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  #61  
Old 07-19-2018, 01:19 PM
Jack Orion Jack Orion is offline
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Originally Posted by themissal View Post
My guitars have K&Ks or Baggs soundhole pups.

I also wont tolerate setups that are too difficult, and I have experimented a fair amount. If I only gigged with my k&k equipped guitars (D18 and J50), Id still have my Red-Eye. IT was fantastic and simple. I actually should buy one again to have as a backup in my truck.

Anyways, I have a small pedal board setup so that it handles whatever setup I gig with. Tonight is a gig at the beach, so I dont want to take my nicer guitars. A Farida OT22 with a Baggs comes along. For my gig on SundaySunday, I will bring my D18. This pedal board handles both pretty well. TU3-W tuner. GE-7. HOF Reverb and Delay. Spark Boost for solos. The board tunes, mutes, EQ's, has nice effects... no batteries, power source underneath.

That's a good looking setup to be sure! But I found the GE-7 to be a little too noisy for my liking.

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Originally Posted by Vancebo View Post
There were times I could have written this post. I used to always be fiddling with knobs to kill a certain frequency here and there. I could usually get there but then it would change . Temperature, humidity, and other natural phenomena have tonal effects on your guitar. When I owned a K&K, Lyric, ES2, Anthem Inreally has this problem. What I am saying is, I have felt your pain!
Ha, glad to know I'm not the only one!

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Originally Posted by gfirob View Post
This is a long thread so I can't remember if the OP has actually tried the Tonedexter or not, but at half the cost, it sure seems like a sensible alternative. I have never used a Felix, so I can't speak to which of the two delivers the magic sauce better, but after a lot of agonies in this area the Tonedexter and K&K's get me closer to what I want to sound like than anything else IMHO. Everything is a compromise so it comes down to which is the simplest and least painful compromise and for me it is the Tonedexter.
I haven't tried the Tonedexter and, although I haven't completely written it off, I'm unsure about it, mainly I think due to the added 'what mic?' factor...

The Felix should be with me tomorrow morning so I'll have a couple of hours to compare it to my other setups before deciding to take it to my gig or not...
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  #62  
Old 07-19-2018, 02:51 PM
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I haven't tried the Tonedexter and, although I haven't completely written it off, I'm unsure about it, mainly I think due to the added 'what mic?' factor...
I think you worry too much :-) You have a vocal mic, right? That would work fine. You might get *different* results with different mics (just like guitars, pickups,...) but it should work perfectly well with ToneDexter.

Here's the thing with gear. We all obsess about it, at least here on AGF. Will X be 1% better than Y, or Z or A or B, endlessly. But for every piece of gear out there, every guitar, every amp, PA, pickup, pedal, someone's probably out there right now happily gigging with it and thinking it's the best ever.

Let me be on a soapbox for another second. I've reported this story before on AGF. I went to a workshop with Ed Gerhard a few years ago, and he said he wanted to demo how he dealt with a venue that had bad sound. He wove some masking tape thru his strings, loosely, so that it rattled with every note and he had no sustain. He turned the treble on the sound system all the way up, and the bass all the way down, and increased the gain so he was getting some distortion. He said he was simulating a sound system that someone had stabbed with a fork :-) It was a truly awful sound. Then he played a pretty slack key tune. It was beautiful. He played to the sound he had, and made it work, just with his fingers and ears.

I think about that a lot. I'm always chasing gear, too. I probably shouldn't be. On the other had, the chase is half the fun, so... :-)
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  #63  
Old 07-19-2018, 03:10 PM
stevecuss stevecuss is offline
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Originally Posted by Doug Young View Post

Here's the thing with gear. We all obsess about it, at least here on AGF. Will X be 1% better than Y, or Z or A or B, endlessly. But for every piece of gear out there, every guitar, every amp, PA, pickup, pedal, someone's probably out there right now happily gigging with it and thinking it's the best ever.


I'm always chasing gear, too. I probably shouldn't be. On the other had, the chase is half the fun, so... :-)

Yes, this!!!

We hosted a concert for Andy Gullahorn last year and he brought out his trusty Larrivee with Baggs dual source pickup, except his mic died years ago and now he just played with the old tech Baggs UST. He plugged into a Baggs DI and I thought, 'oh man, this is going to be rough.'

Incredible tone, no quack, gorgeous playing.

