LR Baggs Acoustic Para DI; Farce

[Spaceman]

So I’ve got a Martin OMC 15me running through a TC Hellcon, Voicelive 3, Yamaha mixer to the amplifier and it sounds great. I was told I needed a “preamp DI” so I bought an LR Baggs, para Acoustic DI box and put it in between the guitar and VL3. The sound is def NOT better and probably a little worse. I fiddled with the EQ and such for about 3 hours to no avail. What gives?

[martingitdave]

You already have a preamp or two in that signal chain.

[Spaceman]

Yes, I know that but there are many people out there that swear this thing “makes” their guitar tone and shape. I’m calling major BS on that theory. Thanks for the reply.

[Doug Young]

Originally Posted by Spaceman

Yes, I know that but there are many people out there that swear this thing “makes” their guitar tone and shape. I’m calling major BS on that theory. Thanks for the reply.

The theory that simply adding a preamp to any signal chain will magically make everything sound better is indeed incorrect. A good preamp doesn't add any color to your sound, it simply makes it louder. (There are "preamp/DI" gizmo's that are basically effects and do change your sound, but those are different animals). A preamp/DI's job is to:

Provide some gain over the raw pickup (which you may or may not need).

Convert the high impedance unbalanced output of your guitar to a low-impedance XLR output for a PA

Possibly add other features, like EQ, mute switches, notch filters, tuners, etc, etc.

These things are often useful, and can make a dramatic difference in the right situations, especially compared to plugging your guitar directly into a PA mixer. But you have to consider your entire chain, and whether or not you need these things. Preamps are not magic elixers that you can just insert anywhere to improve your sound. Like any tool, they help when they're the right tool for the job, and can be useless or even hurt when they're not the right tool. It sounds like you got some bad advice...

[guitaniac]

What Doug said. Adding extra devices to your signal chain can indeed be counter-productive if they aren't needed for some specific reason. The PADI can be useful for impedance buffering, boosting the signal level, making EQ adjustments and reversing the signal phase when its helpful. When those jobs are already being done by other devices in the signal chain, adding the PADI is not only unnecessary, its actually counter-productive. Back when he was active on this forum, pickup designer and luthier Dave Wendler used to warn us that adding extra gain stages to the signal chain makes the amplified guitar a little less responsive to the touch. Digital box designer and luthier Rick Turner agreed with him, and said that you need to weigh the pros against the cons every time you add a device to the signal chain.

[varmonter]

So i believe there is a preamp in your guitar pickup. a preamp in the voicelive
a preamp in your board and probably in
your amp as well. the para adds yet another. I agree in your assessment of
the para. When i owned it as a standalone preamp i could never
get a good sound out of it. But in your case i think its more a gain staging issue
then it is the para. Also i think the input impedance of the para is kind of an oddball in the industry. I cant recall what it was just that it was different.I think with what you have in your chain its overkill. perhaps just a simple Di box would work better.

[PANDAPANDELO]

I don't know if that's the case, but there's also a little learning curve with a few DIs, and the PADI is one of those. There's a LOT of tone shaping tools that you could use to make your sound great, or worst.

[ljguitar]

Originally Posted by Spaceman

So I’ve got a Martin OMC 15me running through a TC Hellcon, Voicelive 3, Yamaha mixer to the amplifier and it sounds great. I was told I needed a “preamp DI” so I bought an LR Baggs, para Acoustic DI box and put it in between the guitar and VL3. The sound is def NOT better and probably a little worse. I fiddled with the EQ and such for about 3 hours to no avail. What gives?

Hi S-man

Perhaps the multi-stacking of preamps/effects is affecting your output sound. You didn't state which Helicon you are running through in addition to the Voicelive 3, but you are already altering the tone of your rig substantantially.

You also didn't tell us which pickup you are using to drive the chain.

What are you hoping a ParaDI will do? Why do you think someone recommended that you need an additional preamp?

An in-line preamp (be it one with two bands of tone adjustment, or 10 bands of parametric tone adjustment) is like the Swiss Army Knife of tone adjustment and direct box features to help a guitar sound more like we think it should when amplified. That doesn't 'feel' like what you are going for. Perhaps I'm reading more into the use of your effects than I should.

