HX Stomp as acoustic preamp?

stickyfiddle

As titled. I need to play an acoustic live. It'll be either a J45-alike or D18-alike, with an LR Baggs Hifi pickup. 

I'm happy to buy a decent preamp if it's the best option, but if I can deliver a 95% solution with my existing HX Stomp that'd be ideal

chrisj1602

Not tried it myself but I’ve read about people using acoustic IRs with Helix.

Danny1969

I can normally get an acoustic sound pretty good just plumbed straight into the desk via a DI box. It was a bit trickier in the days of analog desks with only a couple of sweepable mids but these days with 5 or more points of cut / boost and Q its not an issue. 

willo

chrisj1602 said:

Not tried it myself but I’ve read about people using acoustic IRs with Helix.

Worship Tutorials provide some really decent demo videos of theirs for different pickups etc. Could be worth a listen. 

TheBigDipper

I get great results with a passive bridge plate pickup just using a preamp (for signal level and some EQ) and then into the desk. It looks like the HiFi is active, so I'd agree with Danny1969. Just plug into a passive DI box. 

english_bob

I've been happy with the sound I got from my Stomp using acoustic IRs. 

I used these free ones. Dead easy to upload to the Stomp, but seem to use a fair chunk of system resource.

https://worshiptutorials.com/product/acoustic-ir-sample-pack/

stickyfiddle

english_bob said:

I've been happy with the sound I got from my Stomp using acoustic IRs. 

I used these free ones. Dead easy to upload to the Stomp, but seem to use a fair chunk of system resource.

https://worshiptutorials.com/product/acoustic-ir-sample-pack/

Ta. 

I’d only want to consider a smidge of compression or reverb on top of an IR I think

I may still try a ln acoustic-specific preamp but working out all my options

Winny_Pooh

If the pickup has no active preamp built in look up the input impedance of the Helix and see if it's a good match. If not a DI box first.

stickyfiddle

To be fair the pickup is meant to be excellent as a plug & play solution. I haven’t fitted it yet so it’s entirely possible I don’t need anything beyond a decent DI

Lewy

No first hand experience of the HiFi but on the whole, you're better off not using IRs with pickups that add their own resonance (e.g. bridgeplate or soundboard transducers). They work better with undersaddle piezos. Stomp could still be useful for EQ.

Do you work with your own regular sound guy or are you at the mercy of the venue's? Because the other consideration is that on the whole, sound guy sees plugged in acoustic and starts EQ'ing it like a piezo regardless of what's actually in there and if it's too faithful of an acoustic sound (like you'd get from an IR) it can totally throw them, and you end up with a shit sound all night regardless of how well your acoustic could have sounded. So in that scenario, pickup sound straight into a DI is the way forward.