Playing an acoustic instrument in a loud environment is always a challenge. Tangleweed tried playing shows with a stereo pair of condenser mics, but we weren’t able to cut it in loud bars. We tried using condensers on our instruments, but we suffered through some ear-splitting blasts of feedback at the hands of incompetent sound engineers. We finally gave up and started going with pickups and preamps for most of our shows.

Long before I joined Tangleweed, I used Fishman pickups on my mandolins, and ran them through a Trace Elliott acoustic preamp. The resulting sound bore only superficial resemblance to an acoustic instrument. The low end was boomy, the high end shrill. I had to compensate by running everything through a compressor to cut the sustain, and use a volume pedal to manage dynamics. A few months ago, I got fed up with the crappy Trace Elliott pre and bought a new pre. My pal Ed Burch has used a Para Acoustic DI for years with good results, so I went with the same. The results have generally been good, but the Para Acoustic isn’t without its quirks. I share the knowledge I have acquired with you, gentle reader, so that you may be spared some of my pain.

The Baggs sounds good right out of the box. Unlike most acoustic preamps, it actually seems to have a dynamic range, so that loud notes are loud, and quiet notes not loud. It helps an amplified acoustic instrument to actually resemble an acoustic instrument. The EQ actually works, too, should one want to make additional corrections to make it sound even more like an acoustic instrument.

The day I got it, I took it straight to a gig in a noisy bar with a crappy PA and an incompetent soundman. It sounded great. I was able to discard my compressor and volume pedal and go straight into the PA. No problems. The phantom power light came on as soon as I plugged it in, and it worked like a charm on those 48v for the whole show. This left the soundman free to explore fucking up the mix in new, novel ways. But my mando sounded great throughout. I figured it would be smooth sailing from then on.

The next time out, though, I had another crappy soundman, and I ran into some real problems. My volume kept cutting out on me. I was occasionally getting some loud pops. And pretty soon I was gone from the mix altogether. This usually happened during one of the soundman’s many long breaks. The soundman insisted that I had a bad 1/4” cable, so I swapped that. No dice. Then he figured that the battery in my tuner must be dead. I took it out of my signal chain, but the result was the same: nothing. As I was standign onstage, waiting for the vein in my forehead to explode, I noticed that the phantom power light wasn’t on. Curious. I jiggled the xlr cable for a sec, and the light came on, the preamp made a loud pop, and my volume returned.

Here’s what you should know about your pre. It wants to run on phantom power. That phantom power is delivered through an XLR cable. If you are using your pre in a live performance situation, the chances are that your XLR cable will have been plugged and unplugged hundreds of times. The little sheaths inside the female end of the cable may be loose, and you may not get good contact. If you’re not getting the phantom power light to go on and you’re not getting good volume or tone, ask for a new XLR. This will most likely solve the problem. You’ll see the phantom power light glowing a nice shade of green, and your volume and tone will be rock solid.

I’ve seen this same problem resurface on occasion since then. Sometimes, if someone bumps or kicks the pre onstage, I’ll immediately lose nearly all my volume. The soundman, upon returning from a lengthy break, will eventually realize that something is amiss, and turn the mando up. Then the XLR will settle back in, and my volume will immediately increase to an unbearably punishing level. And anytime you lose power, you’re going to hear a loud pop that sounds like it’ll rip the cones off the speakers. Sometimes there’ll be some footstomping onstage, and the unit will make an excruciating pop with each step. It’s the sound of an old XLR cable losing and reestablishing a connection. Keep the unit away from feet, somepace stable where it won’t bounce, and you’ll be in good shape.

At another club with a subpar PA, I couldn’t get the phantom power light to go on. And the unit sounded awful — distorted and shrill. I tried everything: I switched XLR cables. No dice. I switched channels on the PA. Nothing. I figured I could run the unit on battery power, but it sounded awful. Then I noticed something really odd: when I took the battery out to test the voltage, the power light stayed on. It was still trying to run on phantom power, but the PA couldn’t produce the necessary 48 volts. It didn’t automatically fail over to battery power. The resulting sound was distinctly hideous.

There was no way to manually switch to battery power. It was running on phantom power even though the board couldn’t generate 48v. I was about to give up when our guitarist, Scott, suggested that I take out the XLR cable. No XLR cable, no phantom power. I took it out and plugged a 1/4” cable into the output. Instant relief. It switched to battery power, and the volume and tone returned immediately. It ran beautifully the rest of the evening without incident.

The Baggs is a great little pre. I’ve had engineers thank me when I take it out of my case for a gig. It sounds more natural than any other pre I’ve heard. But it is a quirkly little beast. Feed it with 48 steady volts and it’ll sound wonderful. Otherwise, starve it of phantom power and make it get by on a diet of 9 volt batteries. Anything less than 48 or 9 volts, though, you’re going to be in for a looooooong night.