New Baggs IR pedal...

[JackB1]

That's the wonderful Sonitone! I never understood why Martin would put the worst, quackiest pickup in their "road series" guitars, which are meant to be stage ready, live guitars??? It's like building a race car and slapping normal street Continental tires on it.

Originally Posted by rschultz

Wow, that Martin sound truly is awful pickup wise, thanks for sharing.

[rschultz]

Originally Posted by JackB1

It's like building a race car and slapping normal street Continental tires on it.

That's a pretty accurate analogy...

[guitaniac]

Originally Posted by JackB1

That's the wonderful Sonitone! I never understood why Martin would put the worst, quackiest pickup in their "road series" guitars, which are meant to be stage ready, live guitars??? It's like building a race car and slapping normal street Continental tires on it.

Why? Ease of installation.

You'd think it would be just a easy to install a Matrix or Prefx system if Fishman did what LR Baggs does and all those Chinese copycats are doing. Put a 2.5mm plug on the pickups and a 2.5mm jack in the preamps.

I suspect that Fishman prefers that their premium system is difficult to install. They wouldn't want anyone to plug a cheap Chinese pickup into one of their preamps and discover that it works as well as the Matrix.

[DavidE]

Originally Posted by AeroUSA

https://www.lrbaggs.com/soundscape-a...response-pedal

Only as good as your phone's microphone?

[DavidE]

Originally Posted by necrome

The sound in the demo video is very mediocre. All those "wow"s don't help either.

Of course they're listening in the room through a speaker so expensive I don't know anyone who bought one.

[Petty1818]

https://youtu.be/IyRPj7SGJPo

At least it’s a comparison a bit.

[Doug Young]

Originally Posted by DavidE

Only as good as your phone's microphone?

Common misconception, that's come up a few times here. Using a known mic allows them to compensate for its response.

A similar example is the cheap Behringer measurement mic that many speaker/room tuning systems recommend. It's a terrible sounding mic, but that's beside the point for the intended use. Because the mic has a known profile and a calibration file is readily available, it works. (It's also omni, so it's less susceptible to variations due to placement) If you try to use a "better" sounding mic, you are dealing with lots of unknowns. The better mic may sound better to our ears, but won't provide the known reference that works well for whatever calculation is being done. My guess is that using the phone mic for training works much the same way.

My experience is that people also worry way too much about the mic they need to use for ToneDexter. Any mic conveys the type of info that's needed to correct the pickup. You may get some variations with different mics, different placement, etc, but even a 50 cent mic in a poor location sounds better than the best pickup, and will serve fine as a model for making the pickup sound less like a pickup and more like a mic'd guitar.

[Brent Hahn]

Originally Posted by DavidE

Of course they're listening in the room through a speaker so expensive I don't know anyone who bought one.

The Achilles' heel of most cheap-to-middling PAs and powered speakers is the tweeters. Folks hear that nice quack-free Tonedexter sparkle in their expensive home studio monitors and then wonder why a club PA doesn't sound like that. It won't sound like that with the Baggs, either.

[Doug Young]

Originally Posted by Brent Hahn

The Achilles' heel of most cheap-to-middling PAs and powered speakers is the tweeters. Folks hear that nice quack-free Tonedexter sparkle in their expensive home studio monitors and then wonder why a club PA doesn't sound like that. It won't sound like that with the Baggs, either.

Of course a bad piezo sound thru crappy tweeters is even less of a joy :-) Bad speakers are bad speakers no matter what you put thru them.

[Brent Hahn]

Originally Posted by Doug Young

Of course a bad piezo sound thru crappy tweeters is even less of a joy :-) Bad speakers are bad speakers no matter what you put thru them.

Not arguing that. But PA speakers, even the better ones, are made with the priority being survival. And people's expectations are so high after they've spent all that money and put the time in.

[Doug Young]

Originally Posted by Brent Hahn

Not arguing that. But PA speakers, even the better ones, are made with the priority being survival. And people's expectations are so high after they've spent all that money and put the time in.

