Playing out with a Tonedexter

[gfirob]

Last night I played out in a small restaurant, performing for two hours. There had been about three inches of snow that day and it was still falling, so the crowd was small and fairly quiet, but there were a couple of guys at the bar who were drinking fairly seriously and kept shouting encouragement and putting money in the tip jar (“We love you, man!”). There was some general conversation in the room, but it was comparatively quiet, so the amp level was moderate for a room that size.

I did not use the house PA having heard it before, but instead brought a Fishman SA220, which was fine in that space and noise level. The guitar was a rosewood Martin OM with K&K’s, the two pedals were TC Helicon’s Play Acoustic and a Tonedexter, with a small Mackie mixer. I didn’t really need the mixer (because I could have put the guitar and mike cables right into the Fishman) but it allows me to have separate volume controls for voice and guitar as well as the main output close to hand. The mixer main out went into the Fishman Aux-in.

Those two pedals covered voice eq, compression and reverb and guitar reverb, tuner and boost. The guitar Body Res effect in the Play Acoustic was zeroed out in favor of the Tonedexter. I used a little guitar eq from the mixer, mostly to take the edge off the sound of my metal fingerpicks. The Tonedexter eq was flat. Character on the Tonedexter (which allows you to mix the pickup sound with the Tonedexter/microhone sound) was set at zero, or the middle point. Pedals and mixer were on a heavy duty music stand to the side, with remote pedal buttons on the floor to control them. I played standing up. The wavemap I was using in the Tonedexter had been made with an Ear Trumpet Edwina large diaphragm microphone after a fair amount of experimentation and I was happy with it (it was the best one I had come up with).

The short report is that the Tonedexter-processed guitar sounded great during the performance, very natural and very close to what that Martin actually sounds like. Like most people who buy one of these things, I had been immediately taken with this device by listening to its effect isolated on headphones during the training and setup process. But of course it sounds different coming out of an amplifier and particularly when it is amplified in a strange room with unexpected sound challenges. So this event was the first time I used it out in the uncertain world and it performed beautifully. I got some comments about how good the guitar sounded from a musician in the audience (who had no idea the Tonedexter was in use).

I was playing solo, so the Tonedexered guitar was not competing with other instruments or voices, so I can’t speak to how it would do in that arena, but it performed like a champ in the setup I was in. I can’t say enough good things about it.

I make the assumption most people reading this will know what a Tonedexter (from Audio Sprockets) is, but if you do not, I recommend Doug Young’s excellent demo and review on Youtube. What you hear on that demo is completely accurate. As far as I know there is nothing else, no other preamp, that will take the signal from your acoustic pickup and make it sound so much like your guitar through a mike, so much like the genuine acoustic sound of your guitar. It is nothing short of amazing.

[Chriscom]

Thank you for that detailed post.

A lot of my gigging is duo work with a keyboardist so it's our two vocals + keyboards and my guitar, often in a setting where you can hear most of the time. I think in that setting I (we) could really benefit from the Tonedexter. Other times I'm playing in crazy noisy environments where I'm beginning to feel the airiness of the guitar would get buried anyway, and I'd be better off with the more electric-acoustic sound to at least let everyone know I'm actually playing the thing.

[Gordon Currie]

Thanks for starting this thread! I'll be gigging tonight with Tonedexter for the first time, and I hope to add to this.

[Methos1979]

Originally Posted by Gordon Currie

Thanks for starting this thread! I'll be gigging tonight with Tonedexter for the first time, and I hope to add to this.

Thanks to the OP for posting this and yes, Gordon, please do post. In fact, I'd love to see posts from everyone using their Tonedexters live with real-world feedback on how the unit performs.

[DrJamie]

Sigh! I just picked up a Fishman Rare Earth Blend soundhole pickup for my J-45. I couldn't get myself to have a pickup installed in this particular guitar. I thought the Tone Dexter would create a great mic'd sound, but alas, it can't create models with a magnetic pickup. Maybe it can use the internal mic to model, while it hears an external mic. The Blend does have an internal mic, but from what I understand, it needs a piezo to work.