How did he do it? I'm not sure, but he is a maestro fingerstyle player who tours full time with some pretty low tech gear.

Plus, I'm chagrined to notice that Andy sounds like Andy no matter what he plays. Knopfler sounds like Knopfler etc. The real maestros really do exhibit 'the tone is in the fingers.'

I hope you can enjoy the journey and relax about getting it just right. Acoustic pickups are by definition a compromise. None of them are the ultimate solution and we're all just getting as close as we can within our respective budgets.
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  #64  
Old 07-20-2018, 12:27 AM
Jack Orion Jack Orion is offline
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Originally Posted by Doug Young View Post
I think you worry too much :-) You have a vocal mic, right? That would work fine. You might get *different* results with different mics (just like guitars, pickups,...) but it should work perfectly well with ToneDexter.

Here's the thing with gear. We all obsess about it, at least here on AGF. Will X be 1% better than Y, or Z or A or B, endlessly. But for every piece of gear out there, every guitar, every amp, PA, pickup, pedal, someone's probably out there right now happily gigging with it and thinking it's the best ever.

Let me be on a soapbox for another second. I've reported this story before on AGF. I went to a workshop with Ed Gerhard a few years ago, and he said he wanted to demo how he dealt with a venue that had bad sound. He wove some masking tape thru his strings, loosely, so that it rattled with every note and he had no sustain. He turned the treble on the sound system all the way up, and the bass all the way down, and increased the gain so he was getting some distortion. He said he was simulating a sound system that someone had stabbed with a fork :-) It was a truly awful sound. Then he played a pretty slack key tune. It was beautiful. He played to the sound he had, and made it work, just with his fingers and ears.

I think about that a lot. I'm always chasing gear, too. I probably shouldn't be. On the other had, the chase is half the fun, so... :-)
Yep I do worry too much! I tend to have little periods where I'm worrying about some aspect of my gear, and it's normally related to new purchases, so I suppose it's a way of justifying it to myself - for example, I didn't need this Collings, but I fell in love with it and, to justify owning it, I need to be able to gig it so that I feel it's a working part of my collection, and then the journey of getting it to sound good starts!

That's a really good story though and a reminder that tone is the servant of music and not the other way round!

I'm really hoping the Felix works as then I can say to myself 'great, that works, that sounds good, that does what I need' then it's on with the music with the confidence of knowing I can turn up to gigs and deal with what the sound system and venue throws at me.

If it doesn't then I think I'll take a couple of steps back and rethink - I know my Martin/Anthem & the Orchid works well, I know that the K&K/ParaEQ/Orchid has the potential to work well but I haven't cracked it yet - sticking with those bits of kit isn't going to suddenly mean that I can't perform, it just might mean that there are some extra complications when setting up and I might end up tweaking a bit now and then...

I know this thread is getting on now and it's a bit repetitive, but it's almost like having your own Acoustic Amplification Counselling group!
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  #65  
Old 07-20-2018, 12:41 AM
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I'd just keep in mind about Felix that it's not some magic box that transforms your tone into something completely new - it's a studio-grade preamp that stays out of the way, sonically, and transmits what's there. It's also a bit complicated, so it make take some getting used to. I'm still messing up with it and discovering I pushed a button somewhere that changes it.

As far as whether it "works", there isn't much of anything out there of any higher quality, sonically and feature-wise, in a single box - the only real competition for sonics and features would be the Pendulum SPS-1 rack unit. Laurence Juber uses it, Ed Gerhard uses it - possibly the the only 2 guitarists around who are pickier than you about their tone :-) Just kidding, but they are both really tone fanatics.

Whether it gives you what you want is another thing. ToneDexter, for example, takes a whole different philosophy - it's anything but transparent, it totally changes the output into something completely different from what goes in. Two different approaches to tone. And if your real problem is that you don't like the sound of K&Ks, I'm not sure Felix will solve the issue. But maybe, let us know!
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  #66  
Old 07-20-2018, 02:29 AM
Jack Orion Jack Orion is offline
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Originally Posted by Doug Young View Post
I'd just keep in mind about Felix that it's not some magic box that transforms your tone into something completely new - it's a studio-grade preamp that stays out of the way, sonically, and transmits what's there. It's also a bit complicated, so it make take some getting used to. I'm still messing up with it and discovering I pushed a button somewhere that changes it.

