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New acoustic guitar pedal board
As it says, $150 craptastic Ashton acoustic into a Dr Scientist The Elements (Controlled by Dunlop Volume X Mini Expression), on to a T-Rex Soulmate, into a Behringer MX400 mixer for adding a stomp pedal, into the RC-500 and out to the Fishman Loudbox Artist.
There is a horrible high frequency that I have edited out but it is still there. Will have to find that before I play anywhere, including practice. But, I'm pretty happy with it. Not yet a looper master but will put some time into that for sure. Lots of fun to be had.
Comments
Also consider , one of those LR Baggs DI boxes if you will be playing live
I think a decent acoustic needs to be next. This Ashton is about as low end as it gets buying from a music store.
Can you explain what benefit there would be in using a DI and where it should go in the signal path?
I have an Ashton acoustic as well and I agree - about the worst musical thing I have. I don’t know what I was thinking!
I had young children at the time and I didn't want anything that would cause tears if it got damaged. I have a Fishman Blackstack in the sound hole which doesn't seem to improve the sound. I do like playing it which is the most important thing. Just sounds bleh.
The DI will bring the signal up to the level expected by the pedal inputs without adding artifacts from overdriving it.
There are quite a few pedals that will help you out that are designed for this purpose - I have a Tech21 Para Driver that does wonders for the tone and gain on my acoustic guitar and mandolin.
Thanks for the explanation. The T-Rex Soulmate Acoustic has a FET preamp with high/low impedance selection and phase switch. Does that do away with the need for a DI?
I've never used one in the past. Does this mean I've been going wrong all these years plugging guitars into amps, mixing desks, pedals etc? Seems bizarre to me that a DI is required between a pickup and a pedal.
To be honest the order can be a matter of preference, but it’s down to gain staging - you should boost where the signal is quietest, and attenuate if it’s too strong. Usually the level coming out of the guitar is too low, so I’ll boost it there. You definitely want it to be at the correct level when it hits a mixing desk.
Not sure if that preamp will color it or not, as I don’t know the pedal. My preference is for something that will not add a ton of transients, and will EQ out any of the nastiness that comes from piezo pickups.
At present I'm not using a piezo. The Fishman Blackstack is a magnetic soundhole pickup. Is there a difference between Hi-Z and line? I've always plugged into the Hi-Z on my desk, straight into an amp or pedal. Should it go before a pedal? I've never noticed anyone doing that with magnetic pickups.
Yes, impedance and expected level are different between the two. You need to match impedance when making connections or you will affect the signal - guitars generally use hi-Z for passive pickups.
The Fishman probably has lower impedance than a piezo (but it’s still hi-Z), so you might not have too much volume drop.
See if you can play a different guitar through the existing setup. You might be able to pinpoint what the issues are by swapping things around.
I'll check some things out. My first concern is the psu as it was not an expensive one. I really hope it is an easy fix though.
Depends on how the pedals are built - sometimes they won’t work at all with low voltage, it sometimes they will crackle or make odd noises. Too high voltage is definitely not recommended for most pedals.
Do you have everything powered by one power supply? Check how much current it can deliver vs. the sum of the current requirements of everything plugged in to it.
A DI won’t bring up the level, a preamp will. Your para driver improved the sound because of the input impedance- it is very high, which is needed with piezo pickups.
The direct box portion (XLR out on the para driver) will allow you to connect to a mic input at the correct impedance, to then bring it up to line level in the board. If your DI puts out line level then it has an amp inside. A fishman acoustic preamp should have the correct input for a piezo. I have the pro platinum bass preamp/DI and it does wonderful things on upright bass.
@Ailerom You would want the high impedance switch on the T-Rex pedal if going straight from a piezo, but if your guitar has a preamp in it then you won’t need that setting.
Everything seems well supplied. 500ma supplying a 330 need is about the closest. Don't think they are discrete though.
How about if the pedal has a preamp in it?
OK, then more accurately the DI box will bring the guitar level to mic level by fixing the impedance mismatch. You’re right though, my Para Driver does also have a preamp, but it’s a clean boost so it doesn’t add any unwanted sound shaping to the signal.
The input impedance is also very high, piezos need about 10 mega ohm input impedance ideally, 5 can work too (I think the Paradriver is 5 but it may be 10). Usually an instrument input is about 1mega ohm. That thins out a piezo considerably. On upright bass, it’s a huge concern because the high pass is about 200hz. Less destructive to a guitar, but still you get that scratchy sound.
Either way, you’re covered.
More accurately, I should have said, based on my post above, the onboard electronics of a guitar would have a buffer so that the input impedance of whatever you’re plugging into doesn’t matter so much. The issue with all of this is you want to plug into a high impedance, regardless of what follows it. But it sounds like that t-Rex pedal has you covered for input impedance then preamp.
Great posts above
Most of it is all true
Don’t want to get into impedance Mumbo jumbo
But note , all pedals do not handle line levels signal well , as some of them built with electric guitar in mind
Anyway why i use LR ( as I mentioned if you plan to play live) . Home does not matter
1 . Notch eq , life saver to get rid of that tasty string feedback …..covering the sound hole does not always help
2. They have this unique compression/eq and saturation knobs which tames Piezo quack to an extent .
3.Level / impedance matching/ buffer ( refer above posts) other pedals can also do this . Note DI is required live since , you don’t know which venue you are in , sometimes there will be massive amount of cables in between
4. Massive gain on tap without nasty feedback , hence if someone ask to plug in channel with low volume …....
5. some venues have XLR inputs only , if you use those small converter adaptors with 1/4” cables .. disaster awaits
6. Has a low cut filter , if you feel, everything from you guitar is booming . Note, if you use some “wrong Reverb presets “ , you will “ boom” the wrong frequencies , Though some high end pedals , like strymon allow you to eq it out . LT takes care of that
Sometimes despite having all the tech specs knowledge and numbers , you have to test different gear live and see for yourself how it all comes together live . Buying and selling of gear is an unfortunate side effect .
To the first part, you are correct about pedals and line level, so @Ailerom if you are following up the preamp/ buffer with pedals, then you would want a separate DI at the end of the chain, or if the preamp/ buffer/ DI has an effects loop then you can use the pedals in that.
The DI is last in your chain so that any sound you produce goes into the mixer.
Also you often have a bypass on a DI too (1/4" jack out) that allows you to both send to the mixer with XLR and use the bypass to play through your amp. Same signal chain reaching both, but sometimes people want to go to their on stage amp as well as the PA, so this allows you to do that.
Yes, but I meant if the XLR out was used prior to any other pedals that those pedals would not get sent to the mixer. Just making sure @Ailerom understood that.
Just for background. This is the heart of the board. It's a pretty full featured pedal that was not cheap. Literally built like a tank.
Gotcha. I was just adding to your post in case he was thinking about where the amp might belong in the chain.
Between the two of us we’ll teach it!! 😂
That’ll work!