# LR Baggs Para DI help needed!



## hollowbody (Jan 15, 2008)

Firstly, I'm hoping this is the right place to post this.

I just bought a used Baggs Para DI from L&M because it was on for a great price. I've been playing with it and find that it really helps the sound quality of my Godin Acousticaster, but I have a problem I need help with: I keep overdriving the preamp and causing it to distort if I strum too hard. I'm not talking about Pete Townsend windmills here, just your regular energetic strumming.

My Baggs is the older model. I opened it up and turned the gain pot ALL the way down, and while that helped, it didn't get rid of the problem entirely.

Now, I figure it's because my Acousticaster has a piezo with a preamp and EQ built-in, so the double preamp is what's causing too much gain into the Baggs and overloading _its_ preamp.

I had a though this morning that maybe if I pull the batteries out of my Godin, that might solve the problem, but I haven't been able to try it yet.

My question is what do you Para DI owners do to solve this? Just turn the guitar all the way down and crank the volume at the soundboard? I tried this but any time I turn up the guitar enough to be heard at a reasonable level, it starts to distort again. 

I have 30 days to take it back, and if I can't figure it out by then, I guess I will. Maybe I just need a decent DI box, not one with a pre-amp and EQ built in.


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## Mike MacLeod (Nov 27, 2006)

I'm surprised. There should be enough gain control on the input pad to handle almost any kind of level. The obvious suggestion is to change the battery in the PADI, but I assume you have done this.
Otherwise, I would try the PADI with another guitar to check it. I expect you may find that you have a faulty device.


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## hollowbody (Jan 15, 2008)

Mike MacLeod said:


> I'm surprised. There should be enough gain control on the input pad to handle almost any kind of level. The obvious suggestion is to change the battery in the PADI, but I assume you have done this.
> Otherwise, I would try the PADI with another guitar to check it. I expect you may find that you have a faulty device.


I haven't tried a new battery, but I _did_ try it with the battery as well as with phantom power, and it was the same both ways. I have a drop in soundhole pickup I can try, as well as some electrics, but I suspect it will be fine with those, since none of them have preamps in them.

I'll try new batteries in the PADI and new batteries in the Godin and see what happens. If I still get distortion, I guess I'll just take it back.


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## Guest (Feb 22, 2010)

Did you turn down the gain level on the Acousticaster's pickup from the Acousticaster's panel? There should be notch on the gain slider, that's 0 dB. Slide to the right (if you're holding it in playing position) attenuates, slide it to the left to boost. You might need to attenuate.


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## hollowbody (Jan 15, 2008)

iaresee said:


> Did you turn down the gain level on the Acousticaster's pickup from the Acousticaster's panel? There should be notch on the gain slider, that's 0 dB. Slide to the right (if you're holding it in playing position) attenuates, slide it to the left to boost. You might need to attenuate.


I tried that already. With the Acousticaster's gain down, it basically makes no sound or the volume is too low and has to be compensated for on the PADI or the mixer, which adds hiss. More volume on the Godin starts to distort the PADI.

I haven't done the battery swap yet, so I'll try that tonight and see if that makes a difference. I don't imagine it will with the PADI, since I'm running it on 48v, but the ones in the Acousticaster might need changing.

Do you guys know if a piezo will work without power? I'm thinking if the 9v cells in the Godin just power the preamp, taking them out entirely will make the guitar passive and I can do the pre-amping and EQ with the PADI.


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## ronmac (Sep 22, 2006)

The Baggs really shines when used as a preamp and eq for passive piezo pickups. It can be a redundant piece in the chain in some circumstances, and I believe yours to be one. 

The Acousticaster has an active preamp with eq, and inserting another gain stage is likely going to increase your noise floor. A high price to pay for the little extra versatility the PADI eq offers. I would suggest you put the Acousticaster into a good passive DI (the Radial ProDI is very good bang for buck) and be done with it.



> Do you guys know if a piezo will work without power? I'm thinking if the 9v cells in the Godin just power the preamp, taking them out entirely will make the guitar passive and I can do the pre-amping and EQ with the PADI.


Yes, that will work. I guess you need to make a judgement as to the worth of having the PADI as your DI/EQ vs. using the built in electronics.


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## Guest (Feb 23, 2010)

hollowbody said:


> I tried that already. With the Acousticaster's gain down, it basically makes no sound or the volume is too low and has to be compensated for on the PADI or the mixer, which adds hiss. More volume on the Godin starts to distort the PADI.


The trick is going to be finding the output volume on the Acousticaster that works with the PADI. Not really any way around that. There's got to be a spot between -inf dB and 0 dB that works. If the volume from your Acousticaster is jumping too much when you slide the slider up from -inf perhaps it needs a cleaning? Or replacement?