[AeroUSA]

I’m using mine tonight with the Ultra Tonic pickup

[Gordon Currie]

Last night performed as part of a songwriter showcase. A 25 minute set with two ToneDexters, 1 with Larrivee LV03/K+K pure mini and the other with Taylor GS Mini/ES2.

The sound system was a Fishman 220 stick with a basic Mackie mixer front end, placed in a corner (room mode alert).

We did not get much time to sound check and the sound person is not super experienced. So it was a little more reminiscent of an open mike than a concert.

Right off the bat, we had issues with boomy bass that did not show up while rehearsing with a Bose L1c. Needed to roll off bass by -6 dB.

I ended up rolling back the Character setting to 50% to achieve a sound I liked in that room.

Overall, I see that, for problematic rooms/systems (this is one), good clean surgical EQ is needed. I think sweepable mid EQ would be most helpful.

It was very handy to be able to quickly stoop and adjust EQ, Character, and output level.

If you had asked me onstage if I liked the guitar sound, I would have said 'not much.' However, viewing/listening to a video of the performance revealed that the guitar sound was far nicer than *I* experienced. It may be that the people who benefit most from ToneDexter are audiences...

Next week we will be doing our own long show, with standard PA and monitors and 20 minutes of sound check time. I plan to post again after that.

All of the wavemaps we have were created in slot 22. I am considering retraining using the anti-feedback features before next weekend.

[James May]

Originally Posted by Gordon Currie

...

All of the wavemaps we have were created in slot 22. I am considering retraining using the anti-feedback features before next weekend.

I would strongly suggest this is a good idea. The anti-feedback adjustments we do to the standard (non slot 22) WaveMaps were extensively field tested and tweaked for this very reason. In extreme situations, engaging the sweepable notch should get you there. Do let us know how that works out next go around.

[Petty1818]

Originally Posted by Gordon Currie

Last night performed as part of a songwriter showcase. A 25 minute set with two ToneDexters, 1 with Larrivee LV03/K+K pure mini and the other with Taylor GS Mini/ES2.

The sound system was a Fishman 220 stick with a basic Mackie mixer front end, placed in a corner (room mode alert).

We did not get much time to sound check and the sound person is not super experienced. So it was a little more reminiscent of an open mike than a concert.

Right off the bat, we had issues with boomy bass that did not show up while rehearsing with a Bose L1c. Needed to roll off bass by -6 dB.

I ended up rolling back the Character setting to 50% to achieve a sound I liked in that room.

Overall, I see that, for problematic rooms/systems (this is one), good clean surgical EQ is needed. I think sweepable mid EQ would be most helpful.

It was very handy to be able to quickly stoop and adjust EQ, Character, and output level.

If you had asked me onstage if I liked the guitar sound, I would have said 'not much.' However, viewing/listening to a video of the performance revealed that the guitar sound was far nicer than *I* experienced. It may be that the people who benefit most from ToneDexter are audiences...

Next week we will be doing our own long show, with standard PA and monitors and 20 minutes of sound check time. I plan to post again after that.

All of the wavemaps we have were created in slot 22. I am considering retraining using the anti-feedback features before next weekend.

Thanks for this! I have not used the tonedexter live yet but I feel as though my experience with systems such as; the aura spectrum, Anthem, Fishman matrix blend etc have led me to approach the TD differently than I might have before. I have come to the conclusion that too much of a natural blend from a pedal like the aura or TD or too much of an internal mic can just make things boomy and unusable. I will admit that when I first bought the TD, I was worried about this. Not having a blend control and only a character control did not seem like enough. I had a feeling that at home the wavemaps would be shockingly good but live, they would be too boomy and difficult to dial in.

