Who's using an IR box - ToneDexter/Voiceprint/Nux Optima Air/other?

Lewy

Been thinking about these recently. Most of my live acoustic playing over the years has been mic'd, and if I've had to plug in then mentally I've always just written off getting a sound that's going to particularly inspire me and come at it from an angle of practicality (e.g. gigs/festivals where you only get a quick line check and off you go).

But recently I've been gravitating to a lighter right hand approach, more bare fingers etc and thinking I might choose to plug in more often so I can maintain that light touch, and maybe use lighter strings, without having to worry about putting enough level into the front of a mic. So that in turn has got me thinking about these boxes. 

My previous experience was years ago with a Fishman Spectrum Aura. I found that it only sounded good with an undersaddle piezo and then only with the IR (or "image" in Fishman's language") turned all the way up - and when it was all the way up things had this kind of honky quality. You could turn the image down but then you'd hear the piezo and franky I'd rather just give up playing than have to listen to that hideous buzzy quacky shitty piezo sound.

But these newer products claim to work well with my preferred pickups (K&K pure mini) and even magnetic soundhole pickups, and they give you the option of capturing your own guitars. I still hear that honkiness on some of the ToneDexter demos but maybe it's EQable out?

Anyway, keen to hear people's real world experiences. Ta.

TheBigDipper

I've been playing around with some freebie IRs at the end of my signal chain on an HX FX. I'm a K&K Pure Mini user, too. Sounds fairly decent through a PA. I only do open mics with an acoustic, so not sure I want to schlep an HX FX for those, but I'd consider it if I was playing a proper gig. I'm capturing some playing with a looper pedal and playing that into the HX FX so I'm not hearing the live guitar in the room as I tweak settings. Normally I use the K&K XLR Preamp straight into the PA and I used to use the FlyRig Acoustic that is in the classifieds….  :-)

Lewy

TheBigDipper said:

I'm capturing some playing with a looper pedal and playing that into the HX FX so I'm not hearing the live guitar in the room as I tweak settings.

That’s smart….I must remember to do that when I’m setting up on solo gigs too!

Supportact

If you want to dip your toe in without too much outlay you could try the Mooer radar. I've got one I use for the stock speaker emulations with my electric guitar for quiet practice (it's got a headphone out which is handy). But apparently you can load other IRs onto it including acoustic guitar ones. It's small and relatively cheap. 

shufflebeat

I have the Tonedexter and Mooer Radar.

The best results I've achieved with the TD have been when using an sm57 and a soundhole plug while training. The best result with the Mooer has been with the help of Cuki79 and Jonfields45 at acousticguitarforum who have developed software for creating IRs at home.

I use my TD for pub gigs with a Takamime ef341sc (stock Palathetic pickup) and Mandola (K&K Twin Spot) and get regular positive comments on the sound. I run it from a battery pack which makes it very gig-friendly.

However, if you're looking for the acoustic sound of your guitar you may be disappointed. Both pedals if well set up and used with a sympathetic playing style can make a very believable and musical acoustic sound, particularly in a band mix scenario, but if you've been playing in nice rooms with nice mics and your expectations are very specific then you may not achieve that.

The best way to experiment with the possibilities is to record your pickup sound and play back the recording through a convolution reverb VST (i.e., Reaverb in Reaper) with IRs loaded.

TimmyO

I only used at home (obv) but I was really impressed with 3Sigma Audio IRS loaded into Helix to improve an M1 (there were IRs specifically for magnetic pickups, as well as ones for piezo and top-sensing iirc) . I assume you'd get similar results with them in any IR loading device 

BabyFrankReborn

I'm currently using an Optima Air - I wanted a single-box solution that had reverb and EQ in addition to the IR Loader.  Using it with a Tanglewood all-mahogany round-shouldered dreadnought, fitted with a JJB PIezo in-body pickp, and it sounds pretty good using the Gibson J45 IR, and some of the others   Apparently you can "learn" the response from your own guitar and store that in the Optima Air too, but I haven't got around to trying that yet.  I also use it on my big acoustic board with a Mel9, and RC3 Looper in the Optima Air's FX loop.   As others have commented, Mooer Radar works well too, only sold that because I wanted reverb/EQ too.

Lewy

Thanks for the responses all. The price point for the Optima Air is very tempting given the ability to capture your own guitar/pickup (albeit with some outboard gear faffing). On the other hand, the Voiceprint has the ease of use thing going on so you can easily capture your guitar using your phone, and there's a demo of it sounding good with a mag soundhole pickup which would be cool - take a guitar that doesn't have a pickup at all, stick a mag in the soundhole and off you go. But that's 3 times the price of the Optima. On paper the Tonedexter looks least appealing - same price at the Voiceprint but with the hassle and faffing of the Optima Air, and they clearly state in their support material that it doesn't play well with magnetic pickups. 

Hmmm.....

shufflebeat

Lewy said:

...and they clearly state in their support material that it doesn't play well with magnetic pickups. 

Hmmm.....

