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November 2003
Posts: 16
Location: Stamford, CT | okay, I know this has been discussed before, and I Have already done searches, but new people come on and new equipment gets developed and tried, so here goes:
I'm looking for suggestions to improve the sound, control, clarity and depth of my ME1598-12-string.
Last night I played a pub by plugging my 12-string directly into line in on my PA, eq'd flat on the PA. On the Guitar itself, I eq'd higher on Bass and Treb, lower on mids. Vol was CRANKED. All buttons pushed in. Crap. Thin, highend. It sounded better when I bypassed the onboard eq, but it was flat and midrangy.
One friend suggested a Direct Box, one suggested an effects pedal, one suggested a Fender Acoustasonic Junior, one friend suggested I stop buying Ovations.
What do YOU think? |
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December 2002
Posts: 939
Location: Fort Worth, Texas | suzencarson,
Hey, all I can attest to is that I go through an amp, genz-benz Shenandoah 85, then into the PA. Sometimes sounds great, other times can't hear to well....
I'm playing with a 4 piece band, always bass and drums, but most of the time the other intruments are acoustic (guitar and mandolin most of the time) going through our amps to the PA....
Lot depends on the room.
I'm not sure what preamp is on your guitar. I use my Legend 1867 with OP-024c and never turn on the "Pre-shape"
It may be my inexperience, but adjusting the equalizer with the "pre-shape" off seams to arrive at the results I'm looking for. |
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February 2002
Posts: 5750
Location: Scotland | Try going through a DI box into a balanced mike input rather than the line-level input. Or try a good dedicated acoustic guitar DI such as the LR Baggs Para-Acoustic, Boss AD3 or AD5, the SansAmp acoustic DI or the Aphex acoustic DI. There's others but I've tried all of those I've mentioned & they all do a good job.
The trick to getting a good sound through a PA is to get the gain structure of your entire system working properly. Take a look at this
http://www.geocities.com/tcsound_1999/Tip30GainStructurePart1.htm |
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November 2002
Posts: 1300
Location: Madison, Wisconsin | Nice site Paul. Thanks!
I'm a little confused about the DI box. I thought we could plug Ovations directly into a PA without a DI box. I usually send my CL 1769 directly into the PA using the 1/4 inch jack on one of the mic inputs. Our PA has both XLR and 1/4" inputs for each chanel. Why would someone need the box? |
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November 2003
Posts: 16
Location: Stamford, CT | Yes, Paul, the article helped a bit. Except on my little 8 channel Carvin head, I don't have any "meters" or anything. Just input volume, bass, treble, and master volume with a master 8 band eq. And yes, can anyone explain to me the differences/pros/cons to going direct into the head, using a DI, using an 'acoustic' pedal with effects, and using an amplifier into the PA? |
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Posts: 7210
Location: The Great Pacific Northwest | Although you can go directly into the board, the DI serves a couple of purposes, such as cleaning any ground interference, maintaining the proper line voltage and impedence matching. |
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Posts: 584
Location: atlanta | Kaki has used a SansAmp acoustic di exclusively since she's been a pro.
Dave King |
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February 2002
Posts: 5750
Location: Scotland | Bill, if you go into a mixer via a jack you are using a line-level unbalanced input, not the mic-level input. In order to use the balanced mic input you need either a DI box or an Ovation with an Optima, Op50 or XLR version of the Op-Pro
In addition to Miles' response, other adavantages of using a balanced Lo-Z input include; increased headroom & sensitivity, less noise/interference and the ability to have very long cable runs without losing tone. |
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Posts: 1225
Location: Lake Hiawatha, New Jersey | In addition to using a D.I., you may also want to invest in a stomp box type equalizer (Boss makes a good one). That will give you much more tonal control to contour your sound to fit the room. The Boss E.Q. that I have was only about $80.00 and is very quiet and effective. I have also found that increasing the high and or low end levels and backing off on the volume also helps eliminate that "harsh" sound. |
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February 2002
Posts: 5750
Location: Scotland | I personally would advise against using a stompbox graphic EQ. Parametric equalisers are much more precise & can be used for feedback control as well as general tone-shaping. |
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January 2004
Posts: 648
Location: Florida | Suz,
Your ME has a balanced line XLR connection. I am under the belief that a connection of that type would go right into a mic-in on a board (rather than 1/4 inch connection and line-in).
I can remeber doing that with a Les Paul Recording (granted a totally different beast) but the results were excellent. |
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February 2002
Posts: 5750
Location: Scotland | CharlieB is correct, I don't know how I missed that. However, if your Carvin head does not supply phantom power to the XLR inputs you'll also need a dummy plug to switch on the battery. If it can supply phantom you'll need a special XLR cable with a short to the XLR case at the guitar end. These are available from Ovation, or you can modify a standard XLR lead with a short from pin 1 to the case-tag |
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December 2001
Posts: 10581
Location: NJ | I have been developing a system of singing into a 64oz slurpee cup. I will have multiple strings attached to it so that a corresponding cut can be placed at each table so the patrons can place them at their ears to hear the performance. |
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Posts: 5750
Location: Scotland | Al, careful, Bose have the patent on that. |
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December 2003
Posts: 420
Location: On the beach in Southwest Florida | PT (Were you named after the "famous" PT Barnum). Yes Bose makes the "CUPEE" and has 15 patents on it. It's small, light & sounds like ____. |
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December 2001
Posts: 57
Location: Jersey near NYC | Uh, guys...
The 1598-MERB sports an OP-24+C and therefore has no XLR output. I personally like to run the guitar through an amp so I can hear what I want to hear, and take a pre-EQ DI to FOH so the mixer can handle the EQ out front.
Kim |
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Posts: 1300
Location: Madison, Wisconsin | Nice to hear from you Kim! |
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Posts: 5750
Location: Scotland | Kim, a sure sign of "tech-overload" is when you begin to talk in acronyms and abbreviations, take it from SWK. |
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January 2004
Posts: 648
Location: Florida | I stand corrected! I never thought they'd put a different preamp in the 12 string as opposed to the 6 string.
Nix the XLR connection... |
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November 2003
Posts: 16
Location: Stamford, CT | I'm glad Kim chimed in before I searched my guitar looking for the XLR connection. I thought, "how could I have missed that?"
So, a SansAmp Acoustic DI, or a Fender Acoustasonic Junior, or my Peavey ID-1 DI, or an Acoustic Pod?????????????? |
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January 2004
Posts: 648
Location: Florida | I think you can use the Fender as a monitor, and direct out from there to the soundboard. Somebody correct me if I'm wrong on that. |
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December 2001
Posts: 7210
Location: The Great Pacific Northwest | This may be obvious, but a slight variation to what Kim mentioned. If the amp you are using as a monitor does not have a DI out, put the DI between your guitar and AMP. Most DI's (all I think) can act like a Y so you go thru your DI to your amp to listen to what YOU want to listen too, and send the DI out to the nut behind the wheel (engineer) to do what with he/she wants. |
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live sound/amp/pa
