Help me decide: Tonedexter or Voiceprint?

[Villamarzia]

I play fingerstyle, both steel and nylon, with various pickups (Barbera, Lyric, K&K) depending on the guitar. My rig is pretty simple: guitar - Sennheiser wireless system - a preamp of choice (I have a few) - Baggs reverb (fx loop, if present in the preamp). Finally, DI to the PA and line out to a powered Deadalus cabinet.

In the past I had some dual source system, pickup + mic, but I don't want to go back to feedback battles due to the mic, while I'd like to have more "mic-ish" sound quality. Therefore I am considering swapping my preamps for an IR based one and I selected either the Tonedexter and the Voiceprint.

While I have some quality small condenser mic at hand (AKG P170), which I could use with the TD, I fancy the simplicity of the VPDI. I also like the EQ possibilities of the latter. So, I am more inclined to go with a VPDI, even if I am pretty aware that possibly the TD gives a better representation of my guitars' natural voice.

Price-wise they are both super expensive in EU. Around 600USD each. Auch!

Is there any consideration, based on your experience, I should be aware of, before deciding? What would you decide, mainly for live use? and why?

Thanks folks!

PS: in the past I've had an HX stomp and a Nux Optima Air. I did't bond with either. I've found the HX Stomp too "digital", too many options to play with and I ended up loosing more time to create presets than play, while I've found the Optima not sounding that good versus a good pickup into a good preamp.

[Gordon Currie]

I am not hearing that there are significant differences in quality between VP and TD. The biggest differences seem to be in suitability to one's specific use cases.

You already like things about the VoicePrint. Usability and simplicity are valuable to you. Get this one.

I would use the ToneDexter primarily because I own one and have used it for a few years. The form factor and use case work for me.

I would not personally reject the VoicePrint for quality, but for usability.

[leew3]

Gordon nailed it above and I'm a prime example of the use case selection process. Though I don't have direct experience with either of them, I'm planning to buy the Voiceprint DI. Nothing against the Tone Dexter-it just won't work with most of the pickups I already have (e.g. Anthem SL and several versions of Taylors ES system). If that were not the case, I'd go with a Tone Dexter.

[jonfields45]

Originally Posted by leew3

Gordon nailed it above and I'm a prime example of the use case selection process. Though I don't have direct experience with either of them, I'm planning to buy the Voiceprint DI. Nothing against the Tone Dexter-it just won't work with most of the pickups I already have (e.g. Anthem SL and several versions of Taylors ES system). If that were not the case, I'd go with a Tone Dexter.

Regardless of what the manufacturers tell you, either device (ToneDexter or Voiceprint) will handle (or not) the same pickups. This is fundamental to using an IR (the pickup needs to be linear and time invariant) to correct for the differences between any pickup and a microphone reference.

However, even pickups clearly incompatible with an IR, a magnetic sound hole pickup is the most common example, a Baggs Session VTC is another less common one, might sound better to you with an IR. In that usage case I see no reason to prefer one over the other.

The most likely reason that Baggs appears to be more robust in their reporting is they've not got enough market experience to know when to give their customers a warning that a particular pickup might not work as well as safer choices.

Non linear pickups which intensionally use compression and distortion, have frequency content in the pickup output completely missing from the mic sample and that frequency content will change depending where you play on the guitar and how hard your hit the strings (incompatible with training a fixed single IR). Strum lightly and play in one position during training to produce the IR and you might get something useful (or not).

Magnetic pickups not placed at the bridge (and not hexaphonic in design) ideally require an IR per string and fret, not the single fixed IR of ToneDexter or Voiceprint. But still an IR trained in the open position might add value for you.

And my often stated prejudice is for ToneDexter.

[Petty1818]

Originally Posted by jonfields45

Regardless of what the manufacturers tell you, either device (ToneDexter or Voiceprint) will handle (or not) the same pickups. This is fundamental to using an IR (the pickup needs to be linear and time invariant) to correct for the differences between any pickup and a microphone reference.

However, even pickups clearly incompatible with an IR, a magnetic sound hole pickup is the most common example, a Baggs Session VTC is another less common one, might sound better to you with an IR. In that usage case I see no reason to prefer one over the other.

The most likely reason that Baggs appears to be more robust in their reporting is they've not got enough market experience to know when to give their customers a warning that a particular pickup might not work as well as safer choices.

Non linear pickups which intensionally use compression and distortion, have frequency content in the pickup output completely missing from the mic sample and that frequency content will change depending where you play on the guitar and how hard your hit the strings (incompatible with training a fixed single IR). Strum lightly and play in one position during training to produce the IR and you might get something useful (or not).

Magnetic pickups not placed at the bridge (and not hexaphonic in design) ideally require an IR per string and fret, not the single fixed IR of ToneDexter or Voiceprint. But still an IR trained in the open position might add value for you.

And my often stated prejudice is for ToneDexter.