I did try my TD with both a Baggs m1a on guitar and a Vanden mag mandolin pickup and, although the results weren't what James May might have wanted in his design brief they were both a significant improvement on the "before" sound, more transparent, more percussive.

I still retired both pickups in the end but that was always the plan anyway.

Trude

I have a ToneDexter, and I've never had a better acoustic sound with that and my K&K equipped Martins.  I've also never had one unit that can sound equally good with my mandolin, dobro, banjo etc.  My mandolin pickup is thoroughly vile sounding on its own, but the TD cancels that out and delivers a sweet, convincing miked sound.

I've recently started doing a more complex solo show that involves electric sounds and some parallel acoustic/electric action, plus various effects, octave, pads etc and so I've moved over to a Boss GT1000 Core as a single box solution.  I've recorded IRs of all my acoustic instruments and it works well enough for what I need.  The pure tone isn't quite as good as the ToneDexter, but good enough for my purposes at the moment.

I guess this is a long-winded way of saying I have a ToneDexter available if you're interested! 

Lewy

By way of an update, I decided to get a Nux Optima Air which arrived today. After a couple of attempts I was able to capture a pretty good IR of my D28 using a Fishman Rare Earth as the pickup and a SM7B as the mic. My D28 doesn’t have a pickup installed - the idea of being able to just bung in a soundhole pickup to use on a gig and not have it sound shit is a great outcome!

Haven’t had time to try any different mics or my K&K equipped Collings yet but I have high expectations. 

Very cheap bit of gear for what it does, I must say.

goldtop

Just necro-bumping your thread to see what you think one year on?

Just discovered the Nux Optima and it may be useful for me.

Lewy

goldtop said:

Just necro-bumping your thread to see what you think one year on?

Just discovered the Nux Optima and it may be useful for me.

Well, after a couple of successful outings with the Optima I was really sold that IR was the only way forward for how I wanted to sound plugged in,so I fairly promptly upgraded to a LR Baggs Voiceprint which I've now played big and small gigs with and think it's great. I still have the Optima because I'm sure I'll find a different use for it in the future.

One thing I'll add is this health warning - IRs give you your guitar but louder. That's exactly what I want, all the time. It's not what everyone wants - some people actually want a bump in the bass, or a different response, so worth thinking about that because other solutions are better for that. It can also thoroughly disorientate piezo-addled sound guys who don't know what to do with a sound resembling an actual acoustic coming at them through the DI.....so I've had a couple of shockers as a result of that when there wasn't time to get it right. Same thing used to happen to me when I was using a Lyric internal mic.

Stratavarious

I have a load of acoustic guitar IRs downloaded from here..  use in a DAW mainly but loads into pedals.  Can alter the voice more than making a replica of your own.

http://acousticir.free.fr/

goldtop

Lewy said:

goldtop said:

Just necro-bumping your thread to see what you think one year on?

Just discovered the Nux Optima and it may be useful for me.

Well, after a couple of successful outings with the Optima I was really sold that IR was the only way forward for how I wanted to sound plugged in,so I fairly promptly upgraded to a LR Baggs Voiceprint which I've now played big and small gigs with and think it's great. I still have the Optima because I'm sure I'll find a different use for it in the future.

One thing I'll add is this health warning - IRs give you your guitar but louder. That's exactly what I want, all the time. It's not what everyone wants - some people actually want a bump in the bass, or a different response, so worth thinking about that because other solutions are better for that. It can also thoroughly disorientate piezo-addled sound guys who don't know what to do with a sound resembling an actual acoustic coming at them through the DI.....so I've had a couple of shockers as a result of that when there wasn't time to get it right. Same thing used to happen to me when I was using a Lyric internal mic.

Thanks for the update. The Voiceprint is new to me - I'll look it up.

If you decide to move on your Nux, though, let me know.

crunchman

Stratavarious said:

I have a load of acoustic guitar IRs downloaded from here..  use in a DAW mainly but loads into pedals.  Can alter the voice more than making a replica of your own.

http://acousticir.free.fr/

Thanks.  That could be useful.  I've just got a Quad Cortex, and am looking for some IRs to use it with my acoustic.

tomajoha

Lewy said:

goldtop said:

Just necro-bumping your thread to see what you think one year on?

Just discovered the Nux Optima and it may be useful for me.

Well, after a couple of successful outings with the Optima I was really sold that IR was the only way forward for how I wanted to sound plugged in,so I fairly promptly upgraded to a LR Baggs Voiceprint which I've now played big and small gigs with and think it's great. I still have the Optima because I'm sure I'll find a different use for it in the future.

One thing I'll add is this health warning - IRs give you your guitar but louder. That's exactly what I want, all the time. It's not what everyone wants - some people actually want a bump in the bass, or a different response, so worth thinking about that because other solutions are better for that. It can also thoroughly disorientate piezo-addled sound guys who don't know what to do with a sound resembling an actual acoustic coming at them through the DI.....so I've had a couple of shockers as a result of that when there wasn't time to get it right. Same thing used to happen to me when I was using a Lyric internal mic.

Are you still using the voiceprint/nux with a soundhole pickup?