How can I make my Lyric equipped guitar friendlier?

[Mischief]

Howdy,

Okay I have a Pono L-30 equipped with a lyric. It's a very small guitar, although unplugged it has a very nice sound it can be punchy as expected.

When playing straight into a mixer and through studio headphones it's muddy and heavy in the mids even tho I have that dialed down on my mixer. Mostly when strumming, finger picking it's okay. I can clean the muddy out but then I loose all bottom end. I can increase the bottom end but it gets muddier. Set with high flat and mid at 7 o'clock and base at 2 o'clock it sounds passable finger picking and strumming gently.

I am getting a Yamaha DBR -10 in a few days and even if it has a good sound though that I'm worried if I play on house equipment, at an open Mic or as a guest then it may not play well at all.

Now especially with the new speaker I just can't spend much for a solution (hopefully under $100.) So I'm looking for the cheapest way I can have some assurance I can get a usable sound from my guitar when plugging into a variety of gear.

Just a cheap DI box like a Behringer, cheap Art Tube pre or an EQ peddle, other?

Thanks for all your guys help getting sorted.






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[midwinter]

Don't waste your money until you have the speaker and know what your rig sounds like coming out of it. An internal mic through a mixer into headphones isn't an accurate representation of what that guitar will sound like through a good speaker.

FWIW: A few months ago, I had a power adapter failure on my mixer and wound up running my lyric-equipped guitar and mic directly into my powered speaker (one channel each). I thought it was passable, but I still had musicians coming up to me telling me that my setup sounded amazing.

[Mischief]

Okay thanks. I guess my worry is more for when I need to plug into a house system, someone's amp or at an open mic. But maybe the worse sound that would happen would be okay? Through my little amp that sounds pretty clean using my Cort and Mic has the same sound issues as the headphones. The Cort also sounds pretty good through the headphones. It uses an inbuilt Fishmann and I run the settings on it flat for strumming and turn the treble up a bit for finger picking.


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[Br1ck]

Have you played with the control on the Lyric?

[Mischief]

Originally Posted by Br1ck

Have you played with the control on the Lyric?

Ah yes. It's actually dialed all the way down as far as it will go. I started at the center and went a tiny amount at a time with each progression getting better and then I ran out of adjustment.

There was also a terrible click sound when strumming or plucking the base note that disappeared only towards the very end of the presence being dialed all the way back. Maybe I could get rid of that sound another way?

With my Cort the mixer is set flat so that's how I set it up and adjusted the presence first. I fooled around with it a bit here and there but it always seemed best completely dialed back. Perhaps I'll turn it up a bit and roll of the treble and see if I can get something better than what I have.

Is the volume only that or more like gain?
I tried playing with that as well and adjusting gain etc on the mixer and a bunch of combos.


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[JStotes]

You can save a lot of time, money and frustration by switching to a K&K pickup.
I fought with a Lyric for almost a year and really wanted to make it work. In the end the K&K sounds much better and is much easier to use.

[midwinter]

Now I'm a little confused. You said in your first post that the pickup sounded muddy. When you say you've got the presence "dialed all the way down," do you mean "back"? As in, you've turned the presence essentially off? If that's the case, there's no surprise that it sounds muddy.

Could you maybe provide a little recording of your lyric? Just plug it into your mixer and then into something and record? That would help diagnose any issues.

Originally Posted by Mischief

Ah yes. It's actually dialed all the way down as far as it will go.

[Mischief]

Originally Posted by midwinter

Now I'm a little confused. You said in your first post that the pickup sounded muddy. When you say you've got the presence "dialed all the way down," do you mean "back"? As in, you've turned the presence essentially off? If that's the case, there's no surprise that it sounds muddy.



Could you maybe provide a little recording of your lyric? Just plug it into your mixer and then into something and record? That would help diagnose any issues.

I'll try and grab some recordings tomorrow as I just packed up for the night.

Yes I had the presence all the way off. I turned it back up to mid point and worked it again. I've dialed it down a little but not much. Then tried to EQ that. It does sound better but it's still a bit bright taking that sizzle out seems to start making it a bit quacky take the quack out and I'm back to muddy. So a little bright sizzle but usable.

I really don't have enough experience with this side of things. I'm kinda thinking a 7 or 10 band EQ pedal would allow me to cut some bad frequencies and it would be good. But I don't really know. Maybe this sort of issue is better resolved with a cheap DI box vs the EQ pedal?






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[SpruceTop]

Originally Posted by Mischief

I'll try and grab some recordings tomorrow as I just packed up for the night.

Yes I had the presence all the way off. I turned it back up to mid point and worked it again. I've dialed it down a little but not much. Then tried to EQ that. It does sound better but it's still a bit bright taking that sizzle out seems to start making it a bit quacky take the quack out and I'm back to muddy. So a little bright sizzle but usable.

