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Post by jackorion on Sept 25, 2019 8:13:28 GMT
Hi all,
Here's my review of the Tonedexter preamp:
I was very impressed by the improvement that the Tonedexter made on the untreated pickup sound. I found a few small niggles in the interface and I also found that the TD bought out the 'tweaker' in me and I was constantly thinking 'can I improve this'... But I did use it at a couple of gigs with really good PAs and loved the tone!
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Post by andyhowell on Sept 25, 2019 8:30:27 GMT
A good and fair review Ben. I thought I'd add a few comments from experience — I've been using the Tonedexter at gas for a year or so.
The Sound
The sound is that good. Wow is a reaction of often get and I always get complemented on the sound of my guitar — most people assume that it is simply down to the guitar.
Training is easy and can be done very quickly. As you said a mix at the 12th fret position nearly always works well. Recently I broke my pickup connections inside the guitar the morning of a gig. I took another guitar and trained it within 10 minutes and was good to go. My three guitars all sound like my guitars on playback.
My main guitar has a modern Headway pickup in which is a great pickup and this works well. The other two have far older Fishman Matrix USPs and they work very well too — I reckon this can deal with most kinds of pickup.
The sound is best through a PA system, something to do with the dynamics and the natural air that these offer. If there is a decent sound guy I just send a flat eq signal out from the Tonedexter. If I have to eq through a smaller system or my AER I find the eq curves on the TD treble and bass controls are pretty flexible and you only need a small touch to make a difference. For greater flexibility you could run the signal our of the TD and into an EQ pedal — ultimately I'm going to try it with a Line 6 Stomp.
Feedback/Notch
You didn't mention (I think) the notch feature which I find works really well. I tune down to C and D a lot and find that the bottom F or G can often buzz — it is pretty easy to deal with this using the notch feature.
You are right about switching wave forms (guitars) — I wish it was easier but predominantly I'm using one guitar.
While the unit is very tough the knobs on the back need protecting. I carry mine in a Pelican case or make sure it is properly wrapped within another bag.
Power Supply!
One final thing — buy this in the UK and the Power Supply is not included (they've obviously given you one for review). This is really no bad thing as you can buy your own 9V supply. You can also use this on a pedal board powered by an onboard power supply.
This is one of the best and best value option I have bought for amplifying my guitar. Mostly I'm playing and singing but I have done a few finger style only performances and it stands up really, really well. There is certainly not enough of an improvement using a real mic to justify lugging it around and setting up with it.
And finally, some people worry about a 'digital' sound (whatever that it). The Tonedexter sounds remarkably natural. As you say it is not cheap but it is by no means the most expensive option out their either.
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ocarolan
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Post by ocarolan on Sept 25, 2019 8:30:54 GMT
Enjoyed watching that vid last night - certainly does seem to do a good job, and hopefully you have given the manufacturers some useful feedback on future improvements as to usability in real life situations. Excellent review, Ben, thanks.
Keith
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Post by andyhowell on Sept 25, 2019 8:32:40 GMT
Enjoyed watching that vid last night - certainly does seem to do a good job, and hopefully you have given the manufacturers some useful feedback on future improvements as to usability in real life situations. Excellent review, Ben, thanks. Keith The guy who designed this, James May, has received a lot of plaudits in the USA where this anti is being used a lot by some very well known names, including finverstyle players such as Larry Pattis. Before I bought mine I had a chat to Larry who described it to me as 'an absolute game changer'. And it is!
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Post by Cams on Sept 25, 2019 21:56:46 GMT
Nice honest review Ben. You mentioned running into a separate pre with EQ - what are you using for that?
You mentioned me at the end there by the way - the constant tinkerer on the quest for perfection. Rabbit hole, here I come!
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Post by andyhowell on Sept 26, 2019 7:41:57 GMT
There is no need to run the TD through an eq in most settings. I can see where it might be helpful but I have been using mine almost weekly for a year and see little reason to do so. I mentioned the notch filter which is quite powerful and that helps.
