Anybody not happy with a Tonedexter?

[Cuki79]

Originally Posted by jonfields45

At a gig when I A-B IR vs no-IR, what I am hearing is a much prettier (pleasing, less brassy, less pickup like, hard to find the right words) tone but maybe not so much my guitar only louder.

That's the best test. If you can make a pickup that works well enough with your guitar that it resists the A-B IR vs no-IR test then you know you've won.

[Doug Young]

Originally Posted by jonfields45

I'm playing in a relatively loud environment with a single speaker high and behind (while being set for coverage and our comfort, will bring out artifacts and feedback problems I don't get at home). And finally I'm hitting a 9 dB boost to play electric guitar leads (mostly improvised but a few like "Sultans of Swing" true to the original).

I think there's a bit of an implicit assumption with ToneDexter and others (Aura, etc) that your sound environment is conducive to a natural acoustic tone. They're basically arranging for the output of your pickup to mimic the output of a mic in front of your guitar, and assume that the rest of your signal chain is capable of processing that well, including the natural resonances that are in your guitar. That's a big assumption, of course, but I'm not sure what else they can do. It seems to me that you're sort of trying to get some benefit from ToneDexter/Cuki's IRs, while also doing pre-emptive notch filtering to make up for a challenging acoustic environment. If that works, that's cool, tho perhaps just having a good multi-band or parametric EQ in the chain would be more flexible, unless you only play in one situation.

Did you ever capture an IR from ToneDexter and later use it in a DAW or IR pedal to confirm similar performance to the ToneDexter pedal?

Yes, I routinely use IRs I've captured from ToneDexter in a Torpedo pedal. Works very well.

[jonfields45]

Hi Doug,

I think most of have heard bad sounding acoustic guitars in louder situations (for me a full restaurant with lots of hard surfaces...that bad ToneDexter hair day was a popular east coast pizza chain, Anthony's Coal Fired). Starting with a decent pickup (HFN) and finishing with Cuki's IRs using the HX Stomp's IR programmability and programmable Parametric EQ is a winner for me (along with the best compressor I've ever used for lead boost, some excellent reverb, and a looper for home practice).

Good to hear captured ToneDexter IRs have been fully tested in your work. That opens an option when Cuki gets sick of responding to my email!

Thanks,
Jon

[Doug Young]

Originally Posted by jonfields45

Starting with a decent pickup (HFN) and finishing with Cuki's IRs using the HX Stomp's IR programmability and programmable Parametric EQ is a winner for me

One interesting thing about using ToneDexter is that you get a bit more flexibility with pickups, I think. I've actually had the least success with it with the Dazzo, which has a bit in common with the HFN. It's already very microphonic, and ToneDexter on the Dazzo, for me, has been a modest change at best. And all these SBTs are more feedback-prone. I've been happiest with ToneDexter and the Barbara Soloist, which is pretty feedback-resistant - so if you have to play loud gigs with bad sound systems, you might consider a pickup that has better feedback behavior, then let ToneDexter (or Cuki) "fix" the sound for you, while maintaining the less feedbacky behavior.

[Petty1818]

Originally Posted by Doug Young

One interesting thing about using ToneDexter is that you get a bit more flexibility with pickups, I think. I've actually had the least success with it with the Dazzo, which has a bit in common with the HFN. It's already very microphonic, and ToneDexter on the Dazzo, for me, has been a modest change at best. And all these SBTs are more feedback-prone. I've been happiest with ToneDexter and the Barbara Soloist, which is pretty feedback-resistant - so if you have to play loud gigs with bad sound systems, you might consider a pickup that has better feedback behavior, then let ToneDexter (or Cuki) "fix" the sound for you, while maintaining the less feedbacky behavior.

That's my experience as well. I didn't know much of an improvement over the HFN so I switched to the newer Fishman Matrix system. I get the consistency and feedback rejection of the UST with the mic-like quality of the Tonedexter.

On a side note, I remember seeing a video on Youtube where a user discussed how it's best to use a full range pickup that already has some high end as the Tonedexter tends to over compensate if a darker pickup is used. I have found this to be the case as well.

[jonfields45]

Originally Posted by Doug Young

One interesting thing about using ToneDexter is that you get a bit more flexibility with pickups, I think. I've actually had the least success with it with the Dazzo, which has a bit in common with the HFN. It's already very microphonic, and ToneDexter on the Dazzo, for me, has been a modest change at best. And all these SBTs are more feedback-prone. I've been happiest with ToneDexter and the Barbara Soloist, which is pretty feedback-resistant - so if you have to play loud gigs with bad sound systems, you might consider a pickup that has better feedback behavior, then let ToneDexter (or Cuki) "fix" the sound for you, while maintaining the less feedbacky behavior.

Definitely the advice I would give at this point but I'm down the HFN rabbit hole and for some reason Cuki has hit on something that makes them sound astounding (to me) at low and high volumes.

[Toast311]

I'm on my second tonedexter. First one lasted about 5 days. Was training with a 2019 Taylor 414 with ES2 pickups and a Audix F9, Rhode Nt1, and a generic Condenser for comparisons. All 3 mics gave me an Awful Harsh Metallic sound during the training phase that was not apparent in either the pickup signal or the Mic signal. It was like it was adding fret buzz to the wave map that was not there. After trying to get it working it finally let out a nasty buzz then a pop and never turned back on. Contacted Sweetwater and they had a replacement pedal to me within 3 days. Tried training it again and still had a completely unusable sound. After lots of trial and error and updating to the new 2.0 firmware , I was able to get a somewhat usable sound after switching to an actual cable instead of my Boss Wl-20L wireless system. Still had the added fret buzz/metallic overlay noise but not nearly as bad. Tried it with my Marin 00-15 Retro and a Breedlove Atlas D-25 as well to rule out the guitar as the problem, but it was persistent in all of them with all the mics. Overall I'm not as impressed with it as I was hoping.

[midwinter]

I dropped out of this thread a while back, but I thought I'd poke my head in to say this:

I'm very glad I kept my TD and didn't sell it. Early on in COVID, we filmed a live performance in a beautiful space and the board was able to capture audio. We also brought a bunch of good mics (KM184s, etc) to record our acoustic instruments. But in mixing the audio, my mic (we set up in a V with someone in the back) picked up the person in the back so much that it made it almost impossible to get a decent mix, so I had to scrap it and use the audio off the board—which sounded truly, truly awful on every instrument I played.

After trying the UAD Sound Machine Wood Works plugin, which did a lot to get me a usable sound, but which just wasn't good enough, in the end.

Then I thought "Wait! The TD had good IRs of MY instruments!" so I re-amped the whole show through the TD and got usable audio.

For that reason alone, it's worth keeping in my studio. We get random recordings from time to time, and this'll be a great tool to have around.

[shufflebeat]

Originally Posted by midwinter

Then I thought "Wait! The TD had good IRs of MY instruments!" so I re-amped the whole show through the TD and got usable audio.

That's nice creative use of the tech, good work.

For the record, it's also possible to do this kind of thing using impulse responses. I've had a fiddle player send me some recorded files from his Barcus Berry bridge pickup which sounds like a cats' home and put them through an IR that we had been experimenting with (Mooer Radar pedal) in Reaper's Reaverb convolution unit to get something really useful.

[midwinter]

Originally Posted by shufflebeat

That's nice creative use of the tech, good work.

Thanks. I was really quite impressed with how much better the TD got things sounding!