NAD: simple acoustic smallness

Snags

Bit pissed off with life at the moment, so in an attempt to curb the consumption of crisps and chocolate have splurged on a Fishman Loudbox Mini following a few months of agonising and opinion sourcing.

It arrived yesterday, and with amazing synchronicity Mrs Snags is off visiting her sister this weekend, so Gibson (dog) has been suffering somewhat this morning.

Specs and stuff are readily available online, but essentially a two channel (instrument and mic) 60w acoustic amp, 6.5" speaker, independent tone (low/mid/high on instrument, low/high only on mic) independent reverb, independent gain, chorus on the instrument channel, and a master volume.

One thing not readily apparent online is that the DI output is both channels blended, and is post EQ but pre master (which you'd expect, but it's nice to get it confirmed).

First impressions: it's definitely mini!   Crap phone photos below with guitar and dog for scale.

I've been using it with a Furch G21CRC fitted with a Fishman Matrix Blend, and a little bit with an ancient Takamine EG332C.

Instrument
The instrument channel has a lot of volume for the size.  Far, far more than you'd need for home use, and I would guess more than enough to do a modest open mic, or for churchy types to lead worship in a medium-sized hall (where you're looking to provide a foundation for a congregation, not perform to them).  I'll be taking it along to the next couple of tFB jams I go to, just to see if it holds its own in the room there - that might be touch and go, but I think it stands a reasonable chance.

Feedback is no problem at home volumes.  Cranking it up definitely requires either getting some distance between guitar and amp, or switching the on-board pre-amp in the guitar to purely piezo with no mic.  That said, on piezo only, it was fine up to volumes louder than I wanted to do in the living room. The phase inverter switch does cut out a lot of low end, which also helps at volume, and the manual has some useful guide settings for low, medium and high volume settngs to get the best results.

Tonally (timbrally?? ) it's genuinely pretty neutral and faithful to the acoustic sound - or at least, to the acoustic sound as modified by the pre-amp.  I've always found that the Matrix loses a little of the warmth from the cedar top, but it's still very pleasant.

Big surprise for me is that the chorus is genuinely useful all the way from the mild setting to the whacked out one (although only for 80s OTT - Wanted Dead Or Alive and similar). I normally struggle to find a chorus sound I like, and end up turning it off.  I suspect that won't happen with this.

Mic
This was the bit I was less sure of on paper.  My voice isn't great, and is reasonably low register, so I was wondering how a weedy 6.5" speaker was going to handle it.  Answer: pretty well, as it happens.  Left the EQ fairly flat, added a bit of reverb to smooth out the horror and I don't actually hate hearing myself sing through it (as long as I'm also playing).  Normally I absolutely detest hearing my own voice coming back at me, to the extent that it puts me off singing and makes it even worse.

One thing that's quickly apparent, however, is that it needs a lot more gain on the mic channel than the guitar one in order for the vocal to carry over the top cleanly, especially if the guitar pre-amp volume is well up.  That might be down to my combination of kit - I have no idea if the Fishman pre-amp is particularly high output, or if the basic Samson Q7 mic is particularly low (obviously it's passive, and the Loudbox doesn't supply phantom power if you do need it).

Even so I would feel reasonably confident that it would have enough poke to manage either a solo church 'worship leading' type thing in a small setting, or a small café or open mic where you're either background noise or people are being polite and listening. Not sure it would manage "small gig" levels unless you stuffed some kind of vocal pre-amp/boost pedal in between the mic and the input.

Haven't played with the DI yet, or with the aux inputs.

For my purposes (tarting around at home, guitar monitor and EQ when DI'ing to a desk in public, and maybe the odd jam/open mic situation) I reckon it will be spot on.  And the size/weight is nice.

Pics, with added hound (pack shots of the amp are two-a-penny on t'Interwebz, so figured seeing it in a bit more context might help):

brooom

Not really related but that dog is something else...

ICBM

These amps do produce a remarkable amount of volume and bottom-end for their size. There was a second hand one in the shop recently, and when someone was trying it I honestly thought, from hearing it from the workshop, that he was playing guitar through one of the bass amps. He bought it...

You're also right that it's a very neutral and 'hi-fi' type of sound - the small size of the speaker shouldn't be that surprising if you think about it, because hi-fi speakers are often that sort of size. Nowadays low-end response is more a factor of speaker cone design and the cabinet than it is of the cone diameter.

They may intentionally have limited the gain on the mic channel to help with reducing feedback, but I'm not sure. I think it's probably pushing it to expect it to do the job of a PA even at a very small gig though. I've successfully used a 100W Trace Elliot combo for that in the past, but the 50W version of the same amp wasn't enough.

The dog's expression in the first pic is priceless .

Snags

Yeah, I wouldn't want to use it for a "proper" gig.  I could see you just about getting away with it for something very small where people can listen if they want, or talk over you.  It would definitely be loud enough for a small "one person and a guitar" church setting with maybe 30-60 people present, as there you only need enough vocal volume to bring people in on each verse, the rest of the time your voice can get lost in the crowd, as that's the point of it.  Bearing in mind I've done the latter with pretty much no sound reinforcement at all, before (although it wasn't fun or easy).

Very impressed.  In the unlikely event I was ever doing actual solo gigs with it, it would make a fine monitor and feed to a portable PA.

Snags

D'oh, meant to say that's the dog's normal expression, although in this instance with an added helping of "Isn't it about time we went out for a walk?"

ecc83

So! WTF is it!?? Ok, I know it's a Fishman but exact model #please because it looks like just the thing my son needs in the French cafes and bars for his acoustic, classical and a bit of singing.

How much is a S/H one likely to cost dad ? Crissy prezzie 2018 is sorted, laptop for music work (about to order an i5 Lenovo) but there is a birthday in Feb 19.

Dave.

Snags

@ecc83 the clue is in the first sentence   It's  Fishman Loudbox Mini.

I've been trying to get one second-hand for a while, but they don't seem to come around that often, and go for ~£190 - £220 on Ebay and the like.  Gear4Music (who always make me a little twitchy, but …) had them on for £240 and change so I let impatience rule the day.

Just checked and they've been bumped up to £250 now.

EDIT: unless you think he needs the dog.  That's a Bernese Mountain Dog, but one that's slightly mentally defective and has anxiety issues.

ecc83

THAT's not a model number! Just a collection of  possibly random  adman's words! Heh!

Hmm, bit pricey..For him! I am paying but he tends to leave things on the bus. I have lost count of the number of phones we have bought him!

Dave.

Snags

It is what it is (man).  Model number is PRO-LBX-500 apparently, but it's basically "Loudbox" and then they have various models: Mini, Mini Charge (battery), Artist and Performer.

Official puff here

I'll probably take it to Quad if you're heading up?  Failing that if life brings you down towards Herts ever you're welcome to come and have a go here - unless there's not enough credit in the parental generosity meter

menamestom

Nice amps.  I had the artist, should have kept it.

just be careful if the covering, it scratches very easily, it’s like paper.

Fortheloveofguitar

I’ve been looking at this or the Marshall amp 

What is the low end like on these?