tonedexter help needed.

[jsanfilippo5]

HI all -

i just bought a tonedexter - very cool device.

It seems to work great with my epiphone hummingbird with cheapo undersaddlw pickup. VEry impressive sound,. i just dont want to use that primarly for gigging - still not 100% on this guitar - just bought it and getting used to the neck still..

but on my d35 With a k&k pure mini, I cant seem to get a good sound dialed in.
either too bassy, too midrangey or hollow sounding..

My PA Only has a low and high eq, not much else to do eq wise.

so i am wondering if anyone has a similar guitar/pickup setup - what have you found to be your ideal mic placement? Ive been all over the place with the mic and having a tough time getting good results....

THrough headphones i can play with the character knob and eventually get an acceptable tone, but once in the pA its kind of blah..

[dnf777]

Thats surprising results. My unqualified advice (no technical savvy, but I have read the manual and AGF comments extensively, including James May’s, and played for days with my TD and several mics), is to:

1) carefully re-read the manual and be certain that you understand the knob positioning! Its not necessarily intuitive, and it took me a little while (ie hours) and numerous trial and errors to really understand whats happening.

2) I found (as others have suggested) your favorite mic may not be your TD’s friend. A flat-response small condenser seems to be what most find useful. I have some really nice mics, but added a really cheap ($88) PreSonus reference mic to my box for the TD. It really made a positive difference in my imaging, and its all I use now. (For tone mapping)

3). Once you conquer 1 and 2, keep experimenting with mic placement. That is where the art comes in, and its not what you’re probably used to if you’ve mic’d guitars.

Its been a fun learning curve, and Im nowhere near the top, but I made the understandable mistake of applying what little knowledge of mic-ing acoustic guitars for pleasing sound I had to image mapping, which is not the best approach. What captures acoustically pleasing signals does not necessarily give your TD a good signal to work with.

Good luck, and Im sure lots of better advice will soon follow. Ive found this forum extremely helpful in all things ToneDexter.

Dave

[jsanfilippo5]

I think I got it figured out.
It seems if I lower the pickup level trim after I store my wave map it sounds a hell of a lot better.

I'm using a pretty good mic, it's an Aston small diaphragm starlight. I have a few others to try.

I'm going to test through mynpa tonight at practice and see how it's sounds to my singer. Going to record it too direct from pa.

I'm blown away by how good the LR baggs element sounds through the tonedexter. Really amazing piece of kit.

[jonfields45]

You might also try moving the mic further away from the guitar during training.

[jsanfilippo5]

played around tonight - I recorded a few wavemaps and played them through the PA, It sounds great. ITs pretty amazing how different it sounds from the dry pickup.

I ended up doing 4 different training sessions - best sounding mic placement was about 12" from the 5th fret. iT seems that any conventional micing techniques dont work well the tonedexter

overall very happy with this thing!!

[rmp]

I've found it's really a game of trial and error too.

I capture about 5 training sessions with different mic setups, I'm usually able to find 2 that sound better than the rest. I save those 2, and move on to train the next guitar.

All of my pickups are USTs (3 are Fishman Infinity)

[ljguitar]

Originally Posted by jsanfilippo5

…iT seems that any conventional micing techniques dont work well the tonedexter

Hi jsanfilippo

Mileage varies. The key is you found something useful to you.

I pull my best wavemaps with a really decent large diaphragm studio mic about 16-18" out from the neck/body joint (level with the fingerboard), or 15" toward the tail of the guitar, aimed back at the bridge (same mic choices) and level with the bridge.

I really only need a couple accurately depicted voices for each of my 4 acoustics.

And some people apparently are getting their wavemaps with an SM-58 just out in front of the guitar aimed at it.

Sounds pretty flexible.

And given there are a lot of DIFFERRENT ways guitars are built and played, that accounts for a large range of things to capture.

[jsanfilippo5]

I am happy I spent some time with this device.

Did my first gig with it tonight and listening back to the recording. Sound is really great. Once I get the wave files exported on my computer I'll post some if anyone cares to hear.