With that said, the fact that the character knob can now act as a true blend control has really eased my concerns. I approach the TD like I would any internal mic. I like to blend in a small amount (20-25%). It gives me the air and high end of an internal mic but my pickup tone is still there, which makes eq'ing much easier. I am currently still using the Amulet M but might switch to the K&K. I just dial in enough of the TD until I can hear it making my guitar sound less like a piezo and I leave it there. I used to do the same with the aura. The difference is that with the TD, I can record an image that has a bit more bottom end and warmth.

Again, I haven't used it live yet but I have set it up in my basement with my full PA (QSC TM16 + K12's x2), and have loved the sound. I typically run my own sound so this is exactly what I would do for a normal show so I am confident it will work well. My only concern is that I wish the TD had a mid control.

[AeroUSA]

My experience has changed a lot but overall it’s hard for me to play without the Tone Dexter now.

I do find that the pickup is important. I prefer something that picks up some of the top (not the Matrix) as I feel it adds more realism. The Ultra Tonic is hands down the best pickup I have tried, both direct with a touch of EQ and with Tone Dexter.

Since it’s hard to get it installed and Martin do not make cutaways without electronics I recently got myself a Taylor 814CE DLX.

I used it today and the plugged in sound is very passable and usable but I used the TD and it sounded great.

Each gig varies but the interesting thing is that with the Ultra Tonic I was finding the best sound to be character 1 and eq flat or a slight treble boost. It worked great. With the Taylor today it was too much and I blended at about 60%. It seems to be that you need to adjust your settings depending on the guitar and pickup used but once you get it working it’s very hard to go back for sure.

[gfirob]

Great to hear these experiences, very helpful. I had no feedback issues last Friday, but was using slot 5 so I would have had the feedback protection in place. I was in the corner of a fairly small room, in tight, also using a Fishman SA220 and a Shure SM58, character/blend flat. One of the things that is always true how the stress of getting set up in time, making sure everything is working and then launching into the set in front of an audience makes even small technical issues seem a lot bigger.

It is one thing to do it at home and listen to yourself, dial the whole thing in, in comfort and another to do it in front of a bunch of people when you are rattled. So I really appreciate it when things function well and the Tondexter really delivered that. And it sounded great, with the wave map from an Ear Trumpet Edwina and little tweaking eq on the mixer for metal fingerpick sound. I’m. loving it.

My sense is that the character blend might really be important in a noisier environment than I was in. I think its a great feature.

Now I am getting an envy on for that Ultra Tonic...

[guitaniac]

Originally Posted by Gordon Currie

All of the wavemaps we have were created in slot 22. I am considering retraining using the anti-feedback features before next weekend.

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I've found the slot 22 WaveMaps to be boomy and feedback prone in a live setting. The adjusted WaveMaps have worked fine for live settings, so far. Albeit, I'm also using a heavy rubber soundhole cover to minimize the guitar top's interaction with speaker sound.

If I ever do run into a boominess problem with the adjusted WaveMaps, I'll try using ToneDexter's notch first, as the biggest problem frequency for my guitar (when using a slot 22 WaveMap) seems to be 110 Hz. I'll also have ToneDexter's phase inversion switch to try. before resorting to a general bass roll-off.

[buzzardwhiskey]

The Tonedexter sound is fantastic. But for more control I send it and a parallel signal from a Boss AD-2 into my Schertler Unico. The above is a layout for next weekend's gig where I'm stuffed into a corner.

[Gordon Currie]

Originally Posted by James May

I would strongly suggest this is a good idea. The anti-feedback adjustments we do to the standard (non slot 22) WaveMaps were extensively field tested and tweaked for this very reason. In extreme situations, engaging the sweepable notch should get you there. Do let us know how that works out next go around.

I will definitely redo some of the wavemaps based on this and other feedback.

[varmonter]

I sold my tonedexter. not that i didn't think it wasn't a decent unit.
But i am just looking for a less processed sound. which i've found.