I own ParaDi's which travel at the bottom of my gear bag. They are fine if you know how to run them. But I cannot see adding another preamp to your chain.

I rarely even pull the ParaDI out anymore. It's 20 year old technology and it's very complex for the average user.

I much prefer their Baggs Venue which is the modern re-make of it.

A preamp's primary functions are to gain match the signal, provide the ability to dial in tone, and provide simultaneous Direct Box XLR/¼" outs. If it also has an adjustable boost switch, phase reverse, tuners and/or ground lift built in, that's even more of a plus.

I'm not sure how you intend to deploy it when it seems like you are radically altering the signal once it hits your effects…

[Rudy4]

Originally Posted by Spaceman

So I’ve got a Martin OMC 15me running through a TC Hellcon, Voicelive 3, Yamaha mixer to the amplifier and it sounds great. I was told I needed a “preamp DI” so I bought an LR Baggs, para Acoustic DI box and put it in between the guitar and VL3. The sound is def NOT better and probably a little worse. I fiddled with the EQ and such for about 3 hours to no avail. What gives?

The "You need a preamp D.I." suggestions come from folks who know just enough to be dangerous.

A "preamp" can, and often does, make a noticeable difference in sound quality when only a "bare piezo" is present in an instrument, such as an under-saddle transducer or surface-reactive piezo like the K&K Pure Mini. In that case everything after the transducer can make a difference, starting with the capacitance of the guitar cable leading to the first device in your amplification chain.

As others have said, your guitar has a pre-amp on board that takes care of impedance matching duties and negates any "improvement" that an external device would have.

The important thing to know about using a preamp when using a piezo transducer is that it has nothing to do with what it "adds", but rather what is "taken away" when the piezo signal is improperly loaded by a low impedance from what it plugs into. The combination of low impedance combined with cable capacitance produces a rather effective R/C filter.

All that said, some players either won't notice a difference or will prefer the effect on tone.

[Spaceman]

I just learned more in the past ten minutes about live sound than in the last ten years! Thank you guys.

[lschwart]

I'll just add that if, as you're first post says, your set up "sounds great," you should be very suspicious of anybody who then says you need anything.

If it sounds great, then it sounds great (and given what you say about your signal chain, there's no reason why it shouldn't). You might still be able to improve it by learning to tweak the capabilities of what you have, or maybe by upgrading the amp (depending on what you're using), blending in a mic signal or a model of one or trying a different pickup (again depending), but not by adding something like a PADI.

Louis

[ljguitar]

Originally Posted by lschwart

I'll just add that if, as you're first post says, your set up "sounds great," you should be very suspicious of anybody who then says you need anything.

HI Louis…

Yup.

[JackB1]

You already had a preamp in the TCH and the VL3. Adding another is overkill.
Your gain staging is probably all out of wack at this point. Return the Para, you don't need it. Doesn't the VL3 and/or your mixer have EQing options?

Originally Posted by Spaceman

So I’ve got a Martin OMC 15me running through a TC Hellcon, Voicelive 3, Yamaha mixer to the amplifier and it sounds great. I was told I needed a “preamp DI” so I bought an LR Baggs, para Acoustic DI box and put it in between the guitar and VL3. The sound is def NOT better and probably a little worse. I fiddled with the EQ and such for about 3 hours to no avail. What gives?

[nightchef]

I will add that I've owned a PADI for about 20 years and it is an absolute godsend for walking into a gig situation with a guitar with just a piezo pickup and no EQ (or crappy EQ) on board. It has saved my bacon numerous times, in terms of being able to get a reasonably good sound where otherwise I would have had to accept the unacceptable (boom, screech, etc.).

It's a good, durable, high quality, useful device. Not a farce by any stretch of the imagination. But as others have said, it's not a magic box that will make any signal chain better.

The takeaway here is that you can't just throw gear at the wall and see what sticks. You need to take the time to truly understand what you have, what its virtues and limitations are, how those limitations are causing you to fall short of the sound you're after, and what new devices (or better yet, new implementations or configurations of gear you already own) can fix that.