ToneDexter Thread

[Uncle Pauhana]

Originally Posted by guitaniac

Among other things, I'm thinking that if the mic signal sounds great, but the Dexterized signal seems to be missing something, it may be useful to compensate by boosting or cutting certain frequencies for the training mic signal. In other words, you have a situation where the mic placement seems ideal (judging by the recorded sound), but the Dexterized sound still seems to be lacking something, or to be too strong in certain frequencies.

In this particular case, it might be helpful to run the Dexterized signal through an EQ device to see/hear if any EQ tweaks make it sound better. If certain EQ tweaks help, you could try applying the same EQ tweaks to the training mic signal.

That makes complete sense. And of course it's easy for my recording engineer that I quote to talk, since has some really great (and expensive) mics to choose from!

[El Conquistador]

Originally Posted by guitaniac

you have a situation where the mic placement seems ideal (judging by the recorded sound), but the Dexterized sound still seems to be lacking something, or to be too strong in certain frequencies.

In this particular case, it might be helpful to run the Dexterized signal through an EQ device to see/hear if any EQ tweaks make it sound better. If certain EQ tweaks help, you could try applying the same EQ tweaks to the training mic signal.

Isn't this what you paid $400 for? It seems to me that the need to add EQ tweaks to the equation to arrive at a great tone negates the entire idea of the of the Tonedexter to begin with.

Steve

[midwinter]

Originally Posted by guitaniac

FWIW, I definitely like the de-honked sound much better. Is there some reverb on that recording? It has a more distant feel than the first guitar ToneDexter recording. The first ToneDexter guitar sample actually had a bit of inside-the-guitar perspective, to my ears. I thought your EQ fix (to add more "air") might have played a part in that. In any event, 3.5KHz (which you've identified as a problem frequency) is within the range of ToneDexter's treble shelving (which starts down at 2KHz, according to the manual).

Thanks. The de-honked is certainly more acceptable. It sounds GREAT fingerpicked, but the minute you really get on it strumming, it get honky in a couple of places.

Bumping the EQ to +8.5 helped immensely in terms of the air, so that's good.

But when you really dig into the guitar, there's a weird midrangey honk.

And yeah, we were figuring out reverb settings in this already unbelievably reverby room, so it took us a kind of ridiculous amount of time to find the sweet spot for the reverb settings.

[midwinter]

Originally Posted by fiddle fever

I played a gig last night in a tavern and I used my TD for the first time. Last night I played fiddle, banjo and guitar (main instrument is guitar). Using the banjo and fiddle with the TD was really, really nice. I was super happy with tone. The guitar was good, but I need to do some work. I wish I knew more about EQing to describe the sound. My situation sounds similar to what Midwinter was describing, regarding his gig experience. My guitar has a K&K pickup. I felt like I was fighting with the mids and highs last night. I had my treble knob on my TD way down. I had musicians that came out to the gig last night and said my guitar sounded really nice...so I'm not sure if it's just my ears. I did bring my old pedalboard, but I never used it. I felt like there was something about the TD that gave a presence and clarity to my single notes, which I really loved last night. I think I just need to do more experimenting with mic placement, etc. I guess I could run an EQ pedal in the effects loop, but I'm with Midwinter on this one...I want to keep it simple with my setup. And having only one pedal on the floor last night was nice.

The more I think about it, the more I'm wondering whether this is an issue associated with my particular pickups, which have a couple of midrange humps at 200hz and one in the mids that is both jangly and honky.

More experimenting, definitely.

[midwinter]

Originally Posted by rockabilly69

It's the same honk I heard yesterday only amplified! Now that you know what frequency it's at, you can fix it with some EQ. The statement about mic placement made above, is really about getting the best out of any source with a mic in a recording situation, but in your case you are trying to improve the source to make it compatible with the tone-dexter for live play. So follow your instinct with the EQ, and fix what's getting into the Tonedexter. There are no rules regarding this technology, especially getting it to work for your situation. Personally I would not want to simulate a microphone live, as I always have one on my guitar anyway, and, more importantly, I think a pickup is superior to a microphone for getting a driving low-end. But, I'm watching you brave pioneers closely Oh and how did your arm/shoulder hold up for the gig????

Yep. You'd have DIED if you'd seem the placement on the KM184 during training. I'll keep fiddling with it.

Shoulder is not too bad. That banjo is pretty uncomfortable, though—and a certain piano player we both know loves to get me to play it.

[rockabilly69]

Originally Posted by El Conquistador

Isn't this what you paid $400 for? It seems to me that the need to add EQ tweaks to the equation to arrive at a great tone negates the entire idea of the of the Tonedexter to begin with.

Steve

Not necessarily, because once you've figure out how to make a great sample with the EQ then you only have to pack the Tonedexter to the gig, and because it works with multiple instruments banjo mandolin guitar as in Midwinter's case, that only one item to handle all three instruments. I can clearly see what he's trying to accomplish.

[midwinter]

Originally Posted by rockabilly69

Not necessarily, because once you've figure out how to make a great sample with the EQ then you only have to pack the Tonedexter to the gig, and because it works with multiple instruments banjo mandolin guitar as in Midwinter's case, that only one item to handle all three instruments. I can clearly see what he's trying to accomplish.