I see what you are saying but from the demos I have heard with the VP and Lyric/Anthem, it does seem to handle those pickups better than the Tonedexter.

[thirdie2002]

Sometimes a guitar’s natural voice amplified is not the best tone live especially if there are live monitors in the venue.

I dont have the tonedexter and from the demos i’ve heard online, i think it is great at what it does.

I have the voiceprint and it is an awesome gear to have on my pedalboard. It is easy to use. No need to think about microphones and mic placements.

[stringbound]

If you have the LR Baggs Lyric in one of your guitars, go with the Voiceprint. You need an iPhone to work with the Voiceprint. If you have an Android phone, you can't use the Voiceprint at the moment and have to wait for the Android version

[Villamarzia]

Originally Posted by stringbound

If you have the LR Baggs Lyric in one of your guitars, go with the Voiceprint. You need an iPhone to work with the Voiceprint. If you have an Android phone, you can't use the Voiceprint at the moment and have to wait for the Android version

Why do you think that a Lyric works better with the VPDI than the TD? It’s a natural assumption based on the manufacturer, but I’d like to educate myself more on IR and get the reasons behind.

[Villamarzia]

One problem I will have with both devices concerns my Barbera equipped nylon string guitar. Indeed, Barbera has flipped polarities across the strings and my understanding is that this is a problem for all IRs. Is it an issue only during the training or always? Stupid question: what if I train the device using only every other strings, let’s say E,D and B? Silly?

[jonfields45]

Originally Posted by Villamarzia

One problem I will have with both devices concerns my Barbera equipped nylon string guitar. Indeed, Barbera has flipped polarities across the strings and my understanding is that this is a problem for all IRs. Is it an issue only during the training or always? Stupid question: what if I train the device using only every other strings, let’s say E,D and B? Silly?

It is not a problem. Here's a Barbera example where I ran the IR generation script and listened to the input which was all strings recorded at once.

https://www.acousticguitarforum.com/...3&postcount=12

Think of it this way, the odds of you striking the strings during training that they could start out and stay in-phase is zero. The relative string phasing will vary as you play your demo for IR calculation.

One of the Character knob options of ToneDexter is something called "minimum phase" where the phase information from IR training is intentionally discarded to get the same frequency response from the IR, but the minimum delay through the IR (FIR) filter. The math is pretty easy, I've implemented it, and discarded that code from my final generator as I thought the result was too subtle after the steps I took to keep IR training from locking onto noise.

I think minimum phase is audible in a similar way as phase reversal. It is actually the same frequency response coming out of the speaker/headphone, but it interacts with your room/headphone and other sound sources such as your guitar, and that makes it sound different. Of course that is really useful if you are dealing with feedback...

However, there are so many controlled and uncontrolled factors in any training session which then added to observer bias and the variables of making a decent YouTube video...that what you may conclude is not predictable.

[jonfields45]

Originally Posted by Petty1818

I see what you are saying but from the demos I have heard with the VP and Lyric/Anthem, it does seem to handle those pickups better than the Tonedexter.

If those demos were not by you in-person, I would be skeptical. Identical setups can sound bad to great depending on so many details of making a demo.

[jonfields45]

One more thought, Audiosprockets takes an audiophile's view to their marketing which impacts what they tell you. But at their very core, both Baggs and Audiosprockets are running the same FFTs, doing the same accumulation, the same division, and the same IFFT. There are lots of details that are different, but that core constraint makes all nonlinear pickups not an optimal choice for an IR.

[leew3]

Thanks for Jonfields45 for correcting what appear to be my misconceptions based on the information available to me from these two manufacturers. I should clarify my earlier post to read: if I were to choose between these two products it appears to me that the Voiceprint DI would be a better choice based on the pickups I have in my guitars. That said, the reality is that I'm not buying either of them until some gigs start to show up.

[Doug Young]

Originally Posted by Villamarzia

One problem I will have with both devices concerns my Barbera equipped nylon string guitar. Indeed, Barbera has flipped polarities across the strings and my understanding is that this is a problem for all IRs. Is it an issue only during the training or always? Stupid question: what if I train the device using only every other strings, let’s say E,D and B? Silly?

I trained a Barbera on the Baggs prototype system a year ago. Might not have ended up with the exact same algorithm in the final version, but I'd expect it was close. I just played normally and it was fine. With ToneDexter, you do indeed want to play every other string. I do that, and it works very well.

[jonfields45]

Originally Posted by Doug Young

I trained a Barbera on the Baggs prototype system a year ago. Might not have ended up with the exact same algorithm in the final version, but I'd expect it was close. I just played normally and it was fine. With ToneDexter, you do indeed want to play every other string. I do that, and it works very well.

Hi Doug,

When I generated that Barbera IR for you with my generator your sample was just regular finger style playing and it worked fine. It is not, with what I know today, obvious to me why ToneDexter benefits from every other string training with that pickup (see my previous post). Have you tried training a ToneDexter lately with standard playing?

Thanks,
Jon