ToneDexter Thread

[James May]

Originally Posted by SpruceTop

James,

Will you also be offering the ToneDexter PRO model at a future date?

Thanks,

Ken

There are no plans for a Pro model.

[LookerBob]

Originally Posted by SpruceTop

Hi Folks,

I've been close to buying a ToneDexter for a while but would like some information from anyone with experience in using this device along with the L.R. Baggs Session DI Acoustic. Also, for those without direct experience with using the Session DI with a ToneDexter, your thoughts on this pairing are welcomed, too!

My questions:

1) Would you bother even using the Session DI with a ToneDexter?

2) If yes, would you train the ToneDexter with the Session DI between the guitar and ToneDexter? Guitar > Session DI > ToneDexter

3) Would the Session DI have a beneficial affect on tone if placed after a normally-trained ToneDexter in a signal chain? Guitar > ToneDexter > Session DI

Whether or not the Session DI works well with the ToneDexter won't affect my decision to buy one.

Thanks!

You would not use the Session anymore, this replaces it... I can't see it having any beneficial effect on your tone. I would guess you *could* run one after the ToneDexter to use the additional EQ, but... I'm guessing you won't need or want to.

[midwinter]

Originally Posted by James May

I wouldn't put it quite that way. The Character control, when turned counter-clockwise, will punch up and dry out whatever WaveMap you've created. It removes ambience and spaciousness.

Mic position will have some affect on how much ambience is created in the WaveMap, but only just a little. Mic position has much more to do with the tonal balance that you capture.

Thanks, James. That clarifies things. Very happy with the tones I'm getting.

[open-road-matt]

My ToneDexter is showing up today!

I hope to have some time to play with it.

My choice in instrument mics is pretty limited.

I have a RODE NTK (Large Diaphragm Tube Condenser) and a trusty old SM57. I think I'm going to try the RODE first.

I'll be training a Gibson J-45 with a Baggs Element and a Collings D1 with the Trance Audio Amulet M.

I just sent my QSC TouchMix 8 in for repairs so I'm not sure what I'll do for a signal chain. Probably just straight into the EON One.

This is going to be fun!

Matt

[guitaniac]

Originally Posted by James May

No, not at all. In fact, the opposite. Train at home, put the mic away, then go to your gigs.

Very little of the room ambience shows up in the created WaveMap. This was by design. Training in a normal living room or bedroom will yield essentially the same result as training in a studio. Of course, there are extreme conditions which would affect the WaveMap, such as training in a small tiled bathroom. But that is not an expected use case.

The WaveMap is fairly dry, because when you play it back through the PA system in the performance room, you wouldn't want another layer of room sound to color what's coming out of the speakers. And, the Character control, when turned counter-clockwise, makes it even drier still.

Would it be correct to assume that some of the differences which we're hearing between direct recordings off the training mic, and recordings of the Dexterized signal, are due to the way that ToneDexter is designed to limit the amount of airiness and spaciousness in its output signal?

If there was a market for it, would it be possible to design a variation of ToneDexter which would be more true to the training mic signal and more aimed toward home recording? (That's a huge "if", I know.)

[Cuki79]

Originally Posted by guitaniac

Would it be correct to assume that some of the differences which we're hearing between direct recordings off the training mic, and recordings of the Dexterized signal, are due to the way that ToneDexter is designed to limit the amount of airiness and spaciousness in its output signal?

If there was a market for it, would it be possible to design a variation of ToneDexter which would be more true to the training mic signal and more aimed toward home recording? (That's a huge "if", I know.)

I am curious to read James' answer on this one.

Cuki

[James May]

Originally Posted by guitaniac

Would it be correct to assume that some of the differences which we're hearing between direct recordings off the training mic, and recordings of the Dexterized signal, are due to the way that ToneDexter is designed to limit the amount of airiness and spaciousness in its output signal?
...

Since several of you have asked, I'll dig into this topic a little deeper. There are three things that cause the ToneDexter sound to be a little different from the mic sound.

1. The low frequency instrument resonances are reduced by our process, while the overall energy is kept the same. This increases feedback immunity, and also makes the perception of the tonal balance sometimes seem less bassy. For sound reinforcement, we believe this is a much more practical signal to send to an amp than the mic signal would be. Results will vary from guitar to guitar, so if you need more bass, dial it up with the EQ and you'll still be better off with respect to feedback than if we hadn't dealt with the resonances.

2. There is a little bit of information that your ear hears and the mic hears that the pickup just doesn't hear at all. Some call this missing "air". We believe it is mainly the direct radiation off the strings of the clicky picking transients. Since the pickup doesn't hear it, ToneDexter can't process it and as a result, the WaveMap can't do anything about it. To some degree, we could compensate for this psycho-acoustically by adding a high frequency boost to the WaveMap. However, that doesn't always provide the best live sound through a variety of systems. Some systems are hyped at the top anyway, some aren't. We chose not to automatically make this boost for you, but leave it up to you to adjust the treble EQ as needed for your live situation at hand.

