Rare Earth Blend thoughts (Sunrise & Blackstack)

[meb]

I have posted before about my experiences with the Sunrise & BlackStack.
I was curious about the Rare Earth Blend and decided to give it a try.
After some testing in my practice room,
I ended up installing it in one of my Goodalls to give it a further test.

Here is a quick summary of my thoughts on the 3.

Sunrise - is in my main gigging guitar and is the king of dynamic nuance. Sound comes
from a very black, quiet background. It has tons of air that provides
nice delicacy to intimate playing. I love the sound, but it 'does'
have a slight 'electric' sound that tames nicely.

BlackStack gives a more meaty, grounded presentation. It is very nice, but
imho is less dynamic and airy than the Sunrise. All in all, very nice.
It is a solid performer, and may be most people's fav sh pickup. I
certainly like it. It has the best user interface and is easiest to install.

Rare Earth Bland has a very airy and less meaty, grounded presentation.
It is less dynamic than the 2 above.....kinda like turning a compressor on.
It's strength is tone. I can get a very natural sound with the mic blended in.
I installed it in my 'smaller' guitar; with the thought it would be a big contrast
to my other 2 larger guitars on the occasions when a second guitar is appropriate. Also I felt the Sunrise in this guitar was having an effect
on the unplugged sound. The REB is Small! and light.
A caution is that the REB is more like a passive with a battery in that the
output is similar to my passives. A preamp is needed for all three.

All are worthy contenders. I suggest trying them all. It will be interesting
to see which ones I am using 6 months from now! :-)

[Ten]

Appreciate your take on these. One of these days I’ll probably spring for a Sunrise, but you throw the buffer box in there and it gets pricey just to try.

[meb]

Hello Ten. I just wanted to let you know that I have never tried the
Sunrise Buffer. I am getting great results with generic preamps/DI's..
The sunnaudio Stage DI is currently on the PB, but it is also fine with
my Fishman Platinum Pro, Red-eye Twin and Baggs Venue. The down side is
that those pieces don't really
help the price issue. But at least some of us already have them.
It would certainly be interesting to hear a Sunrise pre to see what it
brings to the table.

[M Hayden]

A Sunrise by itself is pretty good but a Sunrise with the buffer is amazing. I have two of them; for situations where a player has limited control, it’s either the Sunrise or a barn door preamp.

[dcopper]

I agree that the buffer box really makes a big difference. It really brings the Sunrise to life. I have a Sunrise/K&K in my 914 and an LR Baggs M80 and K&K in my 814 cocobolo. I will say that most of the time I just plug into the K&K which works well for me, but either soundhole pickup sounds good. I have had my series of soundhole pickups and there is nothing I have heard that sounds better to me than the Sunrise.
All of the other soundhole pickups are good in their own way - no disparaging intended.

davidc

[meb]

You have peaked my curiosity about the S-B1. I will see if I can find one
to try. I will start with a wtb ad.

[jseth]

Michael;

Do you run your pickups through the preamps and THEN through the Bose T1 into the L1, or do you have a different mixer/board?

Asking because I do use the T! and it is really an amazing little gizmo... with all the various eq options, it seems to do a great job without adding yet another piece of expensive gear into the signal chain...

Thanks again for the message, by the way! I plan on giving you a call sometime soon...

[rockabilly69]

Originally Posted by jseth

Michael;

Do you run your pickups through the preamps and THEN through the Bose T1 into the L1, or do you have a different mixer/board?

Asking because I do use the T! and it is really an amazing little gizmo... with all the various eq options, it seems to do a great job without adding yet another piece of expensive gear into the signal chain...

Thanks again for the message, by the way! I plan on giving you a call sometime soon...

I hate most all things digital, but I really like the T1, it's just a little swiss army knife of a mixer. The only thing I wish mine had was a little longer of a delay time (more than 500ms), and tap tempo, but that doesn't keep me from loving it. No matter what rigs I have in my car when I hit the road, there's always a T1 going for the ride.

[meb]

Whether I am using the L1C or L1mod2, I will run my guitar thru a
preamp/DI (listed above) to the T1 via an XLR connection. The DI/XLR
combo insures I have enough gain for my mostly passive pickups.