my mate uses a Bose system or the house PA when he plays live (solo act)
He's playing acoustic and singing
the built in mixer and fx sounds poor from the Bose - thin and fizzy
We were looking around at good preamps that might give nice EQ, reverb, compression
his main guitar has a magnetic pickup, which sounds fine into my recording gear and monitors with no EQ
Also he plays a tricone resonator with a transducer
so maybe 2 inputs with different settings could be useful, but a single-channel one for the main guitar would still be worth considering
The fishman preamps look promising, but local shops don't stock them
any advice?
Comments
The Boss AD-5 is pretty nice and has both piezo and magnetic input options, although it doesn't have compression.
To be honest I would probably look at a small acoustic amp with two channels though - that will give you better control over your own sound and monitoring even if you're then connecting it to the PA as well.
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I will look into the AD-5
unfortunately, he's disabled, and needs to travel light, so would prefer not to take an amp.
He's looking at paying pro prices, if cheaper stuff won't suffice
Originally I had pointed him to the Yamaha AG stomp, which I found quite good, but that didn't work out
I see Radial do a few things, but I just haven't researched acoustic preamps much, for me it's either mic'd or into my AxeFX2, which must be the most overlooked acoustic preamp in existence - studio level reverbs, complex delays, multi-band compressors and IR of guitar bodies, plus any other fun stuff.
Possibly most importantly it's includes bodyrez, which anecdotally plays OK with transducers and magnetic pickups but I'm not sure about helping the resonator tone – might add a bit of body?
Adding a 3 switch will allow turning selected effects on the fly.
I ordered a b-stock one from thomann then realised I'd be better of with its bigger brother (voicelive 3), I'm waiting to hear if they'll let me return it if not I'll be looking to move it on for £190 posted (the price it cost me).
http://www.orchid-electronics.co.uk/acoustic.htm
The Radial stuff is the nuts (I use a PZ-PRE) but it's not cheap.
I'd send it back if I were you, the new price is less than £190 now btw, B stock is lower still
I've passed on the recommendation, but I think if he got one he'd be better getting the 3 year warranty in his own name
There's a full monty AD-8 these days too with all sorts of stuff.
Feedback
As their website says, "Orchid products are hand made in small batches in the UK"
Orchid are a small UK company producing pro-spec electronics by hand - which is never going to be as cheap as Chinese-built mainstream brands. Crazy? Maybe, maybe not?
Even Feline guitars are struggling to make guitar production profitable/sustainable and they're not exactly cheap.
i agree with the point of small scale British made stuff having a higher price through labour costs and material costs as well as legislative burdens that may not exist in places like China
Many guitars have a re-sale value. Some you'll never want to sell.
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Making simple electronics in small batches, by hand in the UK is not going to compare well with Chinese factories, for various reasons. It's not an adequate explanation though - what is the benefit to the user of having small-batch electronics?
Why aren't iPhones made this way?
we are talking about a single-channel preamp with BMT + Vol, costing £180, and it looks like an old Maplin kit tbh
It seems to me it's mostly intended for vocalists I'm afraid
We revisited the Bose L1 mixer, which did better on its own
I now think he needs a 4 channel mixer, with 3 channel EQ, gate, comp and reverb on each channel
any recommendations
If the Chinese built stuff in question comes from TC then in my experience you've only got about a 50% chance of it lasting 5 years without breaking as well.