Deeper Tonedexter 2 thread.

[James May]

Originally Posted by Doug Young

It's quite different from a blank IR, it's more like just saving the baseline, but with a subtle difference. You have 3 ways to "save" a sound you like:

1) any settings you make are "sticky". You can change the preset, or even shut off the unit, and it will be right where you left everything per-wavemap when you come back to it next.

2) Save to Baseline. This saves all your settings as a recallable snapshot. So say you tweak everything at home and think you've got it nailed. Save to baseline. Now you get to the gig and think it needs some tweaks. Fine, tweak away. But after the gig, maybe you think the next gig you'd prefer to once again start with what you dialed in at home as your starting place. Just "restore" from the baseline, and you're back where you started. All settings will be back to where you saved them.

3) Baking. Here, you basically take all your tweaks and save them, but as a new wavemap that has all your settings applied as a default to the actual wavemap, transparently. So if you bake a wavemap and put it in a new slot. It will have the sound of all your tweaks, but all the controls will show "flat". So for example, if you set spaciousness to 50% and baked that into a new wavemap, the spacious control will say 100%, but that's 100% of what is baked in (50%). If you wanted to get back to the true 100%, you'd have to go to 200%. It's a bit like some DAWs (if you do any recording) that let you "freeze" a track - basically applying any effects you put on the track and creating a copy with those effects included. In a DAW, this usually done to conserve CPU power. I haven't quite figured out when I would use baking vs Save to Baseline, but it seems to me that you might use it when you're 100% sure that your tweaks are correct, and you want to be able to start with all controls flat.

Thanks Doug for a very well phrased explanation. One use case for baking is if you are trying to apply a WaveMap created on an acoustic instrument to a solid body instrument. Chances are very high that the instrument will have a different pickup, and that you'll need to adjust the EQ settings for the Map you've created to make it "fit" or "sit well" on the solid body instrument. Once you've done that and are happy with the result, you can bake it in to a new Map which is targeted for that solid body instrument. Most on this forum may not need this, but there are a surprising amount of solid body string players out there. This baking facility makes getting Maps for solid body instruments much easier than before.

[lkingston]

So is the IR itself modified with EQ and spaciousness changes, or is it just that the EQ changes are applied and then made to look flat on the display? The way I understood it, the waveform of the IR itself was modified and then the EQ was actually as flat as it looked. Am I wrong?

[lkingston]

Originally Posted by guitaniac

Your mention of a "gig worthy stage guitar" reminds me that you have (or had) the Doyle Dykes model Godin Multiac which combines their LB6 in-saddle pickup with their Lyric Tru Mic. You can also add an onboard saturation effect with the LB6 signal, if I recall correctly.

Are you using the Doyle Dykes Multiac with ToneDexter 2? If so, I'm curious as to how well the IR works with the LB6, and if you can also use some saturation and/or Lyric signal in your output signal.

My understanding is that LB6 pickup has even and odd strings out of phase with each other, and that you have to loosen either the even or odd strings when programming an IR on any IR capture device, including the Tonedexter. Since the Doyle Dykes Multiac has no proper acoustic sound, the best option would be to use a different guitar with an LB6 to capture the IR.

[James May]

Originally Posted by lkingston

So is the IR itself modified with EQ and spaciousness changes, or is it just that the EQ changes are applied and then made to look flat on the display? The way I understood it, the waveform of the IR itself was modified and then the EQ was actually as flat as it looked. Am I wrong?

Feedback, Spaciousness, and EQ are all applied to a baked WaveMap, creating a new IR that starts anew with the ability to adjust all those parameters from scratch (defaults of 100% Spaciousness, 0% Feedback reduction, flat EQ).

[lkingston]

So it is a new calculated wave map IR then. I thought so. Thanks for the clarification James.

Also, if you go to an unused Wavemap slot, am I correct is assuming that the there is already a blank WaveMap there, but it is one that passes sound through without changing it. If you apply an EQ to this WaveMao and “bake it”, that this creates a new WaveMap with a simple IR that just applies that EQ?

[James May]

Originally Posted by lkingston

So it is a new calculated wave map IR then. I thought so. Thanks for the clarification James.

Also, if you go to an unused Wavemap slot, am I correct is assuming that the there is already a blank WaveMap there, but it is one that passes sound through without changing it. If you apply an EQ to this WaveMao and “bake it”, that this creates a new WaveMap with a simple IR that just applies that EQ?

That is exactly right.

[guitaniac]

Originally Posted by lkingston

My understanding is that LB6 pickup has even and odd strings out of phase with each other, and that you have to loosen either the even or odd strings when programming an IR on any IR capture device, including the Tonedexter. Since the Doyle Dykes Multiac has no proper acoustic sound, the best option would be to use a different guitar with an LB6 to capture the IR.

FWIW, the LB6 is wired so that the 'b' and high 'e' strings are out of phase with the other strings. The Barbera Soloist is the one which is wired so that all the adjacent strings are out of phase with each other.