As far as whether it "works", there isn't much of anything out there of any higher quality, sonically and feature-wise, in a single box - the only real competition for sonics and features would be the Pendulum SPS-1 rack unit. Laurence Juber uses it, Ed Gerhard uses it - possibly the the only 2 guitarists around who are pickier than you about their tone :-) Just kidding, but they are both really tone fanatics.

Whether it gives you what you want is another thing. ToneDexter, for example, takes a whole different philosophy - it's anything but transparent, it totally changes the output into something completely different from what goes in. Two different approaches to tone. And if your real problem is that you don't like the sound of K&Ks, I'm not sure Felix will solve the issue. But maybe, let us know!
Yep I'm aware of the 'magic box' syndrome - I get that it's transparent and isn't going to change the inherent K&K tone, but I hope that the EQ combinations available will allow me to 'massage' the K&K into what I want, whilst also giving me another channel for my Anthem.

Also the dual outputs means I can send separate lines to the PA and have them treated differently (ie get the sound person to tackle a bit of low mids at the desk, if they pay attention!) - I know this is an option I dismissed earlier but, having sat down and given it some thought, at 99% of my gigs it'd be no bother sending two lines to the desk, and, at those where it is, you've always got the amp out to the house DI option, or the mix option.

I am quite picky I'll admit but, in my defence, I don't think I'm coming from a 'tone snob' point of view - I know from past experience that the best thing for my performance is to be relaxed and confident, and having a good guitar sound is a big part of that for me - I'm performing very personal songs with no one there to back me up but the guitar, that single guitar is my band mate and knowing I can plug in and go 'yep, sounds good' is like knowing you have a drummer who turns up on time, sets up their own gear, doesn't get drunk, packs down and drives you home!!!
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  #67  
Old 08-15-2018, 01:29 AM
rockabilly69 rockabilly69 is offline
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Originally Posted by Jack Orion View Post
Yep I'm aware of the 'magic box' syndrome - I get that it's transparent and isn't going to change the inherent K&K tone, but I hope that the EQ combinations available will allow me to 'massage' the K&K into what I want, whilst also giving me another channel for my Anthem.

Also the dual outputs means I can send separate lines to the PA and have them treated differently (ie get the sound person to tackle a bit of low mids at the desk, if they pay attention!) - I know this is an option I dismissed earlier but, having sat down and given it some thought, at 99% of my gigs it'd be no bother sending two lines to the desk, and, at those where it is, you've always got the amp out to the house DI option, or the mix option.

I am quite picky I'll admit but, in my defence, I don't think I'm coming from a 'tone snob' point of view - I know from past experience that the best thing for my performance is to be relaxed and confident, and having a good guitar sound is a big part of that for me - I'm performing very personal songs with no one there to back me up but the guitar, that single guitar is my band mate and knowing I can plug in and go 'yep, sounds good' is like knowing you have a drummer who turns up on time, sets up their own gear, doesn't get drunk, packs down and drives you home!!!
I'm coming back to this thread to see how it all turned out. I must say though, that people say they like a simple setup IMNSHO rarely achieve what I feel is the best tone they can get from their guitars. Workable tone maybe, but not the best the guitar is capable of. And as for EQ not fixing things, I truly find that puzzling. When I first got the PARA EQ, my tone at stage volume got consistently better. It's just the nature of the beast, as volume goes up, things start coupling, and resonant frequencies take off! I just think it takes work to get what you want. Yes I know my time in studios got me on the map faster that the typical acoustic guitar player who uses a parametric EQ for the first time. But if you want to get it right, it takes practice and that practice needs to be at the stage volume that you plan to gig at! And BTW very rarely even with the best microphones in a studio do engineers not use EQ. I don't make huge cuts or boosts with my Grace preamps but the corrective EQ that I do really help me bring back the balance in tone and volume that I get when I play purely acoustic, and having twin PARA EQs is probably more effective than a Grace! That's alot of of power at your disposal! As for the Grace stuff, the multiple impedance on the INs is great, especially in your case as I think Grace catered to the K&K crowd. I also love the routing options on them. I've been single sourcing (two pickups with on-board blender into one output) for awhile so I've been mostly using the AliX and I find the transformer beef on the XLR does something nice to my signal! But as I said in earlier posts, I really like the Empress PARA EQ so I'm wondering how you're doing with them, and are you having balance problems with the slightly eschewed K&K pickup install!
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  #68  
Old 08-15-2018, 06:49 AM
Jack Orion Jack Orion is offline
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Originally Posted by rockabilly69 View Post
I'm coming back to this thread to see how it all turned out. I must say though, that people say they like a simple setup IMNSHO rarely achieve what I feel is the best tone they can get from their guitars. Workable tone maybe, but not the best the guitar is capable of. And as for EQ not fixing things, I truly find that puzzling. When I first got the PARA EQ, my tone at stage volume got consistently better. It's just the nature of the beast, as volume goes up, things start coupling, and resonant frequencies take off! I just think it takes work to get what you want. Yes I know my time in studios got me on the map faster that the typical acoustic guitar player who uses a parametric EQ for the first time. But if you want to get it right, it takes practice and that practice needs to be at the stage volume that you plan to gig at! And BTW very rarely even with the best microphones in a studio do engineers not use EQ. I don't make huge cuts or boosts with my Grace preamps but the corrective EQ that I do really help me bring back the balance in tone and volume that I get when I play purely acoustic, and having twin PARA EQs is probably more effective than a Grace! That's alot of of power at your disposal! As for the Grace stuff, the multiple impedance on the INs is great, especially in your case as I think Grace catered to the K&K crowd. I also love the routing options on them. I've been single sourcing (two pickups with on-board blender into one output) for awhile so I've been mostly using the AliX and I find the transformer beef on the XLR does something nice to my signal! But as I said in earlier posts, I really like the Empress PARA EQ so I'm wondering how you're doing with them, and are you having balance problems with the slightly eschewed K&K pickup install!

