Anyone have the Elite Acoustics Stompmix 4?

[lkingston]

I just ordered the Elite Acoustics Stompmix 4. I plan to use it on a small pedalboard with a ElectroHarmonix Bass9. That will let me EQ the guitar and split bass part separately, run a little reverb and delay on the guitar, compression on the bass, and send a premix of this to whoever is running sound. If it is even close to as good as the mixer on my D6-8 I will be over the moon happy. Has anyone else tried one?

[AeroUSA]

I have one awaiting review.

[wood nacho]

I must say, these units look quite impressive. Hearing lots of good stuff about their PA/amps too

[lkingston]

I got the StompMix 4 today. One thing that surprised me is the size. It is a little smaller than a two space fx pedal. The sound quality and control is stellar. Because there are fewer buttons, the menus are not quite as intuitive as they are on the D6-8. The level of control is about the same.

One thing I don’t like is that there are no preamps on channels three and four, and my acoustic guitar output isn’t hot enough to drive the line level inputs. You could certainly use it on a gig anyway. You would just turn the guitar channel up all the way and mix in your mics to match. It would be a lower than desired gain structure, but it would sound fine. I just like meters to read where they are supposed to be!

This isn’t designed to be used as a guitar multi-effects pedal, but it would work really well for this if you wanted to. Let’s say you are looking at something like the Boss VE-8, but don’t care about the looper or the harmonized and want a little better sound quality: this pedal would be perfect! It would also be good for mixing multiple sources from a dual or triple source acoustic guitar.

I am experimenting with using an ElectroHarmonix Bass9. With the Stompmix 4, I could do completely independent processing of my guitar and bass tones. That was the main motivation for me buying this. I’m thinking of a small pedalboard with just the Bass9 and the StompMix4 where I send a nice guitar and bass mix to the sound person.

[webwzrd]

Geeze, you are a true Elite Acoustic aficionado or maybe just a gadget aficionado in general.

Nice report on the StompMix 4.

[Methos1979]

I've got the X6, which we love for our acoustic duo. The X4 looks good as well with a smaller footprint but I think the X6 fits our needs a little better.

[lkingston]

They are close. The big differences are the lack of battery power, and only 2 instead of four preamps. Sound quality and features are similar. There are some minor other differences. There is no dedicated chorus. There isn't a cut amount on the notch filters. The high pass filter can be either a high pass or a second notch. As a notch filter, it does have a cut amount. There is no Bluetooth and no stereo aux in for backing tracks or background music.

[lkingston]

The two inputs with XLR inputs and preamps are great. I can’t get enough gain out of the line inputs from inputs line three and four out of my active pickup acoustic guitar.

[AeroUSA]

Originally Posted by lkingston

The two inputs with XLR inputs and preamps are great. I can’t get enough gain out of the line inputs from inputs line three and four out of my active pickup acoustic guitar.

The two non XLR inputs are for instruments (1megohm). My concern is that I get quite a lot of hiss from the outputs into my QSC K10s. Can anyone comment on this?

[rockabilly69]

Originally Posted by AeroUSA

The two non XLR inputs are for instruments (1megohm). My concern is that I get quite a lot of hiss from the outputs into my QSC K10s. Can anyone comment on this?

Do you have compressors on?

[rockabilly69]

I see this smaller X4 has a tap tempo delay!

[lkingston]

Originally Posted by rockabilly69

Do you have compressors on?

No, plus the metering (which is really nice) is pre anything else. The Stompmix4 is pretty awesome in so many ways, but the line level inputs make it difficult to use the 3rd and 4th channel. It's very much like the Mackie Wide-Z inputs, or the non-preamped inputs on a Behringer XR-12 or XR-16. Maybe on guitars with hotter outputs it is ok.

[lkingston]

Originally Posted by AeroUSA

The two non XLR inputs are for instruments (1megohm). My concern is that I get quite a lot of hiss from the outputs into my QSC K10s. Can anyone comment on this?

If you go to the system page you can see the very nice input monitoring. On that display you can see that you aren't getting enough gain from the line level inputs when you use them with active pickup acoustic guitars. That is why you are getting hiss. You aren't getting sufficient input levels from those channels for optimal signal to noise.

For my use of mixing guitar and bass from the EHX Bass9 it works really well. I use the preamped inputs and I can get a great guitar and bass sound with separate EQ for the guitar and bass, and reverb and delay on just the guitar. I don't know anything else that could do this and fit so well on a pedalboard. If I wanted to use all four channels though, I wouldn't be happy with it

Without proper preamps on the 3rd and 4th channel though, those channels aren't all that useful. Not if you want pristine sound.

[AeroUSA]

Originally Posted by lkingston

If you go to the system page you can see the very nice input monitoring. On that display you can see that you aren't getting enough gain from the line level inputs when you use them with active pickup acoustic guitars. That is why you are getting hiss. You aren't getting sufficient input levels from those channels for optimal signal to noise.

For my use of mixing guitar and bass from the EHX Bass9 it works really well. I use the preamped inputs and I can get a great guitar and bass sound with separate EQ for the guitar and bass, and reverb and delay on just the guitar. I don't know anything else that could do this and fit so well on a pedalboard. If I wanted to use all four channels though, I wouldn't be happy with it

Without proper preamps on the 3rd and 4th channel though, those channels aren't all that useful. Not if you want pristine sound.

My K&K guitar gets sufficient signal on all of the inputs but there is still more hiss that there should be.

[lkingston]

You know there is a noise gate right? I find very little self noise in the Stompmix4. I would guess that you are just hearing the noise in your pickup.