Advice/Help - How to make my amplified acoustic more "Crisp"

[mhines]

Hi Everyone,

I play a Breedlove Northwest custom with the LRB iMix system through a Baggs Para-acoustic DI into a Mackie PA system. I am fairly novice to live sound - but am failing to get the "crisp" guitar sound (like a Kellar Williams or Jorma Kaukonen) type of sound through the PA. It just sounds a bit muddled and I'm perplexed on what to do.

I have tweaked settings on the Baggs DI - but am I possibly missing something here? Or - should I be adding an additional variable like the new Fishman Aura's or something? Any advice is greatly appreciated from all you live sound veterans out there!

Mike

[VintageToneGuy]

I'm curious to see what others will suggest and I'm not sure what 'crisp' means to you. I know what my idea of it is. Perhaps something like a BBE Sonic Maximizer or Aphex Aural Exciter (both do the same thing I think). I have the BBE Acoustimax which is a preamp plus the sonic maximizer and when I adjust the maximizer section it seems to add note definition that might fall into the 'crisp' thing you are looking for.

vtg

[dthumb]

sounds to me like its in your mix, not your equipment. jorma plays a bunch of different guitars, some are semi-hollowbodied (a 335 is one) and, depending on which album you're listening to they can sound very different so,..?? any particular song? (i'm not as familiar with williams)
one thing that seems to help is using an acoustic amp and then sending to the pa...fewer settings to worry about at the players end.
its important to remember that we don't hear what the audience hears and vice versa so once you get something that sounds close let someone else play while you listen in a seat. you may be "brighter" than you think...don't want it getting "tinny" do we?
as it happens, i am presently working with a friend trying to do exactly the opposite...he wants a very "natural" sound (thats hard to peg and very subjective) but, can't quite explain what that is......to him. so, i play his j-50 for him through his set up but, my playing is quite different from his( attack , etc.)..he is very heavy handed....
anyway,....invest some time listening to what you have in a number of settings and be willing to make changes that may not seem that great but, can make a world of difference....roll back the mids, boost the bottom a bit and flatline the highs and go from there...
just a few thoughts worth sharing...

[guitaniac]

Mike,

If you're using a lot of iBeam signal in your signal blend, you're likely getting some boominess at your guitar's body resonance frequency. You'll want to use your PADI's notch to find the boominess and notch it down. Try this approach when you're plugged in and dialed up a bit on your PA system (tone controls set flat on the Mackie mixer and PADI, to begin with). Put the PADI notch's boost/cut dial all the way up (full boost), then slowly sweep the notch's frequency dial thru its range (while playing a few chords) 'til the tone is at its boomiest. At that point, you've found the most offensive frequency. (On your guitar, I'd guess it'll be somewhere between 'A' {at 110hz} and 'D' {at 147Hz}.) Once you find the offending frequency, you can notch it down by cutting (with the boost/cut dial) 'til you find a tone which is not too boomy, yet sufficiently full sounding for your taste.

Remember that boominess will increase in a live setting when the volume is increased and the guitar top starts reacting more strongly to sound from the speakers. It may be necessary to increase your notch cut depth as your volume approaches the feedback threshold. You'll also want to try both positions of the PADI's phase inversion switch to see which position yields the most stable signal with that particular stage setup.

Another thing that I've found with the iBeam is that the PADI's presence control can sometimes be very helpful. The best sound that I ever got (as a soundman) from an iBeam-equipped guitar was an iBeam-equipped jumbo which absolutely thrived on a PADI "presence" dial setting around 3 o'clock. I had to laugh, because the same "presence" dial setting for the typical UST-equipped guitar would have sounded like nails on a chalkboard. With this particular iBeam rig, however, it simply provided a pleasantly "sparkling" high end. In any event, don't be afraid to experiment with the presence dial if you're using a heavy iBeam blend.

You'll also probably find some kind of mid cut helpful (especially with a heavy UST blend) and you'll want to experiment with various cut depths and frequencies with the two midrange controls.


BTW, since the iMix is an active system with a pretty hot output, you'll want to turn the PADI's gain control all the way down (fully counterclockwise) to its minimum gain setting (at +3db) so that you don't overdrive it. (You might still overdrive it when the iMix volume control is full on. Back off if you hear distortion.)

Hope that helps.
Gary

[VintageToneGuy]

Here's some additional information that is exactly opposite from what I stated earlier about the Sonic Maximizer and the Aural Enhancer being alike. I have alot to learn and am thankful that I'm still teachable!


From the BBE Web Page:
Do BBE Sonic Maximizer processors create any harmonics like exciter and enhancer effects units?



No. BBE technology does not work like exciter and enhancer effects. Typcially, exciter effects are associated with creating artificial harmonics through small amounts of overdrive in the high frequency band. This can prove useful in some recording studio situations, particularly in remastering older analog tapes. However, in today's recording and playback audio environments, there is no need to artifically simulate high freqencies lost through degradation of the original source tapes.

Enhancers are generally associated with equalization, however there are some products which attempt to combine exciter and enhancer effects with the result being harsh and fatiguing to the ear with no actual improvement in clarity and definition. Generally, enhancer products are marketed to appear as though they are more sohpisticated than multiband or parametric equalizer units, however, this is seldom true.

BBE is totally different than exciter and enhancer effects units. BBE High Definition Sound technology is not an effect, but restructures the signal in such a way which allows speakers to more correctly and faithfully reproduce the signal. The best analogy for BBE technology is like eyeglasses for your audio system.

[mhines]

Guys - thank you very much. Guitaniac - those are GREAT recommendations and I can't wait to try them out this weekend!

Since I have the ear of some Pros - I also have a Boss ME 50 that I would like to use in my set up (once I get the baggs settings right that is) - how would you guys suggest I set this up? Should I try to use the ME 50 looped through the loop where I would normally put a tuning pedal?? Curious as to your thoughts on that...

Thanks so much for the help!

[guitaniac]

Mike,


It probably won't hurt your signal terribly much to have the ME50's extra gain stage in the signal chain (after the PADI would probably be best) when its not being used for tuning or some effect, but I prefer to keep all unnecessary gain stages out of the signal chain. In my own case, I use a Radial "BigShot" EFX loop bypass pedal to remove my Korg G2 EFX pedalboard/tuner from the signal chain when its not being used for tuning or some delay/reverb/chorus effect.

In the case of the ME50, I'm not sure how compatable the COSM modeling will be with the iBeam. My observation has been that that kind of digital processing tends to work better with UST and mag signals.

Gary

[jbryant]

Hi Mike...I won't get techical on yur butt...mainly because I'm not equiped for the challenge, but I just recently had the opportunity to try out the BBE Acoustamax against my current setup which is a Baggs LB6 pickup, Fishman Pocket Blender pre amp and an Aphex Acoustic Exciter. The BBE is pretty good but I usually use the balanced out to the PA and for some reason the BBE had some noise issues I couldn't get rid of. Plugged my stuff in and it was silent. Bottom line...go to Guitar Center and get the Aphex and give it a try. I would hate to play without it. It really brightens up the sound. If you don't like it they have a 30 day return policy. As I mentioned...I'm not very tech savvy but I do have ears and I think this will be just the thing for you. The PADI is a good DI box for overall eq but doesn't do much otherwise in my experience. The Aura is nice but quite pricey. You already have the PADI just try the Aphex and I think you'll be happy.

Jim

[mhines]

Thanks J - do you use this instead of the PADI or in addition to it? I have seen others use this but never understood why. Can you let me know how you would daisy chain that and the PADI and the Boss ME50?