Jack

Thanks for the help all. That's at least two votes for the passive di, two votes for the Behringer ADI, no votes at all for any kind of amp, several mentions of soundhole covers and even a recommendation for a piece of gear I already own and specifically ruled out in the OP. Seriously, there is a consensus and I really appreciate it. I think the direction is to stick with a passive di for now and see if a cheap preamp comes up or maybe have him buy the Behringer further down the line. Oh well. I am surprised the inbuilt preamps and tuners are actually useful on gigging stages, but hey, that's why I asked! Possible side quest for a sound hole cover but I know he is not interested in buying gear and I'll bet this is one those "don't need it until you do" things that people won't be convinced on until it's too late.

Using my extensive knowledge of vintage instruments I can tell you that the neck plate was made in Japan sometime before 2025.

Hi all, Unusual request, just looking for some advice please. I've joined a jam band with an old friend and we're at the point where we're going to start shopping for gigs. Out of the 5 of us, 2 of us (me being one of them) have played in plenty of gigging bands before and we have hundreds if not thousands under our belts between us. The drummer and the singer haven't gigged before but they are sorted. The issue is with the acoustic guitarist. He's a nice fella and a great player but never left the bedroom. Currently they own a nice selection of acoustic guitars and that's it. No stage gear to speak of. I even had to show him how to plug into the amp at the rehearsal space, no joke he had the instrument cable from the guitar in the speaker output of the head. Have any of you ever played acoustic guitar in a band or been in band with someone who has? Advice for what gear you need to be able to actually do that? I would lend him my Fishman Platinum Pro, but once I've done that once I'll be doing it at every gig and I don't want to start a precedent. We have a full pa setup so he could go ampless and then rely on the wedges I suppose. I get the impression that most acoustic guitar amps are relatively flat anyway? Or do nice-but-mid-range acoustics benefit from some tone sweetening? So is it just a plain DI box then to get the guitar into the mixer? I think that all of his guitars have built in preamps and tuners, so just a passive DI would work. But then wouldn't it be nice to have some eq and feedback fighting options on the floor? Or a better tuner? Do the inbuilt ones on guitars work on loud stages under bright lights? What's a good budget acoustic guitar amp? Or preamp pedal? I have seen the Sonicake ones that look alright but they don't have a tuner. Do multi effect pedals work well with acoustics? It occurs to me that something like a Mooer/NUX/Valeton 'hx-stomp-alike' might be a good solution to this? I don't even know how to ask an intelligent question on this as you might have guessed. I own an electro acoustic and if I had to play it live I'd just plug into the quad cortex or the aforementioned Fishman, but that's because I already own those solutions and I'm not an acoustic guitarist by trade. I'm trying to remember back to when I've shared a bill with acoustic guitarists or when we've worked weddings and I've had them through my desk and pa as the first acts. I think most of them have had some sort of pedalboard, mostly with looper pedals, but I guess that's not appropriate for a band. I guess what I'm asking is: for a player who has been playing for a long time but who is brand new to playing live (and who is on a tight budget) should we go amp or pedal board? If so what are some good cheap options in those categories? Is there anything else here that I haven't thought of? Thanks in advance.

Jealous. It's all TC Electronic around here. Sounds great and all, just isn't very exciting.

Mine came with the top set, but I was sent the bottom set. Long gone now I'm afraid!

I too have the software but none of the presets, a little frustrating as I can remember being sent the 'new' ones from Alex.

Iirc the plate amp was an off the shelf part (with custom dsp curves) that was discontinued. That was the main reason those cabs were stopped, although Alex did say he had a stock of parts on hand. My point is that the amps exist outside of Barefaced and having it fixed may be easier than you think. Have you checked the fuse?

This is the only thing that YouTube gets right. You have to disclose if you're being paid to shill something. Other social media sites either have looser policies or don't enforce the ones they do have. Both my wife (who's into witchy stuff) and her sister (who's a piercer) have been approached multiple times for sponsored posts by companies and said no every time. We do have a friend (a female warhammer player) who started saying yes to offers. Oh to be a gorgeous goth woman like those three. Meanwhile I'd happily lie about anything for 50p but as an ugly bloke my options for 'collabs' (shudder) are somewhat more limited. I'm joking, as business owners they work really hard and are at the top of their games, they deserve all the success they are getting. God knows we're not retiring on my salary.

I really wouldn't worry too much about the topology. Apparently early switch mode ones could introduce some noise, maybe some super cheap ones still do, but I also think I read that's been tackled in the pedals themselves with them being designed to filter out the squeal. Obviously if you raid the depths of Aliexpress or Amazon then you will be able to find some absolute garbage but there's no major reputable brand that will sell you a bad power supply these days. Unfortunately, there's plenty that are unsuitable for other reasons. Having said that I looked on stinkfoot and apparently the Zoom only draws something like 150mA, so that's way easier to power than I expected and you should have a few more options open to you. Like for instance... ... they look great.

