Audio Sprockets ToneDexter 2 II

Audio Sprockets ToneDexter 2 II - Quick Test

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Check out the full specs and purchase at Sweetwater (affiliate) - sweetwater.sjv...
1:52 - LR Baggs Anthem (100% Element piezo)
2:07 - LR Baggs Anthem (100% Tru-Mic blend)
2:20 - Neumann KM 184 Microphone
2:36 - Audio Sprockets ToneDexter II
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@aaronshortmusic 7 ай бұрын

Check out the full specs and purchase at Sweetwater (affiliate) - sweetwater.sjv.io/QyEvnx Please let me know your thoughts on this pedal in the comments below and also if you would like me to make a full review on the channel and try other pickup systems with it. I do not currently own the pedal but would be interested in making more content about it if there is enough interest. Thanks for watching!

@akispero7 7 ай бұрын

I was quite dissapointed with the wavemap sound. It lacks realistic high end. Listening on studio Sennheiser headphones. I had the first gen TD and sometimes I had to make a couple wavemaps to get a usable one. Best wavemap sound I made was with a feedback buster in and the mic a just an inch from the strings. Thanks Aaron for the demo!

@sasapavsic5686 7 ай бұрын

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

@akispero7 7 ай бұрын

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

@AlexSchroederMusic 7 ай бұрын

I have the Tonedexter II and it is an awesome pedal. I prefer to keep complicated pickups like the Anthem out of my guitar. The Tonedexter allows me to get a great plugged in tone with a passive pickup rather than having two pickups, a huge control module and battery in my guitars. I use the Schatten HFN and the K&K passive pickups with great results and minimal invasion inside my guitar. I've had the best luck recording IRs in the low position pointing upward towards the soundhole. Then to dial in the sound I first adjust the pickup EQ under that submenu and then the separate EQ for the IR. Messing around with the Spaciousness setting also makes a huge difference in the tone. The last thing is to always adjust the "wet/dry" setting for the blend of IR to pickup. It varies greatly from guitar to guitar what sounds best. But I find none of my guitars sounded great at 100% wet IR. It's sort of too much of a good thing to my ears. I usually have the wet/dry set with at least 20% pickup and sometimes as high as a 50/50 blend. The Tonedexter has so many adjustments to enhance the tone I have been extremely happy with the results.

@suspensioncero 3 ай бұрын

WoW🤯🤯 probably the best pedal option I've ever heard Good video. Thanks😊

@guitarlj 7 ай бұрын

Hi Aaron - long tine user ToneDexter original (5 years). It has more bells/whistles than the original, and is more than capable to help 'translate' our wonderful guitar tone to the PA systems/ amplifiers. Thanks for doing this. I'd love to hear other pickups and mic combos.

@guitarlj 7 ай бұрын

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

@patsysmith8030 7 ай бұрын

Really like the way you do your videos. Keep up the good work.

@dividedbytimestudios 7 ай бұрын

Could you demo a few small condenser mics? I’ve been eyeing se8, but I’d like to get some more input,

@aaronshortmusic 7 ай бұрын

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

@88omarz 7 ай бұрын

Man, it makes me happy I have the KM 184, I was hoping the tone dexter would be closer...Overall it is not too far, maybe changing position or trying a new wave map might increase the ability to capture better sound. You would hope you wouldn't have to play too much with It to get a solid sound.

@aaronshortmusic 7 ай бұрын

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

@88omarz 7 ай бұрын

@@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 ?

@aaronshortmusic 7 ай бұрын

@@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.

@88omarz 7 ай бұрын

@@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.

@aaronshortmusic 7 ай бұрын

@@88omarz Maybe!

@shawnlyons895 7 ай бұрын

Hi Arron love your video which would you pick if you could only have One. The tone Dexter or the nux optima. Thanks Shawn

@aaronshortmusic 7 ай бұрын

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

@David01.d 7 ай бұрын

It would be cool if you could review some Eastman acoustics and compare them to your Martin. I have been looking at the Eastman e1d Eastman e1OM And Eastman e10OM My favourite sounding one from KZbin videos is probably the e10om as it's not as bright. I heard that they have bad neck dive too so I had looked for an alternative and I found the Martin 000-10E Road Series Acoustic-Electric Guitar. I will eventually compare these guitars and pick one for me. Have you tried any of these?

@aaronshortmusic 7 ай бұрын

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

@caseyholford 7 ай бұрын

I know this thing is capable of good results because I’ve heard it elsewhere but I think the process must need tweaking, because the end result sounds very tubby and muffled. Maybe it’s because this guitar is very bassy and you had your 184 pointed at the soundhole? Strictly for this example I’ll say the trumic is the clear winner.

@aaronshortmusic 7 ай бұрын

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

@caseyholford 7 ай бұрын

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

@aaronshortmusic 7 ай бұрын

@@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.

