Product: Raven PMB-1
Price Paid: US $249
Submitted
09/20/2002
at
07:29am
by
Greg
Email: worship at lutheranchapel<dot>org
Ease of Use
:
9
Dialing in sound is pretty easy. It has two 3 band EQ's (one for each channel), separate phase switches, mute, phantom power and individual gain. The channels are designed to blend two pickup sources or two separate instruments. The output is only a single XLR--the two signals are summed together. Yup, folks: less cables to worry about!
Also includes FX loop, tuner out, and unbal 1/4" line out.
Sound Quality
:
10
Unlike traditional preamps, when the EQ is set flat your sound is uncolored--in stead of having turn knobs to find what your acoustic guitar really sounds like. This is one the strongest points of the unit. If you have an excellent pickup system it will shine through. I use very little EQ, and adjust the gain slightly hotter for the bridge pickup. I play a James Goodall Jumbo & a Huss and Dalton OM--both with B-band bridge/mic systems. I plug directly into our house system (worship setting) or into my road rig: mackie 408s powerd mixer.
I know everyone's looking for the "holy grail" of sound...yaddie, yaddie. But this blows away everything else I've tried including the Rane AP-13. My sound guy is in love.
Reliability
:
No Opinion
No issues with reliability. If you use it with the two 9V batteries for power you need to be careful to bring extra. The wall wart is another $25. (They claim it will go 50 hrs on set of batteries. I would divide that by 2, and not get caught without extras.)
Customer Support
:
No Opinion
Overall Rating
:
No Opinion
I play fingerstyle, open tuning, and agressive rhythm as a Director of Worship. Been playing 28 years. Also play an AMerican Deluxe fat strat, Fender & Marshall tube amps, and the usual assortment of stomp boxes. I would definitely replace this unit. Its like they looked at everything out there, and took the best features--there's nothing missing. I've played through several preamps and processors including Baggs, Boss Acoustic, Ibanez, Rane AP-13, Digitech. Only the Rane is close because of it's traditional EQ set up.
If you want excellent, full, uncolored, dynamic acoustic tone reproduced from your high quality acoustic guitar--I think this is the ticket. Short of high end condenser mics hanging in front of your guitar, there's nothing I know of that's better.
