My Baggs Session Review

Vancebo · #1 05-27-2015, 05:47 PM

My new Baggs Session DI arrived today from Sweetwater. In anticipation I got off of work a little early and hustled home. I popped one of Sweetwaters candies in my mouth and hooked my Baggs Lyric equipped GS BTO into the Session and into my Schertler Unico amp. Normally I would be running into my Venue for some good low-mid EQ. Today, no Venue.

Nuts and bolts here folks. In short, it's very simple to use. It's not about tweaking knobs. There are 2 knobs that you need to focus on. The saturation seems to fatten up your notes. The Comp EQ seems to tame your signal and refine it. I found too much of either one I didn't like but just the right amount was good. I settled on around 12:00 on both. Everything is subtle. Nothing is dramatic. Turning one of the knobs from dry to far right isn't going to knock your socks off. At times I was wondering if it was making a difference, then I would crank them back to dry and hear the difference and decide that indeed I liked the changes it was making to my sound.

The Comp EQ would almost lead me to believe that I would not need additional EQ. My Lyric usually needs a significant low mid cut. I didn't feel I needed it in my short tryout.

The Saturation knob help the Lyric a great deal with thickening the sound. I also think it would do wonders with a tinny UST. If you are a K and K user, I wonder if you would even use much of it.

The notch filter is the same as the one on the Venue.

The added bonus is the high pass filter. It's 4 positions will help you depending on your playing situation. It was very pleasing in any of the 4 positions but I settled on 80hz which is virtually no change in the sound to the 120hz that I would most likely use in a band situation at church.

Is the Session right for you? It's a simple, no nonsense improvement to your sound. It is an improvement but it's not a necessary improvement unless you want a simple way to add EQ for people who are afraid of EQ. I'm guessing it would be a must for all you UST users out there. Game changer? No.

Later, I will borrow a Taylor with an ES2 since that is one I have been eying lately. I will see what happens and let you know.

SpruceTop · #2 05-27-2015, 06:56 PM

Thanks for your forthright review of your new LR Baggs Session DI!

I'm especially interested in your coupling of the Session DI with a Taylor ES2-equipped axe.

Regards,

SpruceTop

Yamaha Man · #3 05-27-2015, 07:10 PM

Yes, thanks for your review. It's great to hear other people's take on it... I'd like to encourage all Session users to post their thoughts on their experiences with it.

Monsum · #4 05-28-2015, 04:37 AM

Thank you for the review (and thank you Martin Maniac for audio examples of the SessionDI).
In my opinion it seems that to get the most of multi-band compression you need more than one knob.

Yamaha Man · #5 05-28-2015, 05:39 AM

Yes to get a full fledged multi-band compressor effect you should have lots of knobs, however, lots of knobs costs big money...a multi band compressor with all the bells and whistles costs between $4-6,500 bucks !!

Yamaha Man · #6 05-28-2015, 06:50 AM

Another alternative is to get a software program such as Adobe Audition CS6 which has a multi-band compressor software effect. I have that and can verify it does indeed make the music sound better, I use it a lot. Here again though to get that program will cost you I believe it's around $350 if you can find it. I think they are selling it on a monthly payment plan now...the software I have , does have lots of variable buttons for controlling it, but I just use the presets and get great results with that. However to use it in a live situation isn't practical, so this is where the Session unit comes in handy....

Vancebo · #7 05-29-2015, 08:07 AM

So I spent some time combining the Session with the Venue. I used my Lyric equipped guitar as well as a Borrowed Taylor 816 with the ES2. From there it went directly into my Schertler Unico amp.

The Session by itself worked well but I was wanting more EQ control. With the two combined I needed less EQ than I normally would use. This combination is very powerful. I first dialed in the best sound I could with the Venue which was pretty excellent already. I then dialed in the two magic knobs to taste. The sound then became more vibrant, alive, bold, dimensional, and any other adjective that I can't come up with right now. One one hand it is subtle, it is not something you will notice and appreciate through an internet recording. All I know is that I like what it brings. The settings I settled in on with the Session was nearly the same for both guitars. I found that odd. I still wonder that if I had a UST equipped guitar that it would make the biggest difference and I would want to crank up the Saturation knob more. The Session seemed to not discriminate between the two guitars I tried and had equality pleasing results with both.