> Do you guys know if a piezo will work without power? I'm thinking if the 9v cells in the Godin just power the preamp, taking them out entirely will make the guitar passive and I can do the pre-amping and EQ with the PADI.


It's unlikely it'll work without the built-in preamp. The signal out of the piezos is very, very weak. Traveling down your cable you'll end up with a ton of noise if it's not boosted by the preamp before that long wrong. But try it...

I still think you're destined to some careful sliding of the volume slider on that guitar.


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## hollowbody (Jan 15, 2008)

Thanks Ron and Ian for your comments. I'll give it a whirl tonight with a lot of slider adjustments, and if that doesn't work, I'll try it with the piezo direct into the PADI without the Godin's onboard preamp. Failing that, I'll just take it back and get a DI box instead.


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## Mike MacLeod (Nov 27, 2006)

If you are going to get a Radial DI and you have enough signal, which apparently you do,  Then buy the Radial with the Jensen transformer. The difference is audible. Good transformers are always better than active components in the signal path, if fidelity is what you are looking for.


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## hollowbody (Jan 15, 2008)

K, I fiddled a bit today. I was in a rush because I was trying to get it done before the hockey game started, so the results are far from conclusive. I pulled the 9v from the Godin and measured it at 4.3v and dropping, so I popped a fresh 9v in there. That seemed to help quite a bit actually. I'm surprised that a dying battery would cause distortion by overloading the preamp. I don't know how that would happen, but that seemed to be the biggest problem. 

I also spent a while fiddling with knobs and sliders and I have things down to a reasonable amount. I still have to keep my Godin's volume slider at just a wee bit past where you start to hear something, but at least at that setting I can strum as heavily as I like and it's not distorting.

What I plan on doing the next couple days is to record some tracks with and without the PADI to see just what it is (or isn't) doing to my signal and determine whether I like it. I still have a good chunk of time left on my 30-day money back guarantee, so I don't want to rush it. I may end up going with the Radial instead, or something else. I've heard lots of good things about the Countryman 85, so I might try to track one of those down, but I don't know if there are any Toronto-based dealers.


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## Mike MacLeod (Nov 27, 2006)

I've used almost every good DI available over the last 30 years and owned many of them. I can honestly recommend a Jensen Transformer. The best sound I've had is from some DIs I made with these things before Radial started offering them as a built item. I own some Countryman, some Klark and some BSS DIs all of which are very good active DIs and my favorite is the Jensen that I made 20 years ago. ..... At least when there is enough level from the source. 

re. the improvement with a new battery. It may be that the Baggs doesn't like the low impedance of the Godin when it has a weak battery. The low battery may have exacerbated the problem. The Baggs is designed to see a very high impedance from the source. The pre-amp in your Godin will have a much lower output impedance than a piezo. That's it's job: To convert the high output impedance of the pick-up to a low output impedance that a conventional guitar amp or DI can deal with.


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## hollowbody (Jan 15, 2008)

Mike MacLeod said:


> re. the improvement with a new battery. It may be that the Baggs doesn't like the low impedance of the Godin when it has a weak battery. The low battery may have exacerbated the problem. The Baggs is designed to see a very high impedance from the source. The pre-amp in your Godin will have a much lower output impedance than a piezo. That's it's job: To convert the high output impedance of the pick-up to a low output impedance that a conventional guitar amp or DI can deal with.


Thanks for the info! I'll primarily an electric player, so this whole thing is pretty new to me. I actually don't even own an acoustic guitar (yikes!) That was the whole reason I bought the Acousticater in the first place: I wanted a guitar that played like an electric but sounded like an acoustic. I like the way it sounds direct into the PA, but I feel it's missing some bottom-end, and that's what I'm trying to get by finding a good DI. 

I'd heard that any really good DI with a high input impedance would add some low end to a piezo equipped guitar, but I figured when I saw the PADI used that I would try it out since it had an EQ as well.


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## ronmac (Sep 22, 2006)

In my experience, the Acousticaster doesn't have a lot of low end as part of its signature sound. Its real place in the universe is to be used on a high volume stage where you need lots of "cut" (read midrange) and a high threshold before feedback. For that it works well.

A DI won't add low end to your instrument. The better ones will get the full range of your instrument pickup signal to the PA. The lesser ones have a tendency to roll off some of the low frequency (as well as add all kinds of other nastiness). A DI with an EQ section is another matter, and should have a pretty wide range of EQ cut and boost.

I have used PADIs on stages for well over a decade (every fiddle player I know seems to keep one in their gig bag) and have found them to work well, and have a pretty wide range of gain and frequency sweep. They aren't the best, but they do a decent job and have a feature set and price that make them attractive.

You can't rule out the possibility that the box you have is defective. Perhaps a trip back to the store to compare your used unit with a new one (that has the external gain control) will unravel the mystery.


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