You can see how much space you need on Pedal Playground so have a play on there, add the pedals you need and see what takes your fancy for a layout. When it comes to power, you really do get what you pay for and unfortunately they are expensive things. The critical thing for you are the Zoom (and possibly the Ditto) pedals. With digital pedals you really want them on an isolated output and so it would be best to have at least one output that's isolated from the rest for the Zoom. I don't have any experience with the ditto units, someone else may be able to advise you if they also need to be isolated, both from the rest of the pedals and also from the Zoom. The rest should be able to share. Do be careful with power supplies. The voltage and polarity of the power supply's output and the pedal's input needs to match EXACTLY. The amperage of the supply needs to meet or ideally exceed the draw of the pedals. There are websites that can tell you what your pedals need in terms of power if you don't already have them. Just google something like 'tc ditto power draw'. The Lekato that you link to looks as though it doesn't provide enough power for at least the Zoom (which I bet needs more than 200mA). It is possible to buy adaptor cables to do pretty much whatever you want though, so you could 'add up' several of the 200mA outputs on that board to get the required power for the Zoom, but now we're getting into the weeds and you already have too much to think about. And the design seems odd, why would you want the cables hanging over the edge like that? Personally I have used and liked the Pedaltrain and the Templeboard boards, as well as Thomann own brand, Cioks and Strymon power supplies. If I was you and on a budget then I would either make my own board from whatever I had laying around or buy one of the pedaltrain style copied from Amazon. Then I'd hope the Thomann branded power supplies did what I needed.

I just get rid of the cases. If I know I'm keeping a bass "forever" then I sell the case and it lives in the thinnest of Thomann gig bags as essentially a dust cover. That way you can really cram them in. When something leaves the house it goes in one of my two Mono bags.

I've since learned about PA stuff to actually think he's a bit 'out there' on some points* but in the early days I learned loads from Dave Rat's youtube channel and RHCP tour blog. One of the things that stuck with me was "channel eq for the actual channel and mains eq for the room, you shouldn't really need to move the channel eq much from room to room". * I mean, I don't feel qualified to say he's wrong. He's mixed the biggest bands and the biggest venues all over the world and I ... haven't. But the dude is a little loopy.

Nope, if it's a proper auction between private sellers ebay adds extras. Here's my selling information from something I sold last.

Yeah I was in a band where the guitarist trailed a power brick right the way across the stage for his multi fx. Just looked flimsy. When done right though (iec to board, board low voltage wired in neatly) I prefer it to batteries.

I like the look of your pedal. You're on the right track for me but people have so varying different needs that I would focus on making a good product rather than something for everybody. As for DI boxes generally, that depends on their designed application. The ones made for bass often run on 9v pedal power. Tech 21, MXR, most of the amp manufacturer's pedal preamps, etc. The generic, instrument agnostic, studio/live use ones don't though, and many bass players use and prefer those. Countryman, Radial and the like don't have a dc input and use either phantom or battery power. A little annoying as they run on a 9v battery. Maybe all I need is a brave pill and a dremel.... Edit: yes, phantom power is DC. Shhhhhhhh.

I've got no problems with an active DI at all, I've got problems with 9v batteries going dead and the lack of phantom power at my (admittedly bottom feeder) level. My preferred solution would be a DI that ran from boss style power like other pedals. I actually built one using a prefab board, and I own the Harley Benton too, as well as the usual pedal preamps that also include an XLR output like the Sansamp.

Anyone going to The Wildhearts in Newcastle in December?

I dunno, that crowd looks bigger than any one I've ever drawn.

It's the boring answer but it's the good answer. If you can sell the tuner then a Stomp is the same £250 or so as the bddi would cost you. If you can bring yourself to sell the Radial as well then you probably will only need to add the £150 budget. Does everything, fits in on a high end gig... Otherwise I agree with the LMB3 and I would also suggest the TC MojoMojo. Both great pedals and together (used) well below your budget.

How very on brand.

