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The new Boss AD-10 Acoustic DI
My Aura Spectrum DI died last week and instead of sending it off to Fishman for repairs, I ordered me one of those new Boss AD-10s DI. I was quite impressed with some of the great features so I went for it. It’s on order now.
What sold me were the 2 mixable inputs, the 2 sets of outputs with pre or post effects! The extensive feedback controls, built in looper and tuner and decent-sounding effects. Looks good “on paper” but I’ll be interesting to put it thru it’s paces when it gets here. Want to buy a dead Aura anyone? |
Please give an honest review after you have had it
for awhile. |
I wrote a post looking for input on this pre and didn’t hear anything. I’m looking forward to hearing your review!
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Disclaimer: I am not a "gearhead" by any means. In fact, I am very old school so take that into consideration when looking at my review.
I am currently trying out the unit using my Martin 12 string with undersadle pick up w/Fishman Presys+. I have no other effects in the mix and the o/p is going to a pair of Yamaha monitors (not an amp). I have not tried other types of pick ups yet. So. I got my AD-10 a few days ago and already there is an issue. The Chorus fx does not work. Tried everything including a factory reset but still nothing. It'll have to go back. Otherwise, here are some prelim pros and cons from my point of view. Pros:
Lastly, I tried to contact Boss Support but to no avail as the link in Roland Canada for "Boss Service" is actually invalid. I have contacted my excellent Dealer to figure out what to do with the Chorus issue but I have to say that trying to get a hold of Boss Warranty Service has so far been frustrating and underwhelming (unlike Fishman and TC Helicon who have stellar and lighting fast service) My 2 cents ... for now. |
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I too have thought it could potentially be a real game changer for having multiple acoustics and taming and enhancing their pickups, but that is assuming the preamp section is sufficiently powerful and clean. |
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I picked one up to "try out". It's not going anywhere.
Best my acoustic has ever sounded. Really like all of it actually, but for sure you need to read the manual...I've gone over it several times to get a good understanding of everything. I'd have to agree with Daniel on the "cons". Most don't affect me(doubt I'll use headphones, run my PA mono through xlr...however the looper is very basic(I picked up the Boss FS-7 to have dedicated loop footswitches). It works to tap out some percussion or something simple but you can't pull parts in & out or anything. And yes the display rather archaic. However it has replaced about 5 pedals and one could easily bring just the AD10 and do a gig without missing anything. Also I read a review on line from one of the acoustic magazines and he stated you can't adjust delay repeats. You can do just that as well as have 1/4 notes or dotted 8th's. So I have 2 presets set the same except one has a nice slap back delay & the other has a nice long trailing delay for ambience. |
I just picked one up yesterday and have put it thru it’s paces today.
I havent gigged with it yet so cannot comment on that. The thing is fantastic, only a couple things which frustrate me that i hope they will correct in an update. -the looper has no undo/redo function. -once you have assigned the tuner footswitch to another function (in my case tap tempo) there is no way to access the tuner without changing it back in the system settings. Other than these two things, no complaints thus far :) |
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Maybe you have the switch in the back in the stereo position and you are not hearing the chorus effect because you are only listening to either the left or right output. |
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How does the body resonance modeling on the AD-10 compare to the Fishman Aura? |
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Here is a link to 4 AD- 10 tutorials from the Boss YouTube page:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?lis...6_DY8ImOssuVql |
I just won a bid for a great condition AD-10 on eBay. I will report back here after I get it.
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I've owned one for a few weeks and like others have said, "It's not going anywhere."
Admittedly I use it pretty simply but the tone out of it is great. I bought it primarily for its body resonance feature and I'm hooked! The effects really are subtle which I suppose is appropriate for acoustic playing. They call reverb "Ambiance" and if you want to really hear it you must set it to maximum. This confused me at first and I thought I had a defective unit until I remembered this is intended for acoustic guitar and the general guitar playing public only uses enough to fatten up the sound without drawing attention to itself. My signal chain is guitar->boss tu3->boss ad-10->PA/amp. I use this into my church PA with is a Behringer X Air 8 (I think...) and my Gibson J15 actually sounds like an acoustic guitar! Pretty close to its un-plugged sound. I find the TU3 tuner to be more accurate and I like to use it as a mute switch, whether tuning or not. The buttons on the AD-10 are a different "feel" and I find the good ol' big button/flap on the TU-3 to have a more positive feel when activated. I love the AD-10 A LOT but the owner's manual was actually inaccurate for a couple things so if you buy one, go to the Boss site and download the digital one. It is accurate and you won't have the frustrations I did at first. Best, PJ |
You know, I understand the excitement around the Tonedexter. Yes, if you have a wonderful sounding guitar, a great instrument condenser mic, and want to capture that sound, that is the way to do it. For those of us with five or six hundred dollar guitars and a decent vocal mic, a generic decent sounding body resonance emulation of similar quality is just fine! Add the stomp boxes I use and battery power and I’m a happy gigger!