Well I will have to eat my earlier words as I ended up buying a Grace Felix!

I had the chance to compare it to a few different preamp/setups in a rehearsal room where I cranked up the PA to louder than I would normally play and it beat the Orchid/ParaEQ combo as well as a Lr Baggs Venue both in terms of general 'tone' and also EQ capabilities.

Also it was incredible how much quieter it was (even though I actually did return the first unit as I thought it was noisy at high gain, but it turns out I was in the wrong).

I don't know why but it seemed I could get away with less drastic tone adjustments with the Grace vs the other setup - maybe it's something to do with the general 'hi-fi' ness or just better components throughout but even the 'flat' tone was better - both the Orchid and the Venue had a slightly 'grainy' sound to them.

I started off with the HPF engaged and the using the bass control at 250hz, but I found that, although that dealt with a lot of the EQ issues I was having previously, it gave me a very hollow sound once I'd tamed the low end to my liking.

Swapping to engaging the notch filter (which I have set about 100 - 200) and then using the bass control of 125hz allows me to tame that boomy/feedbacky area without losing all the low end fatness.

I'm taming the mids a bit at between 600-800 with a wide Q, and then just boosting the highs a tad as well.

This is with my OM2hT which has the 'wonky' K&K install - no balance issues as far as I can tell .

I've actually had the K&K installed in my other Collings now as I always felt the Anthem was a bit 'light' sounding in that guitar and I'm happy to say that, combined with the Felix, I'm very happy with the K&K in that guitar.

I've used this setup (2 Collings with K&K into the Felix) at a couple of gigs now, both going through my AER Compact 60 - fingers crossed I think it's going to work for me.

I have a couple of gigs next weekend which should be a bit more testing as they are festival gigs with quick setups, but I think now I've got my 'base' settings dialled in on the Felix I'm hoping it shouldn't cause me any problems - the key I think to taming the K&K for me has been the notch filter as it seems to deal with a lot of the problem frequencies in the low end that were bothering me.

Anyway I think this is going to be the solution for me with my K&K guitars - my Martin will be keeping the Anthem as that system seems to work really well in that guitar and I'll be using that guitar for gigs where it's a bit 'plug and play' with no soundcheck as I know I can trust it, but, for gigs where I've time to soundcheck, I'm pretty sure it'll be the K&K Collings and the Felix (plus I think my AER as a stage monitor at some point).

Anyway, I know you recommended the Grace early on and I poo'poo'ed the idea but I eventually heeded your advice and I'm glad I did!
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  #69  
Old 08-15-2018, 07:06 AM
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I know I already weighed in on this topic once, but I have been extremely happy with my modded GE-7. It is very quiet and natural sounding.

Many point to the noise generated from the stock GE-7, but the real problem is how it colors the tone.