I don't know. The cost of TD or the Baggs pedal is in the same ballpark as most preamp/DIs (less than many). Time spent is 30 seconds to train ( add another minute to plug it in and plug in a mic), less than the time to change strings. My expectations if I show up at an open mic with a bad PA and no time to sound check is basically zero, so if people have high expectations, it will be a learning experience no matter what gear they bring. I don't see that these devices - or any piece of gear someone brings - make the experience worse.

We've probably all experienced getting some new gear, be it a guitar, amp, or effects pedal and thinking "wow, people are going to think I'm really good when they hear me with this". I sort of learned that wasn't going to be the case when I was still in high school, but it hasn't stopped me from wanting to sound the best I can, when it's possible, so I do try to select gear that sounds good to me. If the parts of the signal chain I can't control get in the way of that, oh well, at least I did what I could do.

[guitaniac]

Originally Posted by Doug Young

I don't know. The cost of TD or the Baggs pedal is in the same ballpark as most preamp/DIs (less than many). Time spent is 30 seconds to train ( add another minute to plug it in and plug in a mic), less than the time to change strings. My expectations if I show up at an open mic with a bad PA and no time to sound check is basically zero, so if people have high expectations, it will be a learning experience no matter what gear they bring. I don't see that these devices - or any piece of gear someone brings - make the experience worse.

We've probably all experienced getting some new gear, be it a guitar, amp, or effects pedal and thinking "wow, people are going to think I'm really good when they hear me with this". I sort of learned that wasn't going to be the case when I was still in high school, but it hasn't stopped me from wanting to sound the best I can, when it's possible, so I do try to select gear that sounds good to me. If the parts of the signal chain I can't control get in the way of that, oh well, at least I did what I could do.

Yep. I suspect that most of us have stumbled across an open mic or two where a talented kid with a $100 beater and a cheap mag pickup was more pleasing to listen to than any of the older guys with their expensive Martins and Taylors. I've certainly hosted a few of those events. Albeit, it hasn't stopped me from being fascinated by the gear and wanting the best gear available.

[jonfields45]

Getting back to the Sonotone, it could sound better with some EQ than it did in that Sweetwater video (a high cut at 9 kHz would have helped immensely).

Assuming the Baggs video is using an Element for the input to the Soundscape the final tone is excellent and impressive.

I think the Matrix is a bad solution for less expensive instruments because it must be installed from outside the guitar and then be connected to the preamp with screw terminals. It is also relatively fragile outside of its final resting place.

The Element and Sonotone are a better factory option as they are indestructible, typically soldered or plugged into the preamp, and installed from inside guitar.

[guitaniac]

Originally Posted by jonfields45

Getting back to the Sonotone, it could sound better with some EQ than it did in that Sweetwater video (a high cut at 9 kHz would have helped immensely).

Assuming the Baggs video is using an Element for the input to the Soundscape the final tone is excellent and impressive.

I think the Matrix is a bad solution for less expensive instruments because it must be installed from outside the guitar and then be connected to the preamp with screw terminals. It is also relatively fragile outside of its final resting place.

The Element and Sonotone are a better factory option as they are indestructible, typically soldered or plugged into the preamp, and installed from inside guitar.

Oops. I just bought a Matrix UST (so the seller claims) with a 2.5mm plug and a 2.5mm jack which I can connect to Fishman's "Classic Four" preamp. I hope that you're not correct about the Sonitone being a better solution. I'll be snipping the Sonitone off the cable. (Of course, I could buy another one dirt cheap.)

[jonfields45]

Originally Posted by guitaniac

Oops. I just bought a Matrix UST (so the seller claims) with a 2.5mm plug and a 2.5mm jack which I can connect to Fishman's "Classic Four" preamp. I hope that you're not correct about the Sonitone being a better solution. I'll be snipping the Sonitone off the cable. (Of course, I could buy another one dirt cheap.)

The Matrix sounds better, it might have a jack these days for some Fishman products (screw terminals at least were the norm), but if the Matrix was inexpensive it is likely a knock-off.

The bottom-of-the-line Matrix still uses screw terminals...

https://www.fishman.com/wp-content/u...tion_guide.pdf