Open mic tone problem
 

I was just commenting on another thread about my struggles with tone at open mics and thought I'd post here for feedback, no pun intended! I play a Santa Cruz 1929 00 with a K&K pickup. I also play mostly fingerstyle with the flesh of my fingertips, no nails. because of this my tone tends to be muddy and flubby, lacking the highs associated with an acoustic that is so prevalent with playing with a pick. At home this is no problem because I know what I have to do on my amp to get the tone I like and sounds good which is to dial the mids way back, dial the bass back a little and boost the highs a lot. Dial settings on every amp I've owned is usually mids at 8 o'clock, bass at 10-11 and highs at 3 o'clock.

We are starting to play open mics quite a bit at a couple local places. The equipment runs the gamut from really good to really bad as is the quality of the sound man. But regardless my tone is always pretty awful. Muddy, flubby and very low. The better guy with the better equipment can get me louder but still on the muddy side. I normally just plug straight in.

So I've come to the conclusion that I really need to just bring my own pre-amp with EQ to get my signal boosted and pre-dial in my tone. I have a Red Eye and I also have the little K&K belt clip. I used the latter one time at the place with great sound equipment but then I ran into feedback issues. I did just recently buy a soundhole cover which I have yet to try out to see if that helps with feedback. I might try the K&K pre-amp with the sound cover this weekend to see how that goes over.

I'm thinking I maybe I should try something that also has a notch filter to help with feedback if I run into it. Since it's an open mic I'm looking for simplicity and speed. I don't want to spend a lot of time trying to dial in perfect tone, just scoop the mids, boost the signal and if needed notch out the problem frequency, usually around 110 with the K&K's, or so I've heard.

Thinking of trying out the LR Baggs Session but no EQ. The Venue is good but a bit over the top. What else out there has a nice balance of simple and easy to use but has the features I've talked about without breaking the bank?

I think answered already what I would say. Especially for something that is light quick and easy. Clip a preamp on the belt with what you need and go You already know that you'll have to take a moment and quick adjust when you start but once you find your sweet sopt that you normally use. It'll be just small adjustments. Keep a fresh battery in it so it doesn't go south in the middle of things.

For something like this situation, a Boss GE-7 will be inexpensive and effective for dialing in your desired tone and buffering the signal. It'll also give you some gain if a signal boost is needed. The biggest drawback for the GE-7 is that it doesn't have a phase inversion capability. That sometimes helps with feedback and muddiness issues.

The combination of your playing style (fingerstyle with flesh pads rather than nails or fingerpicks) and your pickup choice (soundboard pickup) will likely make you more vulnerable to feedback than most of the players at the open mic. (Your playing style requires more gain to be sufficiently loud, and SBT's are the most difficult pickup type to achieve high gain with.) You'll probably need to cut a lot at 200Hz and 100Hz. Don't go crazy with the mid cuts, you'll need those mids to be heard.

Considering your playing style and pickup, including a big mid cut in that mix is a recipe for feedback problems if the venue is halfway noisy and you'll need a lot of gain to be heard.

New Session DI owner here and liking it very much with an Anthem SL in a Waterloo guitar. It's my new rig for open mics. Have tested it with a small PA and the Session DI delivers. You might still do a little final eq at the board but you won't need much.

The Session works great for me but please keep it in mind that a lot will depend on your playing, the guitar, the pickup, the speakers, etc. So try it before you buy it.

The new ToneDexter is incredible.

I sometimes take my Zoom A3 and Ditto 2x with me to open mics. Both run off of batteries and take no more time in setting up than plugging in a guitar. Although taking the Zoom A3 improves the tone, there's only so much that can be done when plugging into a poor sounding system with a bad stage setup.

Open mic tone problem
 

For an open mic, you likely need the external preamp to belt clipped. No one will permit the extra time to setup pedals on the floor and adjust your tone to your liking. The K&K preamp is good. I used it for a year. I've also considered this product, but I have no experience with it. I don't know how well it works with K&K pickups.



https://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/PlatinumStage

A decent preamp could very well solve your problems; at the very least, it will give you a modicum of control over your sound - at Open Mics, you are truly at the mercy of the limitations of both the sound system and the guy on the mixing board...

The tone you describe sounds as though you may have too long a "drop" or cable run from the stage to the mixing board... with a K&K (high impedance) pickup, if the distance between you and that mixing board is more than about 20', you will experience tone and volume degradation, becoming more and more extreme as that distance increases... a direct box of some sort is necessary for longer cable drops to the board to avoid signal loss and degradation...

One thing to remember, the amplified tone of a guitar in a high volume setting is affected by sound interacting with the guitar top. If you are having feedback problems, you are likely in an amplification zone where EQ requirements are somewhat different than being at home listening to headphones or an amp at low volume.

With a soundboard pickup (like the Pure Mini) especially, one is much more likely to have feedback and muddiness issues with the lows and low mids (the vicinity of 80Hz to 300Hz) than with the mids and highs. I strongly suspect that you are shooting yourself in the foot by using a deep mid cut in your open mic settings.

Someone has suggested a Zoom A3 preamp, and I'd agree that that preamp can provide a great deal of EQ help when needed. I use the A3 myself, but its a very complex device and has a steep learning curve. I've suggested a Boss GE-7 because its intuitive and easy to use. It has the recommended input impedance for the Pure Mini (1Mohm), and can boost your signal up to 15db if needed. As a general suggestion, a cut at 200Hz and (to a lesser degree) 100Hz and 400Hz will likely help your muddiness problem considerably.

Learn to play with a plastic thumbpick and at least two metal fingerpicks.

Problem solved!

Yep. You'll lose a lot of signal level and more of the high end when running a passive pickup signal through a long instrument cable to the PA mixer. A good rule of thumb with a passive pickup is to use a cable of 10' or less to an outboard preamp (or GE-7 used as a preamp w/graphic EQ), or to the DI box on stage (if there is one).

This may not hold exactly for the K&K passive pickups, but here's what LR Baggs says with respect to guitar cable length and their own passive pickups:

* A standard guitar cable will attenuate our passive pickups by approximately 1dB per foot. The 12' cord used for this test already attenuates the signal by 12dB, compared to an onboard preamp. If you use a shorter or longer cord, adjust the gain accordingly. Our active pickups will drive any length of cord with no attenuation.


I got that quote from the Baggs Para DI manual.

I love the tone I get from my Session (with K&K, in an Eastman E10SS)

As has been said, sound quality on open mic stages is widely variable and in very large part out of the control of the performer. To my way of thinking learning to deal with sub-standard amplification goes with the territory. Keep it simple, plug in and go........don't be distracted by lousy sound.