LR Baggs Lyric, keep it simple.

[ceragan42]

I spent my bonus money from a month and a half worth of success at work on a new guitar setup. I'm switching to be primarily an acoustic player over electric. So I snagged a really nice Larrivee OM-02, had an LR Baggs Lyric installed, and stumbled across an LR Baggs Para Di in a pawn shop. Perfect, looks like I'm set. Plus I already have a Marshall AS50D acoustic amp, a Behringer acoustic amp someone left at my house, guitar amps, bass amp, recording rigs.... whatever I may need to find the right sound.

Then I read a bunch of Lyric reviews that aren't complimentary. A lot of them saying it needs eq tweaking, overly sensitive, distorted, feedbacky, etc.

Oh no! did I snag the wrong pickup for this guitar?

On day one of having it all home I spend a lot of time down in my studio dialing in all sorts of settings with the Marshall and Para di in the chain. I was mostly happy, I got good sounds, but not anything that really nailed it. I could hear everything, but there was always too much high, low, mid, or not enough this or that. I was gonna need more tweaking. I was a little afraid that I may have to find a sound that I would just have to settle with.

A few days later I go back down to my studio and take another approach. I plug directly into the most transparent and simple method of amplification I have so I can hear just the way the Lyric impacts the sound. My Behringer kick back bass amp. As a bass amp shaped like a wedge monitor, this thing sucks as a bass amp. It's lifeless. All it does is amplify sound, there's nothing special about it. I've used it for a monitor more often than as a bass amp. So it's the perfect amp for this test. I set the volume on the lyric at about 50%, set the presence control at 50%. Set all the eq knobs on the bass amp at 50%, plugged in... and....

This is the sound. This is it. Stupid simple, you gotta be kidding me. There was so much natural guitar sound coming out of that bass amp.
Feedback? Only if I got too close to the amp.
clipping? Nope.
Super clean, balanced, big sounding. Exactly what I was looking for.

So I plugged it directly into the Marshall acoustic amp, dialed all the eq knobs to 50%, pushed the anti feedback buttons to what sounded best (all out, I think), rolled the reverb up to about 15% (sorry, hippie tendencies assert themselves sometimes), and it was even better. Holy cow.

I can't say enough just how amazing this guitar sounds. It sounds like my guitar, only louder. Exactly what I was looking for.

[SpruceTop]

It sounds like you've gotten good results with the Lyric! TEST: Did you listen to your setup the next day without changing anything? That's the best test of the Lyric because while you're tweaking-in the Lyric during one-sitting, you may get what you hear as sounding good or at least decent. The next day (or even an hour or two later) you fire-up your setup and it may not sound as good as it did before. This is because now you have fresh(er) ears and not the ears that became accustomed to the amplification during your tweaking-in process. That was my experience with the Lyric but, hopefully, isn't yours. All The Best!

[Cuki79]

Agree with SpruceTop.

My D-18 with Lyric does need some serious tone shaping. Without it sounds very mid heavy.

Cuki

[Vancebo]

The Anthem and the Lyric brought something formidable to the amplification landscape. I really liked mine but it took an abundance of EQ work. I ended up removing them from my Guitars. If you found the right balance set flat, you are fortunate.

[Marty C]

I am probably one of the few, but I had a k & k mini in my Martin. I spent a fortune trying to get the mid and bass to calm down. After 4 years, I finally gave up and put a Baggs Anthem SL in. It didn't take much to get the sound I was looking for.

To give The k & k some credit, when I took the k & k mini out, I noticed the transducers were not all the same. Two large green on the outside with a small black in the center. Upon further investigation, I found these to be the ones used for 12 string. The k & k website said these are used to better pronounce the bass and mid frequencies - which is what I hated about it. The shop I purchased this from installed it for me. Not real sure why they did this, but I will never use them again.

Overall this Baggs Anthem SL didn't take much tweaking or eq - for me and my guitar. I say that since I think a lot has to do with our hearing and the tonewoods, the guitar shape and maybe the bracing. I once heard a Martin D28 in Savannah that sounded fantastic. One of the best guitar sounds I ever heard. At break, I asked him how this was amplified. He had a simple Martin thinline (which is a basic Fishman UST) straight to the mixer. Great sound. No quack at all. He never used any preamps for eq purposes. Also his playing technique was perfect.

I say all this since I think there are so many variables in acoustic sound it ain't funny. Often the more I add in the signal chain, the more frustrated I get and the less predictable my sound is. That's my experience and probably has a lot to do with my lack of knowledge. But if keeping it simple works for you, I say that's fantastic. The guy I mentioned above probably spent more time on his technique and less playing with his equipment. I gained a lesson from that.

[ceragan42]

Originally Posted by SpruceTop

TEST: Did you listen to your setup the next day without changing anything?

Yup. Still sounded perfect through the bass amp and just as good through the Marshall. Success.

I wish I was at home playing it now....

[SpruceTop]

Originally Posted by ceragan42

Yup. Still sounded perfect through the bass amp and just as good through the Marshall. Success.

I wish I was at home playing it now....

Excellent & Enjoy!