Audio Sprockets ToneDexter 2 II - Quick Test 

Thank you. It helps to hear the comparisons back to back.

I meant the second version has more bells and whistles (I'm sure you figured that out).

A Neumann should always win. The question is what did you think of the others?

I think the KM 184 sounds boomy and the bass overpowers the guitar. I wonder if that influenced the training of the TD. It also had a ton of bass.

@@jimmccall7099 Yes. The TD is copying the mic.

I have a TD 1 with a Fischman Piezo pickup that I have found to be a great combo. @@aaronshortmusic

@@jimmccall7099 I find that it improves it but I’d rather just have a guitar pickup that sounds how I want in the first place.

Interesting...I never tried with the feedback buster mounted. Back to the drawing table :) PS regarding the high end, the core sound is good and I think it would be possible to dial the hi end with the eq

@@sasapavsic5686 agreed, the core sound is good. maybe it would be complete with another source like a highpassed mic.

If I get enough interest I’m going to ask Sweetwater to consider sponsoring a video series where I try different pickups and settings. I can’t justify buying the pedal because it doesn’t work with the stage guitars that I currently use.

The anthem SL has a crossover that can't be defeated and interferes with the tonedexter training. Maybe it's a similar issue with the Voiceprint.

Thank you. If I get enough interest I’ll look into making more videos on this.

Same guitar yes. That is my J-150 Noel Gallagher guitar. I’ve had it for a couple of years.

I think it does an impressive job and there’s no reason when an IR can’t get us an exact match of the microphone one day. I still prefer the Maton and Cole Clark pickups for simplicity and tone at this point.

That’s really hard… I’m not sure honestly. It depends on what firmware comes out for the TDII in the next few months.

Thanks for sharing. If I have one here again I will try some more WaveMaps. I actually thought it sounded pretty good and an improvement over the original version.

​@@aaronshortmusic for sure, sometimes if the training doesn't go right it'll give you a weird phasey sound. Your pickup sounds pretty alright to start with. In my case, when we play plugged in I use my Epiphone archtop with a Shadow pickup, and it sounds like trash without the tonedexter, so it's a must for me. Also, at high volumes you might not want the top end fidelity of a condenser mic. A lot of people have good luck with an sm57 for training.

I don’t own a ToneDexter 2. I really like that the NUX allows you to export the IR’s to use elsewhere.

I only have the KM 184 right now. It’s my go-to. I did compare some others in a previous video.

I am not sure. I would ask Audio Sprockets directly. I assume it’s at the end of the effects loop.

Yes it does.

I haven’t. It would really help if you could send this message to Eastman. Hopefully I can do something with them soon.

People say that the room isn’t really included in an acoustic IR since the IR’s are so short. I have never tried an anechoic room though. I still like the NUX but the TD2 does a lot more.

That’s great! What adjustments did you make to the EQ and settings on the pedal?

@@aaronshortmusic Had to go look. All eq's have a slight cut, spaciousness is at about 35%, and I am not using the notch filter. I should also add that I have a good Mixer (A&H CQ-18T) that has a great Para EQ, notch filter, compressor, and noise gate that also supports my sound. I go direct to board, I don't use an amp. That said, I had the mixer before the tonedexter and the tonedexter is what changed the game for amplified sound.

@@banjopicker7724 Thanks for sharing. I thought that while it didn’t sound exactly like the mic it did sound very impressive and better than the pickup by itself but I would rather use a guitar with everything built in. I may try it again when more firmware updates have been released if I can get my hands on one again.

@@aaronshortmusic fair enough and agree nothing will be exactly like a mic. For folks who are too active to play and maintain good mic placement on an acoustic or folks who may deal with feedback, it is worth looking at. Glad to see the interview though. I learned a few things.

Not at this time.

I've had that issue, there is a whole process to fixing that. I returned three voiceprints, they wouldn't work in a live setup and proved to be too much work after all. I ended up using a series of Baggs pedals for now. But want more flexibility for multiple guitar players In a live setup

@@88omarz wow, three returns?! That’s frustrating. I wish the tone Dexter wasn’t so pricy, but from the look and sound of it, you get what you pay for. I’d much rather have all physical knobs though and not rely on whether Bluetooth is going to work when I’m performing.

Which pickup do you currently use?

@@aaronshortmusic Currently, nothing, as I'm playing with electric. But I'll switch to the acoustic for a new tour and I still have to figure it out a new solution. I play acoustic archtop and I've tried a lot of systems. So far, the more reliable and best sounding one was a custom bridge with a K&K UST, through a IR pedal.

@@fabiomittino Go with what works for you. I like the Anthem for what I do.

@@aaronshortmusic I had a very fine guitar (Kraut flat-top) with the Anthem and I love it too. I even recorded direct all the acoustic guitar parts on a record of mine, without using external mics! ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-6UA54Ox9h0E.html

I agree but then again I wouldn’t be able to use the KM on stage. They really are for different usages.

@@aaronshortmusic totally agree. However I was referencing the test. I suspect you could possibly tweak the wave map to get close to the mic ? Have you played with that ?

@@88omarz I only had it for a day. In an ideal world the WaveMap would be identical to the mic BUT I’m sure it could be tweaked enough to sound great live. It’s a very flexible pedal.