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Post by jackorion on Sept 26, 2019 8:02:56 GMT
Nice honest review Ben. You mentioned running into a separate pre with EQ - what are you using for that? You mentioned me at the end there by the way - the constant tinkerer on the quest for perfection. Rabbit hole, here I come! I used my Grace Felix - the parametric mids allowed me to dial out a bit of 'ringiness. This was with my AER, when I played through a big PA I took the risk of going with just the tonedexter (although I had my Felix on stage as well - what I actually did was set one guitar up through the tonedexter and one through the Grace so I had the Grace to fall back on if I wasn't happy with the tonedexter). I'm sure a lot of people are thinking is 'if I said it was the best my guitar's ever sounded, why aren't I using one live?'... Well, firstly I've already invested in my Grace Felix (in fact I'm still paying off the credit card!) and I've been really happy with that preamp and it's flexibility and sound (particularly now I've added the DPA Mics to my guitars). Secondly, although I did think that the TD made my guitar sound much more like a real guitar than the K&K does, I actually like some of the thickness and oomph that the K&K gives in a live situation - I'm playing solo and, although a lot of my music is quite delicate, it's nice to know I have some kick there if I want/need it to fill out the sound. Although you can blend the pickup signal back in with the wavemap, I find that the K&K needs significant EQ for my needs (mainly a big notch around 100 - 250 depending on venue, and a cut in the mids) - it's not possible to do this to the pickup signal only with the tonedexter - you're mixing in some un-EQ'd pickup sound and then EQ'ing the entire mix. For me this didn't work. Thirdly - I AM a tinkerer. With my electric guitar rig I deliberately bought a small pedalboard so I would only have space for four pedals (one OD, one Compressor, one Delay and a tuner) as I knew I'd be forever tinkering if I had too many options. Sometimes even having more than one guitar gives me angst as I end up swapping between them and trying to justify each guitars use and tone and I often have moments where I fantasise about selling everything and really honing down my setup to one acoustic, one electric, one preamp, one electric amp, one acoustic amp and then sticking with it. I know for a fact that I would be constantly listening to the wavemaps and thinking 'could this be better?' 'maybe if I got a mic with a flatter response it would sound better?' and so on, and also that it would become a reason to buy mics to try out and I just don't want that grief - I'm trying to stick with what I've got at the moment and use it to it's best rather than add more stuff...
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Post by Cams on Sept 26, 2019 11:59:56 GMT
Fascinating Ben. I love hearing about this kind of stuff. Thanks for the response.
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Post by Amit on Sept 26, 2019 12:34:49 GMT
Secondly, although I did think that the TD made my guitar sound much more like a real guitar than the K&K does, I actually like some of the thickness and oomph that the K&K gives in a live situation - I'm playing solo and, although a lot of my music is quite delicate, it's nice to know I have some kick there if I want/need it to fill out the sound. Although you can blend the pickup signal back in with the wavemap, I find that the K&K needs significant EQ for my needs (mainly a big notch around 100 - 250 depending on venue, and a cut in the mids) - it's not possible to do this to the pickup signal only with the tonedexter - you're mixing in some un-EQ'd pickup sound and then EQ'ing the entire mix. For me this didn't work. This is really useful to hear - likewise when I do use my K&K (I mostly use just a mic these days), it needs a fair whack of EQ. If you're only able to EQ the entire mix and not just the pickup sound, that wouldn't be ideal for me either.
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Post by andyhowell on Sept 26, 2019 19:11:58 GMT
When I first got mine I played around with re-recording my wavemaps. What I got were very consistent results and so I stopped wanting to ‘tinker’ :-)
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Post by andyhowell on Sept 27, 2019 7:13:11 GMT
This is really useful to hear - likewise when I do use my K&K (I mostly use just a mic these days), it needs a fair whack of EQ. If you're only able to EQ the entire mix and not just the pickup sound, that wouldn't be ideal for me either. It really doesn't need a 'fair whack' of eq. In most settings the on board controls are pretty effective. If you are sending a signal to a sound guy then I'm happy to leave it flat and let them mess with it :-) I mentioned the notch feature because it works well especially when playing C/D tunings. I would like to experiment running mine through something like a Line 6 unit but these only another example of tinkering. In most situations you won't really need to play around with it that much. I've held back a bit from banging on about the Tonedexter because it just seems a bit over the top. But since Ben has given his review I'm happy to confirm just how good this is. In the real world this is a very easy system to use. The designer of the Tone Dexter — James May — has also designed his own K&K type pickup which I'd love to explore — The Ultra Tonic. This is very similar to the K&K but has more pads to it which give a much wider dynamic range. Before I bought the Tonedexter I talked to Larry Pattis about it. He is using the Ultra Tonic and was raving about it. The Ultra Tonic is reasonably priced as a higher end pickup. I need to replace the pickup in my OM and might just get one imported .... ... but I'\m trying to kill my gear obsession :-) If you want to see how the Tonedexter sounds with your guitars, give me a shout and come round and try it!
