LR Baggs Para DI Box

[evenkeel]

Maybe this should be in the Pedals/Effects section?

At any rate has anyone used one of these Baggs units? I've played at an open mic the last few weeks and the host runs the guitars thru this stomp box. His guitar, a Martin dread, spruce and ash sounds fantastic. The pick up is a sound hole mounted single coil. My Martin D2R w/ a K&K sounds horrible. Particularly if you "push" the guitar. Finger picked it's ok (but not great), give it a Neil Young'esque wack and it distorts dramatically. Last night I switched to my K&K preamp and voila it all was great. Good bold dread rumble, woody, a bit of air. Lots of volume and presence.

Maybe a gain adjustment? I know the Baggs has a good rep, but it sure did not work for me.

[wingsdad]

keel,
I've got one, and you guessed it. You've got pickups with (probably) different output strengths. It sounds like you're overdirving the K&K, so you need to back off the gain. You need to fiddle with the gain control setting a hair at a time. The manual is marginally helpful because it refers settings with various Baggs transducers, and you have to 'extrapolate' (think what yours is equivalent to.)

The manual also makes a point that length of your cable affects what to set the gain at, as the longer the cable, the more it attenuates (cuts) the signal strength.

If you don't have the manual, get it here:

http://www.lrbaggs.com/Manuals/para_di_manual.pdf

PS: This is an awesome swiss army knife DI box. Best E/A DI box I've ever had, and that's covering some ground. Not just for electric/acsoustics; I plug electric bass (Fender, Hofner) thru it.

Because it's so good, though, it means it's really sensitive and responsive, and you've got to set it differently for different things.

[evenkeel]

Thanks wings. I was hopeing you'd jump in as I thought you had some experience with the Baggs DI box. I looked thru the manual and it sure seems the gain control is the culprit. I'm going to play there again next week so I'll check it out then.

[wingsdad]

If you're running thru a house PA on those Open Mic or other gigs, I suggest you use the Baggs' balanced XLR out (mic cable) instead of the unbalanced 1/4" (guitar cable). The balanced signal will be much better, as I'm guessing your Baggs will be at least 20-30' from the board.

If you use an (acoustic) amp for your guitar, instead of the PA, and it's 2 channel, and it has 1 'standard' instro channel and a 'mic' channel with XLR-in, experiment with using both of the Baggs' outputs. Set the amp's channels' eq's & volumes differently, fx (if any) on one channel, to get a blended sound...get the picture? If you use the PA for the House sound and an amp for stage monitoring, go XLR-out to the board, 1/4" out to your amp.

The dual output capability of the Baggs is a powerful tool; you turn an otherwise mono guitar signal into a virtual stereo signal. The 2 are identical going out of the Baggs, but what you do with them after they ge where they're going is where the fun starts.

[evenkeel]

Thanks again. I should have mentioned I played thru a Baggs DI box before and all was fine. Commented on it in another thread. The first time was in a very small room with a tiny stage. All was ok. When I had the trouble it was in a much larger room. Don't know if the settings had changed, but I would assume so. Curious to go back and see how things go.

I'm going to print out your thoughts/suggestions as I'll likely never remember it all.