@@aaronshortmusic that’s good to hear. Here’s to hoping we get more samples 🙏🏾 and hearing what it sounds like tweaked to a sound you would gig with, hearing what it sounds like even compared to baggs. I suspect it’s better 🤔 depending on use case.

@@88omarz Maybe!

Thanks for sharing. The mic was pointed at where the neck meets the body, not directly at the Soundhole.

@@aaronshortmusic ah ok, I didn’t think you would have done that but it was just the way it looked from the camera angle.

@@caseyholford That would be way too boomy. If anything I would point the mic further towards the headstock. Also there was no EQ applied and the new TDII does have extensive EQ and blending options.

Some say an audience doesn’t care about sound at all. I am really interested in how it sounds to me and I feel it’s impressive but still not as close to the mic as I would like it to be. It felt fine but I didn’t have a chance to play it live. There are a lot of blending and EQ options now so it’s likely that a very usable sound could be dialed in.

@@aaronshortmusic There my be some truth in that but a really quacky piezo is annoying to me when i hear it as is a pickup that removes all depth of sound, especially when strumming

@@GregsMusic61 I think a great pickup with something like the TD2 adding polish is probably a good way to go.

Hi the point of the video was not to make a ‘good’ tone. I was simply showing the process and how the mic compares to the WaveMap. There are lots of options to tweak the sound and of course the mic position will make a difference. The question is: how well do you think the WaveMap reflects the mic in the video?

I was just giving you ideas for your next video as you had asked for in your comment. Surely the goal of all this is to get a great tone on stage not to see if it can copy a bad one. To answer your question though, it didn't do a very good job from what we hear in the video. @@aaronshortmusic

@@EndaReilly I thought the tone of the actual mic was good and I think it did an impressive job of capturing it but it still isn’t exactly the same which is what I would like. Anyone that records a guitar with a mic would then EQ it in the recording software and likewise when playing on stage. This was just a quick test to see what people think of the accuracy and if there is interest in more videos in the future. I don’t own one.

@@aaronshortmusic Grand, I hear you re the eq. I'd definitely be interested in future videos on the IR topic and if tonedexter 2 is the bees knees I'd consider getting it. I currently use a touch of the tc elec. Bodyrez which for its small footprint is worth it. Thx for replies and great content.

@@EndaReilly You’re welcome. Just want to be clear what the intention of the video is. If it does well I’ll look into making some follow-up videos!

Very good.

I could have added a lot more amounts of blending and EQ. Just wanted to keep it simple.

TDII has a bunch of blending and EQ options too.

You are lucky, I didn't get anything out of Cuki's but a crap IR. Maybe I should try more but I don't know what more I can do than follow the steps. In the end it sounded like my Fishman Rare Earth with a disgusting mid boost and nothing like my M160 mic.

@@madupaul Magnetic pickups are not compatible with IR tech.

@@aaronshortmusic Oh I didn't know that! So my set up wouldn't work with a Lr Baggs Voiceprint either I guess? It's actually the Rare Earth Blend, so it has a mic.

@@madupaul It MAY do but generally piezo based pickups do better than non-linear pickups. You would have to try it.

I don’t disagree. I think it depends on your own needs and whether you want to have a simple pickup in the guitar and a pedal to dial in on the door or something that is always in your guitar. There are definitely arguments for both.

@@aaronshortmusic Wisdom speaks. :-) Yep: As always, different strokes (or strums?) for different folks. And I‘ll admit going through a (sometimes painful) process as of late that sees me rethinking my attachment to gear and my obsession with „the right sound“. For the audience, most of that is irrelevant, as long as certain baseline of quality is on tap. And it‘s always been about the musical expression and touching people with music, and even someone running crappy sound can do that as long as they have some basic ability and passion, even if not perfection, in their delivery. For gear, it‘s the same. My snobism against digital all-in-one units has recently faded away, to the point where I‘m setting aside my complex pedalboard and resorting to the Tone Master Pro and/or the Hotone Ampero II Stage, plus very few „extra“ items such as a Boss VE-500 for vocals and harmonies and maybe my favorite overdrive (Wampler Germanium Tumnus). Back to basics, and to making do with the sound provided by my current (piezo) pickups. Maybe upgrading to the Duet later on, or even to an Anthem SL if not the Duet. End of story. I wanna get back to making music without rebuilding pedalboards and trialing pedals and tweaking sounds. A few presets for the basics, and off I shall go. :-)

Actually that’s not right. The Anthem is 100% Element. It’s the tru mic that is always blended with the Element.

​@@aaronshortmusic I was of the understanding the Element UST in the Anthem PU is accountable for low frequencies. Maybe I don't know what they're doing in the preamp. Not sure. Either way, my point was it's never 100% Tru-Mic with no UST. Isn't there always some ratio of Mic and UST? I don't mean to de-rail the ToneDexter demo. We can take this offline Aaron. I still didn't think the ToneDexter was all that ground breaking.

@@gair1944 Fair enough!

I didn’t apply any EQ from the pedal. That would have changed things. I just wanted to show the straight up IR creation process.

I personally think the TDII sounds better than the Element by itself. Of course ‘better’ is subjective depending on the usage.