I really don't have enough experience with this side of things. I'm kinda thinking a 7 or 10 band EQ pedal would allow me to cut some bad frequencies and it would be good. But I don't really know. Maybe this sort of issue is better resolved with a cheap DI box vs the EQ pedal? Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I gave up on the Lyric after having tried it in two different guitars and routing it through an L.R. Baggs Venue DI ($300) for the very necessary EQing it required. The Lyric's output still had a hollow tone to it that I didn't appreciate. I sincerely hope you can get your Pono/Lyric combo cooking without too much fuss.

[guitaniac]

Originally Posted by Mischief

Howdy,

Okay I have a Pono L-30 equipped with a lyric. It's a very small guitar, although unplugged it has a very nice sound it can be punchy as expected.

When playing straight into a mixer and through studio headphones it's muddy and heavy in the mids even tho I have that dialed down on my mixer. Mostly when strumming, finger picking it's okay. I can clean the muddy out but then I loose all bottom end. I can increase the bottom end but it gets muddier. Set with high flat and mid at 7 o'clock and base at 2 o'clock it sounds passable finger picking and strumming gently.

I am getting a Yamaha DBR -10 in a few days and even if it has a good sound though that I'm worried if I play on house equipment, at an open Mic or as a guest then it may not play well at all.

Now especially with the new speaker I just can't spend much for a solution (hopefully under $100.) So I'm looking for the cheapest way I can have some assurance I can get a usable sound from my guitar when plugging into a variety of gear.

Just a cheap DI box like a Behringer, cheap Art Tube pre or an EQ peddle, other?

Thanks for all your guys help getting sorted.

I'd try experimenting with a graphic EQ box. A simple little Boss GE-7 has been very helpful to me in dealing with an Anthem SL system and a MiniFlex2Mic system. A seven band EQ isn't perfect, but it will certainly work better than a generic bass rolloff for scratching the itch of an overly strong response in the low mids.

I'd play around with the EQ while listening on headphones, but would verify your chosen settings through the new speaker, making additional adjustments as needed:

FWIW, here are the graphic EQ settings that I've found helpful with my MiniFlex2Mic-equipped guitar:
https://www.facebook.com/garyhallthe...60683697330914

[Alpione]

Originally Posted by Mischief

There was also a terrible click sound when strumming or plucking the base note that disappeared only towards the very end of the presence being dialed all the way back. Maybe I could get rid of that sound another way?

That description sounds like there's something wrong with the pickup or the installation. Should never be a "terrible click sound" no matter how your settings are dialed in.

[StevenL]

'Terrible click' sounds to me like you may have been clipping an input somewhere. I've never experienced that.

Your setup should sound great through your new Yamaha if you get the hang of the eq.

[Mischief]

Okay thanks for the advice.

The clicking seemed to be the frequency of the pick hitting the string or if the nail support on my thumb was high. Hitting hard loud or anything with more flesh eliminated that sound. Even dialing things up more etc.

Plugged directly in to my mixer with the new DBR the click as such is gone I had it turned up about 80% in the pickup volume and 50% of the speaker.
No feed back but it lacked base, mids were pretty good but as I said a bit too bright. Dialed presence all the way back in increments and it sounded best presence at about 35% from being all the way to its lowest setting.

Seems the best I can get it is still problematic. When everything is flat it sounds good except a sizzle and some harshness and a small lack of base. So I increase the base by about 10% which is enough to be close to the natural smaller base of the small parlor. If I decrease the sizzle a bit with either the high or the mid by cutting with my 3 band EQ on the mixer their seems to be a mid frequency that just punches out. I tried doing some recordings. when recording what I thought was sort of okay sound; it sounds on play back like the driver is blown on the speaker every time I start to strum etc.

Here's the parameters of my EQ taken from the manual.
"The upper (HIGH) and the lower band (LOW) are shelving filters that increase or decrease all frequencies above or below their cut-off frequency. The cut-off frequencies of the upper and lower band are 12 kHz and 80 Hz respectively. The mid band is configured as a peak filter with a center frequency of 2.5 KHz "

At any rate running the mixer flat or playing the guitar directly through the speaker sounds better then my amp but not good enough. Especially if I want to be able to rock up to someone else's gear and plug and play.

Since D-Tar don't make the Equinox and it's also pricey if I could find one.

My concern is if a graphic equalizer would hit the right frequency to cut or would a parametric equalizer be needed? If it needs to be a parametric EQ what's the cheapest one I could get that would do the job?

Thanks



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[guitaniac]

Mischief,

You may be able to find a used PreSonus EQ3B. Here's one being auctioned on ebay.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/PreSonus-EQ-...item419a414601

They are no longer available new. I got one for around $100 some years back.

There are literally hundreds of inexpensive parametric equalizers listed on ebay, but the PreSonus EQ3B is one which I've used and found effective.

Its certainly true that parametric EQ can give you a much more precise and "tight" bass boost than a 7 band graphic equalizer. I mention this because an effective bass boost appears to be one of your goals.

[Mischief]

Okay thanks. That's a big help. Other suggestions appreciated too.






After a lot of fiddling these settings on my mixer seem to be working okay. I probably really need to hear it with the speakers stretching their legs in a bigger space. It's a touch muddy finger picking but okay strumming.

Definitely think an EQ will help so finding one that will do the job I can afford after these purchases will be the trick.




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