Acoustic guitar 'rig' for country player

[Jack]

2 hours ago, JPJ said:

The purpose of the DI box is to get a good line level signal to the desk. Check that there is no pad engaged on the DI box (unless the acoustic output is hot enough to need a pad), then check that you are getting the correct gain level at the input of the desk. If these two things are correct, then use the eq on the desk to shape the tone of the acoustic guitar. In my experience, even quality acoustics can sound harsh at the top end and bassey at the bottom when DI’d into a desk, needing an eq cut in both regions to sound nice and warm. 

Yeah I will once again be taking on the role of soundman in this group and when we do it will be with my nice digital mixer that has a lot of control, through nice speakers, in nice rooms. Unfortunately the rehearsal rooms we use tend to have crummy analogue mixers with '3 band at best' eq per channel and nothing else. It's not that I don't know how to use a DI, it's that I don't know if the lackluster sound we've had over the past few weeks has been because the DI solution inherently isn't working for us, or if it's actually a perfectly fine solution being hampered by the crummy pa in a crummy room.

[BigRedX]

Which means that at some point the band will need to do a full technical rehearsal with all the equipment including the PA that they intend to use at gigs so you can definitely see if there are any problems.

[Jack]

Oh that's a given but ideally for snagging rather than expecting to have problems. It would be nice to have a plan going into that.

[SimonK]

On 29/12/2025 at 13:11, Jack said:

Thanks all. We've had a few runs through now with a very basic DI box into the desk (I've been loaning a Thomann one) and we all agree that it's a little lacking, but for the moment we don't know if that's because the guitar/di combo needs some extra tone sweetening or if it actually sounds fine and is being held back by crappy rehearsal room PA systems. We have plenty of options and ideas thanks to you guys though. 

 

In my experience it is almost always the room/PA. The only time I can hear the difference between a very expensive and cheap DI is through headphones or in a studio. As soon as you project into an imperfect room through an imperfect PA there are other factors that make a much bigger difference (although I agree there is also quality of construction differences and the more expensive ones are built like tanks).

 

BTW did you put something over the soundhole? This does a slightly different thing to the sound and also helps stop feedback.

Edited 1 hour ago by SimonK