I appreciated the most was how the notes became fatter as I dialed in the Saturation knob. It became too much rather quickly. I left it at 12:00. Then the Comp EQ knob kind of refined that. I left it at 2:00.

To put it into perspective, if you wanted to spend $250 to improve your live sound. There are a few ways you could do it. New pickup, new amp/PA, new guitar, preamps, effect boxes, lessons, etc. You wouldn't miss this unit if you didn't have it. It will strengthen your rig. This would fit nicely into your chain and make what you got a little better. It needs to be mentioned that the 4 position high pass filter and sweepable notch filter are worth having as well.

I think it delivers exactly what the people at Baggs claimed it would do. I think we couldn't appreciate the NAMM clips because it wouldn't do it justice. I am keeping it and will be using it regularly in my signal chain.

guitaniac · #8 05-29-2015, 09:39 AM

Folks have mentioned being unimpressed by the NAMM demos, but I doubt that the NAMM demos tell the complete story on the Session DI. Setting up sound for a noisy environment like NAMM requires getting the best sound you can within a limited dynamic range (from loud enough to be heard over the din to just short of painfully loud). I imagine that the Session DI settings which work best in that noisy environment (where the sound from your amp/PA is competing with multiple other sounds in the hall) might be somewhat different than the settings which will work best for direct recording.

Vancebo · #9 06-01-2015, 12:12 PM

This issue came up. In what order to run the Venue combined with the Session? Does it make a difference? I posted this question in the Baggs forum and this is what Caleb had to say:

Hey Vancebo,
That's a really good question. The order that you put your boxes in will make a difference in how they interact with each other. So it is something to consider.

In studio or live mixing, you can usually use EQ before or after compression to get a different effect. You can use EQ first to cut out specific frequencies or add others in that may be lacking. If you go into your multi-band compression after that, depending on your EQ settings, the compression might not need to work as hard. The compression should still be able to smooth out the tone though. In this setup, you may need to set a lower input gain on the Session to allow for any additional volume boost coming from the Venue's Boost switch. However, a lower gain setting on the Session will change the way that the Comp and Saturation interact with the incoming signal.

If you go into the Session first, which is what I prefer, you can get the Session gain optimized for the Saturation and Comp to get the most out of those features. Then you can go into the Venue, adjusting the EQ to fine-tune your overall sound.

So there isn't an absolute answer. I usually recommend trying both to see what you like better.

I hope that helps.

This is what I did on Sunday. I was very happy with the sound that comes out of my monitor. I haven't a clue how it sounded in the house.

cwakefield06 · #10 06-03-2015, 07:52 AM

Thanks for the info, Vancbo! Any chance of an in depth demo showing what different settings will do?

It's mind blowing to me how everyone is sold out of this thing, yet I can't seem to find a single demo anywhere on the internet past the initial NAMM demos (and the couple quick ones here on AGF)!

Petty1818 · #11 06-03-2015, 08:02 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by cwakefield06

Thanks for the info, Vancbo! Any chance of an in depth demo showing what different settings will do?

It's mind blowing to me how everyone is sold out of this thing, yet I can't seem to find a single demo anywhere on the internet past the initial NAMM demos (and the couple quick ones here on AGF)!

The Session is a very new product so I wouldn't be too surprised. Also, a number of online stores will put "sold out" beside a product even if they never had any in stock. It's pretty common with a new piece of gear.

Shoreline Music · #12 06-03-2015, 09:27 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by cwakefield06

It's mind blowing to me how everyone is sold out of this thing, yet I can't seem to find a single demo anywhere

Cause and effect. We had so many pre-orders that our first run was all sent to customers, leaving none for testing. I suspect that this may have been true of other sellers. We have tons in stock now, so hoping to do some fiddling in the next week.

cwakefield06 · #13 06-03-2015, 10:26 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shoreline Music

Cause and effect. We had so many pre-orders that our first run was all sent to customers, leaving none for testing. I suspect that this may have been true of other sellers. We have tons in stock now, so hoping to do some fiddling in the next week.

Awesome, thanks Shoreline!!