ISO Advice on Dialing In My Sound On a Para D.I.

[Alex Orr]

I've been meaning to do this for about a year but finally set up the band's PA in my basement and really want to master my Para DI over the next week before playing a number of shows in Sept. and early Oct.

First, any general advice on using this thing would be appreciated. I've been playing through it for about a year and honestly, all I've ever done it fiddle a bit with the notch and the volume. Occassionally I play with a guitar player who has better understanding with the things and he'll tweak the box if he doesn't like my sound.

Right now my biggest issue is that there is this thumping sort of sound whenever I strike the strings that comes out a nanosecond before I hit the strings, almost akin to what it would sound like if you put your lips together and then puff out a little air. This is not something I want. Anyone deal with the same thing and know how to eliminate it?

[Tom Wright]

The lowest band on the Para is well below any notes you play and you play and most people roll off the very low bass. That should reduce the thump.

The Para DI is a good piece of kit with very low noise, and a wide gain range. I like that it will run off of phantom power (may depend on the board's actual voltage). The higher-range notch/boost is a powerful tone changing control. Well worth sweeping the frequency control back and forth to see what it does with mids cut a lot (or boosted).

[Folkmusician.com]

The basic idea is to crank (or cut) and then sweep through the frequencies. Once you narrow down the frequency that you want to work with, use the boost and cut more subtly.

In this case, sweep through and see if you can isolate the thump and cut it out.

As for working out the tone, you really need to do this within the mix of the band. What sounds good solo does not typically work best within a mix.

[MontanaMatt]

Hi Alex, welcome down the live sound tone rabbit hole!

Not the sort of advice you’re seeking, but... sell the para, and buy a tonedexter. I have both, and several other nice d.i.’s. The para always sounds thin and crispy, or honky and feedbacky. I keep it in my rig as a backup to the backup (Triton bigamp piezo) for emergencies, but won’t use it unless necessary.
I have no financial interest in the Tonedexter, but it is a revolutionary d.i./mic modeling device. Better than the Fishman Aura, I suspect it will be the norm in short order.

As for how to use the para, first find the optimum input gain for your pickup system(subjective tone based analysis). That’s the little tiny knob. There is no metering, so good luck figuring that out! Then set output gain to a level that is right for your board’s preamps(allowing for near unity gain). Then mess with the tone and notch filters to approximate a good pickup sound(again subjective). It will never be close to a microphone sound, so not very natural sounding.

The tonedexter does get a pickup to sound like a mic.
I hope this helps a little!
Good luck and happy giging!

[kurth83]

Basically a para DI is not enough EQ to really shape sound in all cases, it can fix up a few minor things, and properly getting rid of your thump isn't one of them sadly. But turning the bass knob all the way down will help some, it's set at 80 hz.

To properly cut thumps, you need a low cut at 196hz, which is the fundamental of the low G string. My zoom MS-60B allows for a low cut at 200hz, close enough for me. That's probably overkill however, if you wanted to match the acoustic thump, a little more sophisticated dialing in would be needed, and the tonedexter will do this automatically:

Tonedexter (I am a fan) is amazing, it does one thing, and does it fantastically well, it makes what comes out of the pickup exactly match what a mic in a perfect studio picks up (you supply the studio - or quiet bedroom - and the mic). It basically learns the difference between the two sounds and eliminates the difference.

This is important because most pickups have problems. I have posted on this many times, as a part-time sound guy I almost never meet a pickup that doesn't need a little tweaking, and I readily bow to the tonedexter, it can do things I can't. Watch their demo videos and prepare to spend $400. They have a mandolin one that really shows what it can do.

You have to train the tonedexter by playing in train mode with both the mic and the pickup plugged into it, and save that training session into a preset, that's it, done.

That's probably enough for most people right there, full stop.

The tonedexter also has primitive parametric shelving EQ, but not enough frequency presets for the mando unfortunately, meaning no 200hz cut. But it should tame the thumps just by training it, be sure to thump a bit during training.

Me I like to roll my own sound and use a smidge of compression. The Zoom MS-60B is the only (cheap) pedal I have found that has all that in a small single-width pedal.
It has parametric shelving EQ, compressor, and regular parametric EQ. I can do almost as much with it as I can with a $4,000 digital mixing board, although admittedly the MS-60B is harder to dial in without the fancy real-time display of a good board, but I have plenty of time at home to take care of that.

[almeriastrings]

Regarding the Tonedexter... I only recently (in the last couple of months) got to play with one of these for the first time. It has some 'pros' and some 'cons' in my opinion.

PROS:

+ Way better than an 'untreated' transducer
+ Works well on loud stages
+ The ability to 'train' it and create your own wavemaps is a big advantage over 'fixed' systems such as the Fishman Aura.
+ My impression was that overall (if trained correctly) it subjectively sounded better than an Aura (which itself is pretty good).
+ Best results were on fingerstyle guitar. Instruments with a flatpick were much less convincing. There are reasons for this..

CONS:

+ Although there is a 'boost' option this is nowhere near useful as being able to 'work' a microphone, so while this is not an issue when comparing to other transducers, it is a disadvantage when comparing to a stand-mounted mic.
+ Despite claims that it perfectly replicates the results from a "studio microphone", I have to say that I did not find it remotely convincing in that respect. Not even close - however (as noted above) certainly a huge improvement over a typical untreated soundboard or under-saddle transducer. I don't think you will see studios selling their microphone collections off....
+ The 'softer' an instrument is played in general, the better the Tonedexter performed. On instruments played with a heavy attack then more of the 'fizz', 'compression' and rough edges of the originating transducer made themselves felt. It was very good indeed on classical guitar, almost as good on lightly played steel string finger-style. On heavy flat-picked single note picking, I would only use it if a mic was impossible for some reason. It was certainly better than an untreated transducer, but sounded constrained and one-dimensional when compared to a good mic signal chain (Neumann KM150 + QSC Touchmix 16 + 2X QSC K10's).

My final take on it was that if you absolutely must 'plug in' then it is definitely an option. If you can avoid plugging in, then you have a lot more flexibility and the end result is hard to touch.

There is a bit of mandolin in this YouTube comparison (starting at the 5.05 mark). It still sounds 'plugged in' to my ears....the tenor banjo is not too convincing, either.