35 lb and I think the K12 is around 45.  EV makes a couple models off powered speakers that are less expensive, a little lighter, not as powerful; still pretty good though.

One last thought:  Most venues seem to have sound systems these days.   You may be able to get a good sound with whatever they have if you have a decent signal to provide them, so get a good DI box like the Neve NRDI-S so you have a high quality and quiet signal chain up front.   Also, if you go with something like the QSC mixer, you can use the Neve DI box into your mixer and keep your part of the setup constant, then just feed the sound tech a balanced stereo output from your mixer.  You would get to retain control of the processing on your pickup with that setup.

But, each kind of venue has its own sets of needs for what works best.   A whole PA takes up too much space for some venues (or it scares them that you are going to be loud but they use "space" as the excuse), for instance.

Good luck!  Let us know what you land on and how well it works for you.

randy makes a good point about sound systems in venues. I have a hot spot (Mackie) i connect my evno mics to and then I go to the sound system. the hot spot is for my ears.