@andydepissant 7 ай бұрын

It accurately scoops the mids like the mic without the same content coming through... But for me, they all do this OK. All but the Nux allow a blend to tone down how artificial this scoop tends to sound. But given how good Cuki's one sounds I'll keep just loading that onto a more feature rich pedal.

@aaronshortmusic 7 ай бұрын

TDII has a bunch of blending and EQ options too.

@madupaul 6 ай бұрын

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.

@aaronshortmusic 6 ай бұрын

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

@madupaul 6 ай бұрын

@@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.

@aaronshortmusic 6 ай бұрын

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

@gair1944 7 ай бұрын

The wave map sounded better than Piezo. But was not as good as the Neumann Mic. I don't see the value. I can get a perfectly great, usable sound with an Anthem through my Bose or Fishman Loudbox. Also,with the anthem, there is no such thing as 100% Element. You can dial the knob 100% toward the Element but some amount of the Trumic is always blended in, and vice versa.

@aaronshortmusic 7 ай бұрын

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

@gair1944 7 ай бұрын

@@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.

@aaronshortmusic 7 ай бұрын

@@gair1944 Fair enough!

@AcousticWisdom 7 ай бұрын

Been thinking about selling my baggs voice print to get the tone Dexter. I have an ultra tonic pickup in my guitar so that should pair nicely. I’m also not a fan of having the pedal needing a phone to adjust things. It always scares me on a gig and I can’t the get phone to pair with the voice print. Does the Dexter II have a compressor built in?

@aaronshortmusic 7 ай бұрын

Not at this time.

@88omarz 7 ай бұрын

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

@AcousticWisdom 7 ай бұрын

@@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.

@dcallan1 7 ай бұрын

ToneDexter 2.0 is as good as 1.0 and evidently has more features. Looks like a pro level device for serious gigging musicians.

@rombsix 7 ай бұрын

GREAT work, man! The quick cuts that you did back to back were *stellar* - from now on, do that in *all* your future guitar pickup review videos, please! The wavemap sounds stellar, to my ears. Fabulous, brother! :)

@aaronshortmusic 7 ай бұрын

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

@JulienMARY 2 ай бұрын

I'd like to see it compared to the Nux Optima Air which is IMHO the best value for money so far concerning IR. I have to redo all my IRs by the way, because my actuals one were passing through a Behringer UMC404HD, and now I have a Clarett+, it's night and day. Also I tried to find an anechoic chamber in my area to go to make the WAV to generate IR, without success atm. I think the anechoic room is a must to make perfect IRs, otherwise the mic also picks up the room response.

@aaronshortmusic 2 ай бұрын

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.

@Cuki-ox2mk 7 ай бұрын

You should have added the Anthem at 50%. No pedal needed. Super usable tone. Not extra EQ needed….

@aaronshortmusic 7 ай бұрын

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

@joemanganese 6 ай бұрын

The final sound is muddy, far worst than my simple Anthem . If I need to EQ it further than the tonedexter is ruled out. This is not a good sound to my ears..

@aaronshortmusic 6 ай бұрын

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.

@shawnlyons895 2 ай бұрын

Hi Aaron loving your videos. Another question. Now after a few months tonedexter 2 or the optima? Which do you prefer

@aaronshortmusic 2 ай бұрын

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

@rexomatic8667 7 ай бұрын

I didn’t know you had a J200, love mine. Seems like the size would be good for you! I’ve used it on so many recordings, hard not to lean toward the Neuman, but the Tonedexter did a pretty good job. I have an old LR Baggs in mine, makes me want to explore putting an anthem in it. So I guess the purpose of the Tonedexter is to capture your best acoustic tones and play them back using the same or another acoustic guitar?

@aaronshortmusic 7 ай бұрын

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

@dividedbytimestudios 7 ай бұрын

I had an LR Baggs Voiceprint when they came out, worked well with the element piezo pickup, but once I installed an Anthem SL I never could get a sound I liked,

@jeffreywilliams6873 7 ай бұрын

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.

@jeffreywilliams6873 7 ай бұрын

Sometimes it takes a few tries to get a good wavemap. I haven't figured out what to play during training for best results, but after a few tries I usually get one thats pretty perfect.

@aaronshortmusic 7 ай бұрын

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.

@jeffreywilliams6873 7 ай бұрын

@@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.

@ultracello 7 ай бұрын

Neumann and Anthem sounds best to me. I wonder why the Tone Dexter II deletes all the very important overtones / heights. It sounds too dark, too dull to me.

@Offspeed2 7 ай бұрын

How to make a nice guitar sound like garbage in 3:29

@aaronshortmusic 7 ай бұрын

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

@andrejgregoric1324 7 ай бұрын

not bad at all

@channel-gz 7 ай бұрын

supper cool quick demo Aaron. Thank you. I thought the TDII sound was a bit muffled as some others pointed out but imagine there is further tweaking which could perhaps get the tone closer to the mic'd tone. In general, it's so hard to capture an authentic acoustic tone through any pickup. I always figure that if your plugging in, you are no longer playing an acoustic for it's true tone. At the same time, it's very fun and necessary to plug in. How does that tone compare to the Maton? For gigging, what would be your preference?

