Question:
I'm just getting ready to start playing in our praise band after only plunking around unplugged at home for a while. So I need a gear upgrade! (Of course, we always do, don't we? I've got a Taylor 710 with a Fishman active matrix pickup, but no onboard electronics. I started looking at the Fishman ProEQ Platinum, and a couple others, but am trying to spend less money at this point. I found the Behringer ADI21 pedal, which some reviews gave good marks relative to its price ($30), but I'm curious if anyone here has any experience with it. Thanks!
Answer:
If you're looking at stuff in the $30 price range then just get about any DI box you can find and you'd do as good as you would with anything at that price. Seems kind of pointless to put such a nice guitar through something so cheap. Sort of like feeding your $1,000 championship bloodlines dog generic Wal-Mart dog food. Yeah, it works, but it's not something worthy of where it's going.
Answer:
Originally Posted by Brent If you're looking at stuff in the $30 price range then just get about any DI box you can find and you'd do as good as you would with anything at that price. Seems kind of pointless to put such a nice guitar through something so cheap. Sort of like feeding your $1,000 championship bloodlines dog generic Wal-Mart dog food. Yeah, it works, but it's not something worthy of where it's going.
I don't know if I agree with the expensive/cheap criticism of the plan. It's really a matter of how much control do you want to have over the amplified tone of your guitar IMO because basically every DI (expensive and cheap) will eventually come down to a $10 transformer.
If you don't want to be able to change much about the amplified tone of your guitar, a $30 DI will suit you just fine. It's just the $10 transformer, sometimes with a switch to let you lift the ground if it will help prevent a ground loop problem.
If you'd like more control than that, the next step up is something like the LR Baggs Para-Acoustic DI or the SansAmp Acoustic DI (I use the latter). They provide for some tone control, and I find this especially helpful when I'm playing somewhere and for some reason, my guitar will just really want to feed back with the monitor. I can tone down that fed-back frequency right on stage, and I don't have to count on a monitor tech to do it for me.
If you want more control, plus you're an absolute tonal purist, then it may be a good idea to seek out the "genuine article," a tube mic preamp. But those can be several hundreds of dollars and most of them still come down at the end to the $10 transformer.
Nate
Answer:
Boss AD-3, AD-5, AD-8 or Zoom A2 or A2.1u would be great i think
Answer:
i think a nice guitar like that would sound great run through direct box. my friend does it with his taylor and it sounds awesome
Answer:
I have been looking at the Behringer ADI21 too. It is supposed to be modeled after the SansAmp Acoustic DI, so I have been curious.

I really am looking for basic tone controls on the DI since my new guitar doesn't have anything but a volume on it.
Answer:
Originally Posted by nate95366 I don't know if I agree with the expensive/cheap criticism of the plan. It's really a matter of how much control do you want to have over the amplified tone of your guitar IMO because basically every DI (expensive and cheap) will eventually come down to a $10 transformer. I was going on the fact that they said the guitar has no on-board electronics and also the fact that the Fishman product mentioned. Sounds to me like tone-shaping is wanted and, in the case of a $30 budget, you're not going to get much more than a basic DI box...and as you said, it all comes down to a $10 transformer, so with a $30 budget you'll be getting a lot of the same thing with different names on it.
Answer:
Well I decided to give the ADI21 a shot before perhaps moving up to something better, or at least more expensive, in the future. I've only had it two days, but here are my first impressions. So far I've only used it straight to my amp (Taylor 710 -> DOD Stereo Chorus -> ADI21 -> Peavey Bandit 112).
It seems semi-durable, but the foot switch is probably the first thing that will go if you're not careful - luckily you don't use it much on something like this.
The EQ with sweepable mids helps with eliminating some feedback, although I don't think I've figured out how to do that the most effectively. I could probably use some advice on that. Does having a notch filter, like some do, give a much better result?
The "blend" control does a good job of smoothing out the tone and taking the edge off of the sound directly from the pickup. You can use as much as you want, so if you want that sound, you can still have it. It also cuts the highs, but you can dial some back in with the EQ. I wonder how the "blend" compares with similar controls on the SansAmp or LR Baggs units? I do notice that it also cuts out some noise and hum that I had previously.
Features lacking: I've read that it eats batteries, so I'm using a DC adapter, but it doesn't accept phantom power through the XLR. There is no effects loop, if you need that. No notch filter, as noted before. Not as many inputs, outputs as some other units I saw.
Overall, I'm happy so far with it. It took a relatively short time to figure out, and with it I now have a quieter, more mellow sound than without it.
Answer:
Originally Posted by stan-guitar-man Features lacking: I've read that it eats batteries, so I'm using a DC adapter, but it doesn't accept phantom power through the XLR. There is no effects loop, if you need that. No notch filter, as noted before. Not as many inputs, outputs as some other units I saw.
These are all features that the SansAmp has. However, I need to repair the male XLR jack connection on mine in order to take advantage of the effects loop. But that just went bad and I've had the unit for 8 years now...
Nate