#1
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Best ToneDexter Results From Cheap Guitar & Mic
So far, my best ToneDexter results have been with a cheap ($110 off ebay) Greg Bennett model spruce/mahogany Samick OM and a very cheap ($40 off ebay) Behringer omni-directional condenser measurement mic. The guitar is retrofitted with a passive PUTW I/O UST. The I/O UST is my favorite undersaddle pickup, and I suspect it has contributed greatly to the success of this particular guitar/ToneDexter pairing.
Although I'm not getting the recorded sound of a great guitar being miked, I am getting a decent miked guitar sound which I can use for at-home recording. I have three guitars with louder and richer acoustic tone than this Samick OM, but none of them have worked as well with ToneDexter - yet. https://soundcloud.com/guitaniac/ton...th-putw-io-ust |
#2
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This post confuses me. I have no doubt as to your experience, as I have not used a Tone Dexter, but isn't the whole point of a Tone Dexter to take a great acoustic guitar, mic it with a really great mic, then transform the piezo pickup signal to mimic the fine guitar-great mic sound?
So your results are a good pickup on a cheaper guitar using a very inexpensive mic? That is confusing in that from everything I've read it should be any old pickup in a great guitar with a great mic= piezo sounding like a studio recording.
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2007 Martin D 35 Custom 1970 Guild D 35 1965 Epiphone Texan 2011 Santa Cruz D P/W Pono OP 30 D parlor Pono OP12-30 Pono MT uke Goldtone Paul Beard squareneck resophonic Fluke tenor ukulele Boatload of home rolled telecasters "Shut up and play ur guitar" Frank Zappa |
#3
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At this point, I'm convinced that some pickups are more compatible with ToneDexter than other pickups. The PUTW I/O UST is the most top-responsive and SBT-like UST that I've found. Up to this point, its worked much better than the Headway co-axial UST in my old D28 and the Barbera Soloist in-saddle pickup which I retrofitted into my higher-end Samick. (Yes, I've been using the recommended special training protocol with the Soloist - only playing every other string.) That guitar was actually more ToneDexter compatible before I swapped out the stock Fishman co-axial UST system for the Soloist. And oddly enough, my best ToneDexter results with the Soloist-equipped guitar have been achieved by using the WaveMap which I trained with the I/O UST-equipped guitar.
As for the Baggs Anthem SL system in my cedar/mahogany OM, the Audio Sprockets folks have stated flatly that it isn't compatible with ToneDexter. I'm considering swapping a DTAR Wavelength UST system into that guitar, just to make it ToneDexter compatible. As for ToneDexter training mics, the Audio Sprockets folks have observed that a cheap omni-directional condenser measurement mic can work pretty well. They've also stated that a Slate ML-2 condenser mic will work as well as anything for ToneDexter training. It isn't available yet, but I plan on getting one eventually. Perhaps training WaveMaps with an ML-2 will change my "luck" with respect to which pickups are more ToneDexter compatible. Last edited by guitaniac; 05-21-2018 at 04:02 PM. |
#4
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Have you compared that PUTW undersaddle to a K&K Fantastick undersaddle?
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#5
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Quote:
I tend to find that the crystal piezo pickups are a little less articulate than the film piezo pickups. I suspect that's one reason, aside from the lack of "buzz", that I never had much interest in the Fantastick. Some of the USTs which I've used include the Baggs Ribbon system, Baggs Element System, Fishman Prefix, Matrix & Onboard Aura systems, Fishman Thinline system, B-Band UST system, Shadow NanoFlex system, Shadow crystal piezo UST system with individual volume controls for each string (in two Gibson Chet Atkins models), DTAR Wavelength system, DTAR Timberline co-axial UST system, Fishman Sonicore co-axial UST system, Highlander co-axial UST system, the Headway co-axial UST system, the PUTW Stealth UST and (my favorite) the PUTW I/O UST. The in-saddle pickups which I've used include the Baggs LB6, the Graph Tech Ghost system, the RMC Hex System, the Baggs Hex system and the Barbera Soloist. I've had no trouble training a pleasing TD WaveMap with the Baggs Hex system in my thin-bodied Tacoma classical. Training a pleasing WaveMap with the Soloist-equipped guitar, however, has proven to be more of a challenge (considering that my favorite WaveMap for that guitar was trained using a different guitar). |