3. The WaveMap is about 100ms long. It's long enough to get all of the low frequency energy coming off a guitar, even with altered tuning. But it is not long enough to pick up much of the room sound. As previously discussed, we don't believe extra room sound coming through your speakers will benefit live sound reinforcement. In fact the opposite is true: the Character control allows you to tighten up the sound even more and that has proven to be helpful.

[LookerBob]

Ok, I took the Lyric out of my Martin yesterday and installed a K&K Pure Mini.

I made recordings of the guitar with the Lyric and the K&K, and demo'd the three character settings on the K&K, as well as showed the raw K&K pickup signal.

I introduce each clip so you know what you are listening to.

As far as recording goes, I think the character knob all the way clockwise sounds the most natural, which I think makes sense as I understand this to be the one that should be truest to the mic. I don't know which will be better live yet.

Clip notes:
Mic was an AKG 414 XLII, so I'm not sure if that is really ideal. It was running through a UA Solo 610, which admittedly makes things sound extra nice.

BIG note: Between the Lyric and K&K I changed strings from some real old ones to some brand new ones, and as a result I struggled against a very bright new string sound w/ the K&K, and ended up micing it differently to get a trained sound I liked.

Mic position for the Lyric training and clip was actually by my left hand and looking slightly down the fretboad - sounded most like the guitar to me.

Mic position for the K&K training and clip were ~12th fret, looking straight at the fingerboard - not my favorite position, but gave me the best sound w/ new strings.

The Lyric clips are two different takes (sorry, I hadn't thought this through all the way, and then the pickup was out). K&K clips are identical. Only adjustments on anything was to get volumes in the same ballpark.

[Petty1818]

Originally Posted by LookerBob

Ok, I took the Lyric out of my Martin yesterday and installed a K&K Pure Mini.

I made recordings of the guitar with the Lyric and the K&K, and demo'd the three character settings on the K&K, as well as showed the raw K&K pickup signal.

I introduce each clip so you know what you are listening to.

As far as recording goes, I think the character knob all the way clockwise sounds the most natural, which I think makes sense as I understand this to be the one that should be truest to the mic. I don't know which will be better live yet.

Clip notes:
Mic was an AKG 414 XLII, so I'm not sure if that is really ideal. It was running through a UA Solo 610, which admittedly makes things sound extra nice.

BIG note: Between the Lyric and K&K I changed strings from some real old ones to some brand new ones, and as a result I struggled against a very bright new string sound w/ the K&K, and ended up micing it differently to get a trained sound I liked.

Mic position for the Lyric training and clip was actually by my left hand and looking slightly down the fretboad - sounded most like the guitar to me.

Mic position for the K&K training and clip were ~12th fret, looking straight at the fingerboard - not my favorite position, but gave me the best sound w/ new strings.

The Lyric clips are two different takes (sorry, I hadn't thought this through all the way, and then the pickup was out). K&K clips are identical. Only adjustments on anything was to get volumes in the same ballpark.

Thanks for that! I think what really stood out to me was the fact that the tonedexter did exactly what I would want it to do with a SBT. Pickups like the pure mini sound very good alone but for a lot of people, including myself, they can be a bit too warm/muddy, especially for strumming. However, I love the warmth that they provide, I just would love some clarity as well. The tonedexter seemed to keep that warmth/bass but added the missing high end/ a bit of a natural mic'd tone. If I can get the tonedexter one day, I think I would almost start with a SBT. I am sure a UST would work fine but to me a SBT would benefit more from the tonedexter.

[guitaniac]

James,

Thank you for the further clarifications on why the ToneDexter sound is a bit different from the directly recorded training mic sound.

Its no doubt a good thing that ToneDexter employs new ways of avoiding or dealing with the problem of having too much signal ambiance for a live setting. The old way of dealing with the problem (blending in some dry pickup signal with the processed signal) had its shortcomings.

[guitaniac]

Originally Posted by LookerBob

Ok, I took the Lyric out of my Martin yesterday and installed a K&K Pure Mini.

I made recordings of the guitar with the Lyric and the K&K, and demo'd the three character settings on the K&K, as well as showed the raw K&K pickup signal.

I introduce each clip so you know what you are listening to.

As far as recording goes, I think the character knob all the way clockwise sounds the most natural, which I think makes sense as I understand this to be the one that should be truest to the mic. I don't know which will be better live yet.

Clip notes:
Mic was an AKG 414 XLII, so I'm not sure if that is really ideal. It was running through a UA Solo 610, which admittedly makes things sound extra nice.

BIG note: Between the Lyric and K&K I changed strings from some real old ones to some brand new ones, and as a result I struggled against a very bright new string sound w/ the K&K, and ended up micing it differently to get a trained sound I liked.

Mic position for the Lyric training and clip was actually by my left hand and looking slightly down the fretboad - sounded most like the guitar to me.

Mic position for the K&K training and clip were ~12th fret, looking straight at the fingerboard - not my favorite position, but gave me the best sound w/ new strings.

The Lyric clips are two different takes (sorry, I hadn't thought this through all the way, and then the pickup was out). K&K clips are identical. Only adjustments on anything was to get volumes in the same ballpark.