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Just to be sure you know, the effects don’t have to be subtle....you can go into the secondary functions and have chorus so thick you’ll think it’s 1985! |
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And to think, I'm a child of the 70s but I'm gonna try that out! PJ |
The new Boss AD-10 Acoustic DI
Well I got my eBay AD-10 mid-day today and yes, I’m very pleased. I can dial in exactly the sound I am looking for, along with a couple of variations and easily get to whatever I need.
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Page 12 of the manual. |
I’ve been playing with the AD-10 since yesterday and it is indeed very nice. I can get the sound I’m looking for and I love the versatility. I currently have it set up with with a Boss FS-6 switch set up as a two button looper. If you hold down the tune/mute button it triggers the automatic feedback suppression.
It sounds great and it is very versatile. You can do things like route the reverb to a stage amp but not the PA or setting the volume knob to only affect the feed to your stage amp. You can also chose which functions are changed with the presets. For instance, you might want the EQ and notch filters to stay constant while having the presets just change the modeling, delay and chorus effects. I expect I will use this an every gig going forward. |
OOH thanks for this thread! It's tough/impossible to get dual channel preamps in the UK with independent EQ (at least not without spending megabucks). I hadn't heard about this unit, very interesting.
Two questions - 1. Can I save the EQ settings for both input channels as different presets, or is the preset function only for the FX? 2. It sounds like the reverb is very subtle... maybe too subtle....I was hoping to cover this tune, would the delay and reverb get me anywhere close? |
Whoa this is awesome! This could be the first compact unit since the Solstice to provide separate eq for two channels that can be blended, and doesn't cost and arm and a leg.
Plus all the other bells and whistles. This could really simplify my rig. |
The reverb range on the AD-10 certainly goes past what I would ever use, though it is less than other units.
You can choose the parameters you want to be included in the presets. This can include the EQ or not depending upon which you prefer. |
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When's Christmas? |
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Nice Leviora Carbon Fiber guitar. |
The new Boss AD-10 Acoustic DI
A couple of things. One is that the reverb (ambience) unit has a global level function as well as the amount that you dial in. This function is preset at 50 (which is midway up). The idea is that you can preset reverb levels, but then add to or take away equally from all the presets depending upon the room. My perspective is that I’m never going to add more reverb than I use at home, just take away some when the place is reverberant. I turned it up all the way on mine. That brings the reverb levels way up from where they first appear.
The other thing I want to say is that I really love this box. I used it live Thursday night and the sound was just terrific! It was so nice not to be at the mercy of the bartender running sound. I just had him set the house PA system EQ flat and without reverb. The preset I had come up with at home sounded perfect. |
Ok, I used my AD-10 last night. The place was pretty packed when we got there and the main speaker for the house system is up high on the wall right behind the performance area. We had to turn up louder than usual and my acoustic guitar was feeding back like crazy somewhere around a low A. On the default setup on the AD-10, if you do a quick press of the right button it goes into tuner mute mode, but if you long press it, it does an automatic search for feedback and notches that frequency. If you still have another frequency ringing, a second long press of the same pedal will notch the second problem frequency.
It worked beautifully. We were loud enough that I had to do it twice. I also had to adjust the high pass filter up a little and cut a little low end, which was easy. After that, the guitar sound was perfect the rest of the night. I’ve always used notch filters manually before, and I’ve never had two of them. This automatic feedback buster is my new favorite feature! |
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Just had a look at the manual which was helpful. Still a little confused about the ambience/reverb capability though...
Spec. says 3 diff types (short, medium and long) So I'm guessing the reverb tail (length) is fixed for these and the only on-the-fly adjustment with the ambience knob is how wet you want it, yes? Under 'editing the effects' in the manual it says that for ambience you can edit the '...tonal quality of the sound'. Does that mean make the reverb tail brighter/darker? Someone said earlier said you can edit the parameter to get more reverb - (which is not clear in the manual) by that I assume 'more depth'/wetter mix/ I guess you cannot edit (increase) reverb tail length of each type of reverb? How long is the long reverb? The manual says you can add all sorts of footswitches and pedals, it would be great to have some examples of applications. |
For what it's worth, I was also having trouble using some of the features until I went to the Boss website and downloaded the online manual.
It seems some of the features have changed since the printed manuals were, uh, printed... Anyway, if you go to the website, you will able to get a manual that while similar, is actually what you need to properly run the AD-10. Perhaps that will help? Best, PJ |
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