@aaronshortmusic 7 ай бұрын

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.

@robrero 6 ай бұрын

Do you happen to know where the boost is in the signal chain? Pre or Post effects loop? For reference, in the LR Baggs Venue DI, the boost is nearly last in the signal chain which eliminates the possibility of utilizing the boost for leads if you use your looper in the effects loop.

@aaronshortmusic 6 ай бұрын

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

@kellyharrison1081 7 ай бұрын

Please make a full video. There were a lot of sounds! I would be curious to hear your in the room experience. The mic def sounded bassy and I am not sure how that would sound in a live situation. Curious to hear what you make of it.

@aaronshortmusic 7 ай бұрын

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

@kevinbaird2527 7 ай бұрын

EQ is also part if the equation. Question is for each person personally does it allow you to dial in a sound you like. Sounds like this version 2 has alot of other tools to tweak sound once IR is made.

@aaronshortmusic 7 ай бұрын

Yes it does.

@fabiomittino 7 ай бұрын

Interesting. I think I would cut some mid-low frequency on both Neumann and TD... maybe resulting in a tone more similar to the Anthem :)

@aaronshortmusic 7 ай бұрын

Which pickup do you currently use?

@fabiomittino 7 ай бұрын

@@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.

@aaronshortmusic 7 ай бұрын

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

@fabiomittino 7 ай бұрын

@@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! kzbin.info/www/bejne/bIakZmeFrZ6bZqc

@scottbecker3485 7 ай бұрын

Very interesting - thanks for this fine and revealing contribution to the community! That said, my thoughts on the TD2 are still more-or-less than same as on the TD1, or any other such device, for that matter: an interesting rabbit hole to go down if you like, but gear-wise it‘s overkill, and an invitation to eternal tweaking to get it to not only sound the way one wants for oneself, and then again the way so it works best live, with enough clarity and punch and without annoying resonance that might feed back when turned up. For me, it all feels a bit like s-x with a condom, if you know what I mean. ;-) Nice in its own right, but why spend so much money and have to schlepp around such a big piece of kit (in addition to one‘s usual pedalboard or modeler of choice) when you could probably get a rather satisfactory sound out of something more direct, such as an Anthem (SL) or the new Baggs HiFi Duet? All that fiddling with trying to get the „right“ capture, only to later discover its cons in any given live setting…

@aaronshortmusic 7 ай бұрын

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.

@scottbecker3485 7 ай бұрын

@@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. :-)

@edhalbach9550 7 ай бұрын

Please make more content with it! I'd like to hear 50/50 blend with the anthem through tone dexter

@aaronshortmusic 7 ай бұрын

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.

@koolkat808hawaii 7 ай бұрын

ANTHEM PIZEO SOUNDED THE BEST.

@EndaReilly 7 ай бұрын

Hi Aaron, thanks for the demo. Could the tonemap be overly bassy due to the proximity effect on the mic?. Was it a cardioid mic? I'm forever amazed by how much I have to roll off around 250 and lower when recording in the studio with cardioids. Could you try this with an omni (no proximity effect) and keep it away from the soundhole just to see what the toneprint would come out like? thx.

@aaronshortmusic 7 ай бұрын

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?

@EndaReilly 7 ай бұрын

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

@aaronshortmusic 7 ай бұрын

@@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.

@EndaReilly 7 ай бұрын

@@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.

@aaronshortmusic 7 ай бұрын

@@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!

@DavidHobbesMusic 5 ай бұрын

Thanks for doing this!

@Mar-a-Lago_Ketchup_Cleanup 7 ай бұрын

Going through a PA, I would doubt an audience could tell the difference between the mic sound and the tone dexter sound. It sounds much better than the Voice Print to my ears. Curious how it feels to play, ie feedback from playing. Does it feel natural to play?

@aaronshortmusic 7 ай бұрын

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.

@Mar-a-Lago_Ketchup_Cleanup 5 ай бұрын

@@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

@aaronshortmusic 5 ай бұрын

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

@raulands 7 ай бұрын

How precise is the tuner compared to the peterson?

@aaronshortmusic 7 ай бұрын

Very good.

@banjopicker7724 6 ай бұрын

Have a Tone Dexter 2 that I trained with a Martin 000-15M with K&K mini on a AT3035 LDC. It sounds near identical out of the PA.

@aaronshortmusic 6 ай бұрын

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

@banjopicker7724 6 ай бұрын

@@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.

@aaronshortmusic 6 ай бұрын

@@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.

@banjopicker7724 6 ай бұрын

@@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.