External preamp advice

TheMadMick

Guys

I've acquired my old Guild M6 back and it has a piezo pickup I'd like to utilise. Can you please advise me on an external preamp that might suit. Preferably on the economic side (read cheap).

Winny_Pooh

The only thing that will make it better, rather that less shit, is an IR.
Find a used Fishman aura or but a Mooer radar and try various IRs or even better a NUX optima air.

ICBM

Behringer ADI21 if you want much cheapness.

Boss AD-8 if you want better, and still not that expensive. (Discontinued and haven't held their value.)

Fishman Aura if you want very good, although they are expensive and can be difficult to dial in - I found the Boss actually better (especially for a live situation) simply because it's much less fussy.

shufflebeat

For “not great” piezo systems the IR solution is transformative and the Mooer Radar is a great little unit if your guitar has a preamp fitted and you get the right IR.

For passive piezo systems the Mooer doesn’t have a high enough input impedance to match the requirements of the pickup so another pedal in front would be needed, the Boss ge-7 would be ideal but a Boss tu-3 thner would also be useful if level/EQ adjustment isn’t necessary at that point.

Mooer also has a balanced TRS output so can go straight into a mixer and can run off a 12v battery pack if necessary.

Littlejonny

I've been searching for a preamp with a tuneable mid frequency - and thought I had to get an expensive Baggs one so this thread is really helpful. 

My Martin has Journey Tek (similar to K&K) which I love the sound of. It is passive however and has no volume control, which has left me in a few sticky situations (particularly this week where I kept having to switch between bass and acoustic in a xmas show).

I was thinking of adding an endpin preamp, but the Journey Tek enpin appears to have some circuitry in it - I'm guessing a preset EQ...is there an active preamp that I could add in-between the pickup and the existing endpin? TBH the back and sides of the guitar are trashed so I'm not averse to cutting a 'barn door'.

Shadow

@Littlejonny if your Journeytek is the upgradable version they do a separate volume control to mount in the soundhole

https://journeyinstruments.com/product/passive-soundhole-volume-wheel-epa01/

Macari's sell pickup and volume control as a package but they might sell the volume control separately.

Littlejonny

Thanks @Shadow ;that looks great and cheap enough too. @ICBM any advice on getting an internal preamp?

ICBM

Littlejonny said:

ICBM any advice on getting an internal preamp?

My advice is always - don’t. There’s nothing you can do with one that can’t be done better offboard, other than annoying the soundman by changing something. You’re just building in potential unreliability and obsolescence. I’ve even gone as far as deliberately removing all the preamp systems from my guitars which came with them so they now just have a passive pickup and an output jack.

Littlejonny

Winny_Pooh said:

The only thing that will make it better, rather that less shit, is an IR.
Find a used Fishman aura or but a Mooer radar and try various IRs or even better a NUX optima air.

I was an early adopter of IRs for acoustic, using Space Designer on a laptop…I’ve used them for layering on recordings but struggle with them through a PA. I always found there was something odd about the sound, and all the demos (of Tonedexter etc) I’ve ever seen have the same thing - they kind of sound like they were recorded in a different space. They lack the directness of a good pick-up. Perhaps they should record the IRs in an anabolic chamber or something. 

I think if you’re after the best sound live, it’s a pick-up and mic blend system. Otherwise, the K&K style thing (of which Journey Tek are better and Yamaha proprietary system 6(?) might be the best) with extensive EQ is a close second. On the subject of EQ, people think they should just be able to plug in and get a great sound…this is wrong…the pickup’s job is to pick-up as much of the sound as possible and transmit it to the amplifiers. The piezo pick-up will always need extensive EQ to get a musical sound out of it.