Right. If this thing ONLY replaces my mando/banjo rig, it's simplified my rig (B/M into ToneBone PZ Pre + tuner + mixer) pretty significantly AND gotten me a better sound.

[guitaniac]

Originally Posted by El Conquistador

Isn't this what you paid $400 for? It seems to me that the need to add EQ tweaks to the equation to arrive at a great tone negates the entire idea of the of the Tonedexter to begin with.

Steve

Tweaking the EQ of the training mic signal is just a possible solution for difficult cases - or a possible solution for making your instrument's amplified sound more pleasing than its acoustic sound (if the instrument is tonally weak in an area).

Most of the users who've reported in appear to be well-pleased. Even the user (midwinter) who's had problems with his guitar sound has reported great results with two other instruments.


The thing that surprised me, in midwinter's case, is that his training mic recording (for guitar) sounded so good to my ears, but the Dexterized signal recording was disappointing to his ears and to my ears as well. It may be, however, that I shouldn't be expecting the best mic position for recording to also be the best mic position for training ToneDexter. Perhaps the users would be better served by just experimenting with mic position and focusing only on how the resulting Dexterized signal sounds.

[midwinter]

Originally Posted by guitaniac

The thing that surprised me, in midwinter's case, is that his training mic recording (for guitar) sounded so good to my ears, but the Dexterized signal recording was disappointing to his ears and to my ears as well. It may be, however, that I shouldn't be expecting the best mic position for recording to also be the best mic position for training ToneDexter. Perhaps the users would be better served by just experimenting with mic position and focusing only on how the resulting Dexterized signal sounds.

One thing that hadn't occurred to me until Rockabilly69 made a private comment to me yesterday is this: A TD image that sounds good recorded has very little to do with whether that same image will sound good coming out of a PA.

So NOW what I need to do is set up my PA and, at some volume, experiment with training the TD and then seeing how my particular PA responds.

Edit:

It occurs to me that it might also be useful to compare the live mic for training, the TD image itself, the TD image as recorded by the PA, and then—most importantly—to record the actual PA speaker cab. When I have time next week, I'll try to do this.

[buzzardwhiskey]

I'm primarily singer and song writer who happens to play rhythm guitar. I pick a tiny little bit. So while I definitely want to get rid of the quack, I also want my vocals to be "supported" with a nice rich, thick guitar sound.

To that end I spent a few hours messing with the EQ, compression, reverb and character settings on my setup.

Here's a quick recording that perhaps shows what I've achieved. I think it's going to work beautifully...



This is through my PA at medium levels... enough for a conversational bar or most restaurants I've played.

[midwinter]

What's the path on that? Is that a mic'd speaker cab or a DI into an interface?

[buzzardwhiskey]

Originally Posted by midwinter

What's the path on that? Is that a mic'd speaker cab or a DI into an interface?

Martin CEO7 with K&K... ToneDexter... FX loop to DigiTech RP360 (EQ, Compression, Reverb)... Back to ToneDexter (EQ flat, notch at 102Hz, character at 12:00)... Powered speaker (only one 'cause my room is too small)... Zoom H2 about four feet away... no post processing at all other than trimming.

[midwinter]

Yeah. These are the kinds of tests that are what we need to be hearing. I'm nearly done with all my end-of-semester grading, so I'll be able to train the TD while using a PA speaker.

[midwinter]

Originally Posted by buzzardwhiskey

Here's a quick recording that perhaps shows what I've achieved. I think it's going to work beautifully...

Also: while that sounds really good, I'm still hearing that midrange-y thing that I'm fighting with. Yours isn't as pronounced as mine on the recordings from last night.

I'll try to just run mine dry through a powered speaker later and record that output.

[Doug Young]

I played around a bit more with mine this weekend. I seem to recall someone asked about a combo amp, and I tried 2 wavemaps with a Boss Acoustic Singer amp and a Fishman SA330 with sub, with interesting results. The ToneDexter improved the sound thru both, tho surprisingly, I noticed the most improvement with the amp. The raw pickups were OK with the amp (the Boss is a nice sounding amp), but the ToneDexter's improvement was pretty dramatic. It was also interesting to compare the effect of the Boss "acoustic resonance" that's built into that amp. It was also a nice improvement over the raw pickup, but not as dramatic a change as the ToneDexter. Somewhere in-between.

I actually noticed less improvement with the Fishman. With one wavemap, the sub caused feedback pretty easily as I had a ton of bass with TD switched on. I probably had the sub cranked a bit high to add some warmth to the raw pickup, so with TD, I'd back that off, or maybe if I planned to use the sub, I'd play with mic position to get a brighter TD sound. In any case, this gave me a chance to play with the notch filter and EQ a little, and it was fine after that. But the Fishman is a nice warm sound in general, and tho the difference was certainly very noticeable when kicking in the TD, the raw pickup didn't sound as bad in comparison as it did thru the Boss, or thru my more accurate studio monitors.

Anyway, just another successful data point. With both sound setups, TD definitely improved the tone and sounded quite a bit more natural.