Boss AD2 acoustic preamp

guitarfishbay

https://www.boss.info/us/products/ad-2/


Acoustic-electric guitar preamp with advanced BOSS sound processing 
Sophisticated under-the-hood processing with multiple interlocked parameters, accessible with simple stompbox controls 
Acoustic Resonance reproduces the complex resonance characteristics of an unplugged acoustic 
Ambience knob provides wide-ranging, studio-quality reverb optimized for acoustic guitar  
Notch filter for instant feedback reduction 
Normal output for an acoustic guitar amp and balanced DI output for direct PA connection 
Sound mute function for switching guitars and tuning on stage

Looks like it'll be £99 

guitarfishbay

Apologies copy paste and img urls not playing nice on my iPhone 

ICBM

Sounds good, but I'm not totally convinced it's been thought through very well for live use - the main footswitch seems to turn the whole pedal on and off, which is a bit pointless since this is a pedal you won't want to turn off. OK you can hold it down for 2 seconds for the mute function, but it seems a bit unnecessary. It would be better if the simple single-press was the mute, and the hold>2sec was the full bypass or maybe the notch filter or reverb on/off since these are things you're less likely to want quickly.

Sorry, maybe a bit grumpy but I felt the same about the Deluxe Reverb pedal - great-sounding, but really poorly designed for gigging use. Hence why I don't own one.

guitarfishbay

I think that's about as well as you could design it with 3 knobs. A toggle for switch mute/switch bypass would have been great but realistically holding down the switch for 2 seconds isn't the end of the world.

ICBM

guitarfishbay said:

I think that's about as well as you could design it with 3 knobs. A toggle for switch mute/switch bypass would have been great but realistically holding down the switch for 2 seconds isn't the end of the world.

No, I mean that the footswitch functions should be reversed - single press for mute, hold for full bypass. That would make far more sense for how this will be used live - it's not an 'effect', it's a preamp, so you won't be turning it off normally. In fact there's so little point in the bypass that you might as well use the hold function to turn off one of the other features.

Not the end of the world, no - but annoying. It just makes me think it's been designed by someone who doesn't gig with an acoustic guitar. That's the worst problem with the Deluxe Reverb pedal - you can't turn the tremolo on and off with the footswitch, you can only do the whole pedal.

guitarfishbay

That's what the toggle switch I proposed would do - reverse the functions as necessary. While you may want it on or mute that isn't standard in bass DIs so having the mute option is still a step up. In fact I can't think of any that have this option. (I'm more familiar with bass DIs than acoustic - ultimately same function).

Yes I agree the default is backwards but it's 2 seconds - and realistically anyone using this as a pedal would also be using a tuning pedal (which would typically provide mute).

guitarfishbay

Personally I think it's been designed that way to not confuse people or provide a non standard result. Switch to bypass is the universal default for pretty much everything except tuners, which usually mute. 

I don't disagree with you I just can't see when it'd be an actual issue

ICBM

guitarfishbay said:

Personally I think it's been designed that way to not confuse people or provide a non standard result. Switch to bypass is the universal default for pretty much everything except tuners, which usually mute. 

I don't disagree with you I just can't see when it'd be an actual issue

When you don't hold the pedal down for quite long enough, think you've muted the sound, put your guitar on the stand and go to the bar.

Then when you're at the bar you hear this strange noise, getting louder and louder… finally you realise it's your guitar feeding back, just as it gets massively loud and the strings start vibrating against the frets.




This also happens when you've accidentally plugged into the Bypass output of the TU-2 instead of the Output. Not that I've ever ever done that of course - just purely speculating .

guitarfishbay

Fair point. Not sure if there's any visual feedback such as a change of LED colour when muted, manual wasn't listed on the site yet.

Electrical tape over unused jacks is a solution sometimes, if you can get it to stick in a place that will stay stuck. Never tried it on a pedal but I've taped over my unused Matrix power amp jacks to make it easier to set up as its considerably shallower than my rack case so not always easy to see.

Failing this a piece of tape on top. I colour coded the mojo in and out on my DD20 as you can't see that from the top.