Guitarist & sound guys - opinions of the radial JDX48?

sgosden

There's been many times where mics have fallen over/ been moved from front of amp, dropping the guitar signal out of the PA.
And some places where the micing gear isn't all that good (even had drums and amps miced with vocal mics).

The JDX seems like a good way of getting a consistent sound to front of house across lots of venues.

Would be interested in how guitarist feel, but also how the sound guys amongst you rate them (or similar products).

Do they create a good replicated tone?
Are they just a bit pretencious?
Is the sound it sends gonna be awkward for the sound guy who knows his own room?

Cheers Y'all

ESBlonde

There is nothing wrong with drums and guitars being miced with vocal mics, they occupy the same frequently range apart from kick and cymbals. Vocal mics do have a presence peak but the sm57 and sm58 share the same cartridge, indeedo before proper kick mics were developed many engineers took the transformer out of an sm57 and used that as a dedicate kick mic live ( the transformer saturated with the strong deep kick sound).
I'm not familier with the specific radial unit but they make very high quality kit so on that score I'd have no issues.

Danny1969

Yeah as ESBlonde said vocal mics like the SM58 are fine for guitar and fine for close mic'ing drums, although I wouldn't use them as dedicated overheads on drums

You can certainly get problems mic'ing quiet-ish guitar cabs that are very near the drums, especially if you use something like a 57. Not only will you get bleed from the drums in the mic but the upper mid hump of a 57 makes things like ride cymbals and crashs's sound awful. Because my company does multitrack recording along with Live PA we tend to use mic's like the Sennheiser E906 which reject sound from the sides and rear much more than a normal mic does. 

I haven't used the Radial but have used Palmer speaker sims straight to PA and Sans amp and various other things. The Palmer is particularly good but in most cases a Senn E906 mic on a cab is as good as I need the signal to be in terms of spill and I use these mic's for many other things like brass and percussion 

mike257

Nothing wrong with them at all, haven't used the JDX but have used the Redbox, and that was fine. However, if you want a more traditional approach, for the same price as a JDX, you could get a pretty decent mic and an Ampclamp/Cabgrabber or similar device, and achieve the same level of consistency.

ICBM

I haven't seen a JDX48, but I'm not very keen on Radial gear. My experience of it has been less than wonderful - I would say it's not quite as well-designed or well-built as the hype and price associated with it seems to imply.

The Hughes & Kettner Red Box is pretty much the industry standard, and although it's not truly amazing-sounding it does a good job. The quality of the PA and the soundman are probably more important . Any soundman worth his salt won't mind using one instead of a mic, it takes one bit of work out of the equation.

The only alternative I've found which does sound significantly better is the Sequis Motherload, which is very big and expensive by comparison. (But can also act as an attenuator or load box as well, which partly explains the size and price.)

maltingsaudio

I;m really not fussed how the guitar sound arrives at my desk as long as I can get a decent mix from it. I prefer to use my mics and the 906 is my mic of choice for guitars as it usually requires no EQ,  a 57 normally requires a scoop as Danny has pointed out. Having said that it is always a good thing to tell the engineer what sound your going for so he can help you achieve it in the room and your monitors. This applies to the band as well, I've mixed over 50 different bands so far this year and without being told how each one wants to sound its up to me to make them sound how I think they should.

Whilst we are on mics, any mic can be used to pick up a sound, having the luxury of having a number of different mics available makes that sound better and you can be surprised by good results from the wrong mic. I was caught short a couple of weeks ago and had to use a906 as an overhead ... worked surprisingly well!

Cabicular

A Red Box is at least consistent where as I've had a variety of different options from sound engineers on mic placement

So unless I know them I generally get them to use the red box (or the XLR outs on the Helix as it is now)

JayGee

Personally I'm very happy with the speaker emulated DI output on my Blackstar Series One. Sound guys love it, I love having less ironmongery on stage, and it sounds fine out front...

simonk

I use a JDX48 and think it's excellent. I also have a Palmer PDI-09 and our other guitarist has the Mooer version, and I prefer the JDX to both.