Here is a link to the gentleman that I purchased my modded GE-7 from:

https://www.modestmikesmods.com/
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  #70  
Old 08-16-2018, 02:26 AM
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Well, it was great read. Lots of useful info. Thank you everyone!
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  #71  
Old 08-16-2018, 06:32 AM
varmonter varmonter is offline
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Originally Posted by Jack Orion View Post
Unfortunately the Traditional Collings have a 'true' through cut saddle, meaning you can't install an Anthem without altering the bridge (ie routing a channel for the element to sit in and having a drop in saddle) - the K&K seemed the least intrusive pickup I could install in the guitar and lots of people do get a good sound with this pickup (I've heard many people use it live and been impressed) and it does, on one level, sound fine, I just feel a little bit more EQ would allow me to dial out the stuff that's not so good.

I have looked at the Felix option but, in the UK, they are over £1000 and there are a few issues for me - one is that you only have one bad of EQ for the mid-range and I'm finding that, unless you make a really deep cut, one range might not be enough, and also I think it would still mean two channels on the desk, plus having two cables onstage - the two cables on stage isn't the end of the world but I'm sometimes setup in quite cramped conditions so having more stuff to trip over is not so good!

At this point in my gigging career I think something where I'm sending one line to the house and just swapping instruments on stage is better - it's hard enough sometimes to convince sound engineers that I want to use my own di and microphone let alone go down the road of needing two XLR inputs!
I use a small a/b switch on my pedal board. it routes one
cable to either chan 1 or ch 2. of my felix. then
i use both di outs to two seperate channels on the board
this gives me another seperate band of eq and monitor send for
my guitar and mandolin. You might also consider the
line 6 helix. one cord into as many presets as you can creatively come up with
But both the helix and the felix are not cheap.
I can honestly say I am a bit of a grail seeker. I've tried so many
gear gizmos . Tonedexter , baggs para di,pendulum preamps, boss ve8,etc etc..,
I buy used so i can resell without loosing too much money ha.
After i try these i sell them and go back to my felix.
And wonder why i left in the first place.
I have found out of all the passive pickups i've tried
the kk mini is one of the most challenging to get to sound
right. But when you get it right it sounds great. But you
need the outboard gear. This means schlepping it to all
places you play plugged in. Plugging the kk into a di into a board
never seems to work for me ( like sitting in with other bands or open mics)
This is the downside to it for me. But like i said when you get it right
it sounds great. The felix is small enough to schlep around.
Like Doug said above part of the fun is trying stuff.

Last edited by varmonter; 08-16-2018 at 01:44 PM.
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  #72  
Old 08-16-2018, 06:43 AM
Vancebo Vancebo is offline
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I am glad it worked out for you Jack. Give us a report on the gigs. That’s where it counts most. In my experience with the notch filter on my Grace Alix, the cut is too wide and/or deep for my needs. In High Pass Filter mode it is great.

What I want to know from you is on what Impedance setting did you settle on for your K &Ks? There should have been 3 distinctly different sounds with the 3 position switch. I am just curious.
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  #73  
Old 08-16-2018, 06:58 AM
Jack Orion Jack Orion is offline
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Originally Posted by Vancebo View Post
I am glad it worked out for you Jack. Give us a report on the gigs. That’s where it counts most. In my experience with the notch filter on my Grace Alix, the cut is too wide and/or deep for my needs. In High Pass Filter mode it is great.

What I want to know from you is on what Impedance setting did you settle on for your K &Ks? There should have been 3 distinctly different sounds with the 3 position switch. I am just curious.
I've stuck with the 1M setting - I'm not sure if I could hear any difference between Med and High (although the low setting was definitely not right!) but I figured just stick with the recommendation.

My Anthem did sound better with the 20M rather than the 10M or 1M to my ears though...

So far I've found that the Notch essentially deals with the majority of the 'lumpyness' that I've found the K&Ks to have and it gives me a cleaner sounding low end without having to sacrifice as much oomph as I was with the HPF...
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  #74  
Old 08-18-2018, 11:57 PM
guitarwebguy guitarwebguy is offline
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I gig with different enough instruments that the sound folks always grimace .... however, I've never had a problem asking for 2 DI's since it gives them the chance to set things up on their end, last gig I played I was using a Deering D-12 banjo with a Barcus Berry and a Breedlove 12 string with a K&K trinity system .... one of these days I'll save enough to get a Felix since that would make life (at least for me) sooooo much simpler ......
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