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Post by jackorion on Sept 27, 2019 7:57:28 GMT
This is really useful to hear - likewise when I do use my K&K (I mostly use just a mic these days), it needs a fair whack of EQ. If you're only able to EQ the entire mix and not just the pickup sound, that wouldn't be ideal for me either. It really doesn't need a 'fair whack' of eq. In most settings the on board controls are pretty effective. If you are sending a signal to a sound guy then I'm happy to leave it flat and let them mess with it :-) I mentioned the notch feature because it works well especially when playing C/D tunings. I would like to experiment running mine through something like a Line 6 unit but these only another example of tinkering. In most situations you won't really need to play around with it that much. I've held back a bit from banging on about the Tonedexter because it just seems a bit over the top. But since Ben has given his review I'm happy to confirm just how good this is. In the real world this is a very easy system to use. The designer of the Tone Dexter — James May — has also designed his own K&K type pickup which I'd love to explore — The Ultra Tonic. This is very similar to the K&K but has more pads to it which give a much wider dynamic range. Before I bought the Tonedexter I talked to Larry Pattis about it. He is using the Ultra Tonic and was raving about it. The Ultra Tonic is reasonably priced as a higher end pickup. I need to replace the pickup in my OM and might just get one imported .... ... but I'\m trying to kill my gear obsession :-) If you want to see how the Tonedexter sounds with your guitars, give me a shout and come round and try it! In my experience the K&K (on it's own) does need a 'fair whack' of EQ - there's some troublesome bass frequencies that can feedback and some 'radio-transistor-esque' mids which can sound harsh, but, once they are dealt with, I find it to sound very good (if a little bit 'direct' - a bit like listening to a guitar from really close up, which is why I've added the DPA for a bit of 'space'). If I was able to use the Tonedexter in a dual setup, where I could EQ the 'plain' K&K to my liking and then blend in some wavemap, I think it would work for me, but I found that mixing in the pickup sound with the wavemap without being able to EQ it separately to the wavemap bought back both the good stuff and the bad stuff and I didn't find the EQ on the Tonedexter suitable to deal with that. But that's my experience and is not alway in line with what other people say - lots of people seem to be quite happy plugging the K&K straight in with no EQ, and lots of people find the Tonedexter to be the magic bullet they're looking for, it's all good!
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Post by andyhowell on Sept 27, 2019 10:24:45 GMT
If I was able to use the Tonedexter in a dual setup, where I could EQ the 'plain' K&K to my liking and then blend in some wavemap, I think it would work for me, but I found that mixing in the pickup sound with the wavemap without being able to EQ it separately to the wavemap bought back both the good stuff and the bad stuff and I didn't find the EQ on the Tonedexter suitable to deal with that. But that's my experience and is not alway in line with what other people say - lots of people seem to be quite happy plugging the K&K straight in with no EQ, and lots of people find the Tonedexter to be the magic bullet they're looking for, it's all good! That is the big drawback as I see it. I suspect there will be a second model at some point. As for what people are happy with, well yes ... ... some people seem to have a low quality threshold :-) My point really is that if you purchase the Tonedexter you don't really need to add another expensive piece of kit to go with it though I think your Felix solution is fascinating! I suspect your review will have quite an impact!
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Post by Riverman on Sept 27, 2019 10:56:20 GMT
Really interesting review Ben. By way of contrast, here’s what Chris Smither’s website says about his live gear: Equipment Chris carries when he’s on the road “After years of consideration I’ve come to the conclusion that, within limits, gear is more important as a topic of conversation than as a way of making music. It’s just not that important.” – Chris Smither Pickup Who knows what they put in those things? DI Who cares? It must be said, Chris’s live guitar tone is terrible...
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Post by jackorion on Sept 27, 2019 12:58:11 GMT
Really interesting review Ben. By way of contrast, here’s what Chris Smither’s website says about his live gear: Equipment Chris carries when he’s on the road “After years of consideration I’ve come to the conclusion that, within limits, gear is more important as a topic of conversation than as a way of making music. It’s just not that important.” – Chris Smither Pickup Who knows what they put in those things? DI Who cares? It must be said, Chris’s live guitar tone is terrible... Hehe! It is isn't it? Quack city...
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