[Matt McGriff]

I am in search of a solution to the quack in my Element equipped McPherson Sable. I have used an Anthem/Session DI combination in my Taylor DN7 and have been very satisfied with my tone, but really need a bulletproof guitar for my worship playing every weekend as I end up having to leave the guitar in my hot car afterwards and it drives me nuts to leave my wood guitars in there. I had a string balance issue with my Sable and checked with McPherson about having an Anthem installed in my guitar after the fact and they were willing to do it, but highly recommended against it as they haven’t liked all of the microphonic issues they have seen when installing them in the Sable. They ended up swapping out the Element for another and I’ve used it a couple of times since.
I’ve tried a Zoom AC-3, Aura DI and my current setup is the Sable into a Venue DI XLR out to the board. I played the Sable over the weekend and just can’t handle the quack, spent a lot of time trying to EQ it on the guitar and on the pedal, adjusting the volume on the guitar and gain on the pedal and just can’t get a satisfactory tone. What makes it worse is that we use an IEM system so I have an intimate relationship with my tone and the quack is killing me and really kills my confidence in digging in when playing as I would hate to hear what I am hearing in my monitor mix.
I am really at a loss here and am not sure what I am going to do. I am considering trying a BodyRez along with my PolyTune pedal, as I have to have an onboard or inline tuner as our stage gets pretty loud so clip-ons are useless. Not really what I want to do as I then have to use a 1 spot for power and go through a church owned Radial DI (that I sometimes have to search for when I get there) and into the board. I was really hoping for an all-in-one solution. It’s pretty frustrating as I now have bought and returned the Zoom and Aura and the Venue isn’t cutting it either. If the BodyRez doesn’t help I may end up selling the Sable, as much as I like the guitar. It just doesn’t work for what I specifically bought it for, a stage guitar. Anyone have any suggestions?