Thanks so much for the sound samples, Bob. Its easy to hear why you were in a hurry to pull the Lyric out of that guitar and replace it with the Pure Mini. The ToneDexter/Pure Mini combo sounds super to my ears. The Dexterized Lyric sample still has some of that inside-the-guitar sound to my ears. That's the most annoying quality (for my taste) which that pickup has.


Could you tell us what "mic position two, clip two" and "mic position two, clip three" are? That wasn't clear to me. (I know what you meant by "mic position two", but I'm not sure what was being recorded.)

[SpruceTop]

Originally Posted by James May

Since several of you have asked, I'll dig into this topic a little deeper. There are three things that cause the ToneDexter sound to be a little different from the mic sound.

1. The low frequency instrument resonances are reduced by our process, while the overall energy is kept the same. This increases feedback immunity, and also makes the perception of the tonal balance sometimes seem less bassy. For sound reinforcement, we believe this is a much more practical signal to send to an amp than the mic signal would be. Results will vary from guitar to guitar, so if you need more bass, dial it up with the EQ and you'll still be better off with respect to feedback than if we hadn't dealt with the resonances.

2. There is a little bit of information that your ear hears and the mic hears that the pickup just doesn't hear at all. Some call this missing "air". We believe it is mainly the direct radiation off the strings of the clicky picking transients. Since the pickup doesn't hear it, ToneDexter can't process it and as a result, the WaveMap can't do anything about it. To some degree, we could compensate for this psycho-acoustically by adding a high frequency boost to the WaveMap. However, that doesn't always provide the best live sound through a variety of systems. Some systems are hyped at the top anyway, some aren't. We chose not to automatically make this boost for you, but leave it up to you to adjust the treble EQ as needed for your live situation at hand.

3. The WaveMap is about 100ms long. It's long enough to get all of the low frequency energy coming off a guitar, even with altered tuning. But it is not long enough to pick up much of the room sound. As previously discussed, we don't believe extra room sound coming through your speakers will benefit live sound reinforcement. In fact the opposite is true: the Character control allows you to tighten up the sound even more and that has proven to be helpful.

Hi James,

From your AudioSprockets website ToneDexter manual:

SD Card Slot: The slot accepts a standard size SD (Secure Digital) memory card. It is used to update the internal firmware. See the Audio Sprockets website for specific update instructions.

As good as the ToneDexter is now, does Firmware updating mean that you'll be able to develop algorithms, etc., that will enable the ToneDexter to perform its magic even better in the future? Will this updatability mean that the current-model ToneDexter model will be around for a while without the need to introduce a "New and Improved" model for some time to come? I Wish You, Your Partners & AudioSprockets a Prosperous Future & Thanks For This Marvelous Device!

Ken

[SpruceTop]

Just ordered my ToneDexter and looking forward to experimenting with it! More to come ...

I noticed James uses the Shure SM81 Cardioid Condenser Mic in his ToneDexter training videos, so I just ordered one to use in training my ToneDexter. This mic usually goes for $349 but if you call Musician's Friend and ask for a call-in discount, you can get the mic for 15% Off. I also used my Backstage Pass points and my total for this industry-standard, acoustic-strings instrument mic was less than $250.

[LookerBob]

Originally Posted by guitaniac

Could you tell us what "mic position two, clip two" and "mic position two, clip three" are? That wasn't clear to me. (I know what you meant by "mic position two", but I'm not sure what was being recorded.)

So, there were two mic positions - one I used for the Lyric, one I used for the K&K.

Lyric clip 1 (not actually the same clip for both)
0 - :32 - Mic only, by fingerboard, near left hand, pointing down the neck (pos 1)
:40 - 1:05 - Lyric only, through tonedexter (trained at pos 1:

K&K clip 1 (same clip for both of these)
1:11 - 1:39 - Mic only, pointing at roughly the 12th fret, about 10 - 12" out (pos 2)
1:48 - 2:15 - K&K only, through tonedexter (trained at pos 2), character knob all the way counter clockwise

K&K clip 2 (same clip for both of these):
2:20 - 2:38: - Mic only, pos 2
2:45 - 3:03 - K&K only, through tonedexter (trained at pos 2), character knob in the middle position

K&K clip 3 (same clip for both of these):
3:08 - 3:33 - Mic only, pos 2
3:39 - 4:04 - K&K only, through tonedexter (trained at pos 2), character knob all the way clockwise

4:09 - K&K, bypassing tonedexter

[open-road-matt]

I only had about an hour from unboxing to getting in the car to pick the kids up from school but I was able to get a lot done in that hour!

I really like to tinker with gear but all this talk of "training" and mic positions had me a bit worried. That worry was all for naught. It was really easy (once I bothered to read the instructions!) to train the ToneDexter!

I gave up on the RODE right away. Just way too much going on with that mic!

I was happy with the results of my SM57. It would be nice to try other mics at some point but that's down the road.

After my short trial I am preferring the sound of my J45 with the Baggs Element to my Collings with the Trance. It's remarkable what this device is able to do with the tone of an under saddle transducer!

I'll mess around more with the Amulet but I like the more focused, tighter sound I'm getting with the Element.

Excited to play more!
Matt