The derail continues. You seem to have a real point to prove here but I don't know what it is. Ok, one has a really loud saxophonist on a particular stage, fine. Now, will that stage be overall louder or quieter if a hypothetical two guitarists and one bass player are playing through backline or playing through digital modellers straight to the board? If the guitarist can't hear themselves they are free to ask the saxophonist to play softer whether they have backline or not. BUT, if the saxophone won't play ball then the guitarist might want to turn themselves up to match. When using backline this affects everyone, when using IEMs this only affects the guitarist. You are now going to say "yes but then everyone will need to turn up their IEMs and risk hearing damage" and again you are correct but you are correct whether there's IEMs or not. The problem in this case is the loud saxophone, not that somebody else in the band is using IEMs. Again, nothing about live sound is perfect. I reiterate that you can have good and bad mixes using every single approach that I can think of and probably a few that I can't even conceive of. I posted in this thread in response to a post suggesting that ampless was only for big gigs, I dispute that. None of the rest of this is really relevant. As you correctly point out live music can be really loud, dangerously loud. You don't have to go to a metal show to get hearing loss. I am in favor of more options for more people to not get hearing damage. Ditching the backline is one possible way to achieve that, there are plenty of others.

Nearly everything true there is true of bands using backline and those without. The only difference is that you either need to find one (hopefully competent) person to control the mix or 4+ (hopefully competent) people to control themselves in the mix. Guess which is more likely? You are right that most sound techs are subpar, what are the chances you find a band that's entirely comprised of good ones? This thread about preamps is in danger of becoming "the pros and cons of ditching backline thread #18662" but I would argue that it's possible to get a bad mix and a good mix using either approach. What can't/won't/doesn't happen in an ampless setup is volume creep and volume wars where everyone turns themselves up throughout the night. Maybe you start with a quiet drummer, maybe you start with a loud drummer. What you don't get is a drummer who keeps hitting harder and harder because that bloody guitar amp is drowning them out. On drummers and electric kits: budget guitar modellers from Nux/Hotone/Valeton and the like are exceptional. Your own Paradriver is brilliant. Great electric drum kits are hard to come by and very expensive IME.

For what it's worth my seldom-gigging hard rock band have taken a hybrid approach and it's working really well. Electric drums, modelled guitar and bass, all of the 'backline' coming from one wedge. No earplugs needed, you can still hear the room without the isolation of IEMs, still in total control of what sound is being made where. Terrible photo as it's actually a screen cap from a phone video, but you can see the pedalboards, the edrums and my qsc wedge, all being supported by our decade-old Alto pa.

The main reason that band went to all digital fakery was in order to cut volume down massively. Also: sound quality, size, space and load in, but mainly volume. That pa is 2 10s and a 15. Some bass rigs are more than that by themselves. Now, at this point you might be thinking "there's nothing to stop you bringing a backline and using that quietly" and technically you'd be right, but a cursory look through the 'band whinge' threads on here suggests that it's difficult to do in reality. Believe me when I say that the drummer was quiet and we were actively marketing ourselves as being a quiet band in this new age of booking strife. I was often on IEMs, but not when I was also the soundman if I could absolutely avoid it. However one of the benefits of a digital desk and no stage volume is that there's not as much to do when running sound. Yes, the drum mics will be in slightly different positions and yes there's eqing for the room, but you've got a LOT more time to sort that because the bulk of the soundcheck is exactly how it was left at the last gig. I did do most of my gigs with that band using a stage wedge instead of IEMs though, much preferred being able to hear the room even if in practice I didn't do much tweaking during the set. I always did a little walkabout in the audience at least once a set (taking out the IEMs when they were in use) just to check how it sounded in the room when it had filled with people. Here's the thing though. I always had to do those walkabouts anyway. In other bands I'd have take my earplugs out (urgh) and then pummel my ears to hear how it sounded out front when 'out front' was a solid 20dB louder because of the loud drummer and loud backline, all of which kept creeping up during a gig because nobody could hear themselves due to not having good monitors. Then I'd have to shout at other musicians and try to indicate what I wanted them to do to their amps. Then the singer would start to get feedback because they needed to be louder... It's much easier to make a quick tweak on a tablet instead. Not that you need to, because people can have whatever they want in the IEMs so they can always hear themselves perfectly so they tend to play the same way and have their sounds set up the same way all night. There's some myth that going all in on ampless is somehow only for 'good' or 'pro' bands when actually if anything it's the opposite. The best players I know can be trusted to always play sensibly, quietly and appropriately in less than ideal conditions. The dentists playing acdc to four people however need a little more help, and giving them deafening 'just them' mixes in their ears means that you can control them better in the room. Similarly the bands playing big concert halls and large purpose built music venues have the room (both physical and volume wise) for stage amps. The bands who are struggling to fit into the corner of The Dog 'N' Duck benefit the most from being able to play quietly and not having stacks of amps. I for one am certainly not evangelical about any particular methodology, I began the quoted post "nothing wrong with either approach". Is doing it this way perfect? No. Can doing it this way result in fewer compromises than using backline? Oh yeah.