In any event, James May has used a modified training protocol to create ToneDexter waveforms for an LB6 equipped guitar. The Multiacs DO have a certain amount of acoustic tone, so it may be worth a try.to create some waveforms by miking the Multiac.

You may well be correct that it would be better to create some waveforms from conventional acoustics (equipped with LB6s) and try using those waveform s with the Dykes Multiac. In other words, you would be using the Dykes Multiac as a modeling platform - similar to how the Fender Acoustisonics are modeling platforms for Fishman IRs which were created using conventional acoustics equipped with the same model UST that is used in the Acoustisonics.

[jtacoustic]

I have no idea how these types of devices work other than you need to create an Wavemaps using a mic on your guitar.

My tube question is... Are their "pre-set" Wavemaps that you can use that are not made from you particular guitar? Can you just plug and play with a Tonedexter 2?

What is an IR?

My guitar has a K&K Pure Mini.

[tadol]

A very simple answer - yes, you can just plug in your guitar, and use the TD2 to adjust eq, tuner, etc. It is possible to get wavemaps from others, or, ideally, you get a basic and inexpensive reference mic and make your own, using your guitar. It works great with the K&K, and would do a great job improving the sound of it. IR stands for impulse-response, which is kind of a first generation method of comparing a mics electronic signal to the electrical signal coming from the pickup, and working out an advanced eq adjustment that tries to alter the pickup signal to match the mic signal. How well it works has a lot to do with how many comparisons and how many adjustments the hardware can make - it’s kinda like an equalizer - some have just bass/mid/treble, some have a couple dozen frequency adjustments, and now, these units have many thousands of adjustments. James May has taken it much further, creating wavemaps, that build on the best concept of IRs, and takes them to a much higher level. So far, I’ve found the TD2 to be the most valuable single piece of hardware one can add to an acoustic instruments signal chain -

[CosmicOsmo]

Originally Posted by tadol

IR stands for impulse-response, which is kind of a first generation method of comparing a mics electronic signal to the electrical signal coming from the pickup, and working out an advanced eq adjustment that tries to alter the pickup signal to match the mic signal. [...] James May has taken it much further, creating wavemaps, that build on the best concept of IRs, and takes them to a much higher level. So far, I’ve found the TD2 to be the most valuable single piece of hardware one can add to an acoustic instruments signal chain -

I'm curious if you could expand on this a bit? I'm curious to know on a technical level, what separates a traditional IR (like you might get from a Nux Optima Air, Fishman Aura, Baggs VPDI) from a Tonedexter Wavemap? Is it just more bands of EQ adjustment? Whatever the magic is, you can't argue with the results.

[James May]

Originally Posted by CosmicOsmo

I'm curious if you could expand on this a bit? I'm curious to know on a technical level, what separates a traditional IR (like you might get from a Nux Optima Air, Fishman Aura, Baggs VPDI) from a Tonedexter Wavemap? Is it just more bands of EQ adjustment? Whatever the magic is, you can't argue with the results.

I'll jump in here. The main thing that differentiates a ToneDexter II WaveMap from the others IRs out there is the intelligence built into the training algorithm. The next most important difference is that we store a multi-dimension IR within the WaveMap. This allows you to easily adjust the Spaciousness to suit, as well as facilitating the smart Feedback control.

[lkingston]

To my ears, the “spaciousness” control sounds the best when it is turned down to zero. Doing that gets rid a lot of the weird comb filtered sound that bothers me so much about IRs in general.

Another thing worth mentioning is that there is a tiny bit of digital delay added to the direct sound that is passed through to the blend control. This avoids the weird comb filter effect that you would otherwise get from the blend.

I really love the separate EQs on the IR and unprocessed sound. This is quite an advantage over the LR Baggs device which just has a single shared EQ that both the IR and the blended direct sound share.

[lkingston]

On thing that I do like about the Optima Air is that it captures a standard IR that can be used with other devices and software that will load IRs. It works with my Helix for instance. Also with IR loading plugins on my DAW.

There is no blend control on the Optima Air though, nor is there any equivalent to the “spaciousness” control to get rid of the weired comb filtery sound. The reverb on the Optima Air is too over the top huge to use. It’s a pretty reverb sound, just not practical.

Another issue with the Optima Air is that you need an external mic preamp to capture an IR. Then you have to be really careful to get the right levels.

Capturing an IR on the ToneDexter 2 is far easier than any of it’s competitors.

[tadol]

Glad James jumped in on that - he’s tried to give me more info on it all, but the depth of his knowledge on it all is far more than I can grok. I just know it works, it’s easy, and it sounds great -

[James May]

Originally Posted by lkingston

To my ears, the “spaciousness” control sounds the best when it is turned down to zero. Doing that gets rid a lot of the weird comb filtered sound that bothers me so much about IRs in general.

....

This statement gets my attention. It is at odds with our expectation and experience. You are the best judge of what you like of course, but I'm curious under what conditions (headphones, speakers, etc) you are hearing the comb filtering. As much detail as possible would be helpful.