Yanking Out the SBTs Next Year?

[guitaniac]

Originally Posted by MattM

That is the price that was quoted to me from a Baggs CS rep as the street price for that system. FWIW the same rep did not seem at all confident that the system will be rolled out by April.

I'm just quoting what I saw, with respect to the April release date. I won't be holding my breathe, based on past experience with release date forecasts.

Gary

[66strummer]

Originally Posted by guitaniac

I'm just quoting what I saw, with respect to the April release date. I won't be holding my breathe, based on past experience with release date forecasts.

Gary

Side note: I used that JJB Prestige 330 installed dread Saturday for a cafe' gig along with a K&K Pure Preamp into the house PA. It sounded very nice and natural, with all kinds of output (actually had to dial back the gain as it gets loud quick). I doubt I'll look into anything else pickup-wise although I'd love to hear this new Baggs system in action at some point, out of pure curiosity of course.....

[hann]

managed to get a listen to it at NAMM.

there were a few concerns about the amount of things installed into the guitar.but the soundhole module's actually pretty light, and in fact, not very big either.

The blend mix was interesting.. while it had a 100% element side, turning the blend knob to the other extreme didn't give it 100% mic, but a specifc ratio that wasn't revealed to me.

Listened to it through the Baggs venue and into the Baggs amp. Honestly, I couldn't hear a whole lot of difference from one extremity to the other. The Mic/Element mix did reduce the brittleness and harshness from the treble strings, but with regard to adding the sparkle and airiness.. I didn't hear too much of that, not as effective as a standard internal mic perhaps.
Or it could be the noise cancelling mic cancelled too much? The rep said it picks up everything coming from within the body and cancelled that to take away the boxiness in the sound, while because it's attached so close to the body, picks up what the rest of the body is doing.
Sounds more like a contact pickup to me.

What it did do however, was become alot less feedback prone to the Ibeam, and while the ibeam was quite position sensitive, this was supposed to be quite hassle free. And it did pick up percussive style playing very well too.

[jcwu]

Thanks for the update!!

[guitaniac]

Thanks for the report, hann. Its good to learn that Anthem is not as feedback prone as the iBeam.

I'm curious as to why they'd want to run the Anthem thru the A-ref amp and the Venue DI/preamp. I thought that one of the advantages of the A-ref was its excellent EQ section. If the A-ref's EQ is up to the job, putting the Venue in the signal chain merely adds an unnecessary and counter-productive gain stage.

Then again, it does allow them to demo all three pieces of gear with one display. Also, having an electronic tuner in the signal chain would be a big help at the noisy NAMM show. I'm thinking, though, that the tuner wouldn't need to be directly in the signal chain. It could be connected to the amp's line out.

Gary

[hann]

yeah it's probably a convenience thing.. in fact they had 4,5 venues on the floor.. all plugged into a diff guitar... in fact a few ref amps as well all plugged to diff venues.

[guitaniac]

Here's a short video of Lloyd Baggs demoing the Anthem system at NAMM.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ApK_NBS5oiM

Even amidst all the chaos I can clearly hear the difference between the extreme mic blend position (1st setting) and the full UST blend position (2nd setting). He did an in-between blend last which was my favorite of the three settings. He also whacked the strings real hard and made the comment that the Anthem signal doesn't compress (with an aggressive attack). I hope that's true. What intrigues me most about the Anthem is the claimed natural responsiveness to variations in attack.

Gary

[lppier]

From the video, I can't tell much really coz the camera seems to be picking up the natural guitar sound as well.
So Hann, it doesn't really sound like the clips at http://www.lrbaggs.com/anthem/ in practice? That's a bit disappointing to hear...

[66strummer]

Sounded to me like that guitar in the vid. was way out of tune. It did sound like the recording mic was picking up an acoustic amp and not the natural sound of the guitar though, especially when he hit the strings hard at the end.

[guitaniac]

Yes, my guess is that the video camera's mic was picking up mostly amp sound. For one thing, you could distinctly hear the blend changes which he was making. For another thing, Lloyd's unmiked voice is barely audible in comparison to the guitar sound.

With regard to it not sounding like the John Standefer clips, there are two obvious reasons. 1) Its a different guitar being played by a different person. 2) The Standefer recording was direct to recorder. This recording was miking an amp, with the acoustics of the room and the mic's position relative to the amp speaker being relevent variables, in addition to any acoustic guitar sound which the mic may be picking up.

Gary

[hann]

the 2nd one was with the element only if i'm not wrong, based on where his fingers were going.. there's a diff in that clip but yeah too many things in the background to really know fer sure.

I was standing in front of the amp when I was listening.. and the venue was already all EQ'd...

mmm well I wasn't blown away cos maybe i don't like the element all that much.. even with the max blend with the mic, there was still the jangle in the high strings which i never really liked.

Now the He.2 from headway... now THAT was impressive for a UST.. which suddenly reminds me.. didn't see D-tar there...

[guitaniac]

Originally Posted by hann

Now the He.2 from headway... now THAT was impressive for a UST.. which suddenly reminds me.. didn't see D-tar there...

If the HE.2 system is impressive, then it has to be a HUGE improvement over the HE.1 system which I installed in my old D28. I have to apply industrial strength EQ and some Aura sound imaging to get decent amplified tone from that rig. I've just about decided to remove the HE.1 and re-install the passive DTAR Timberline coaxial pickup which I had in the guitar. The Timberline is noisier, but it doesn't require near as much EQ correction to get a decent tone.

With respect to DTAR, I saw some of their products in view during a video interview at the Seymour Duncan booth.

Gary

[hann]

hmmm it could be the installation of ur pickup like you say, i'm sure the preamp circuitry is different as well.

oh... i forgot d-tar could be at seymour duncan.. totally missed the booth cos i didn't wanna see those electric stuff.. oops...

[guitaniac]

Originally Posted by hann

hmmm it could be the installation of ur pickup like you say, i'm sure the preamp circuitry is different as well.

I'm sure the installation in my D28 could be better, but its the exact same installation for the HE.1 and the Timberline. The Timberline simply sounds better. I'm thinking that the difference between the HE.1 and the HE.2 (if there is a difference) is probably in the co-axial cable itself. The current Headway literature claims that they use a special co-axial cable which has a flat frequency response. The HE.1 system, on the other hand, most definitely has a presence peak around 3KHz. Even the instructions which came with it said that a cut around 3KHz will work best if the pickup happens to sound too trebly.

Gary

[royd]

the youtube video is the reason why I don't expect to get any good sense of just about anything at NAMM... unless the company has a quiet room the background noise makes it impossible to really evaluate anything.