Hi there, all. I've posted my happy successes with setting up my 3 acoustic guitars in the guitar forum, and now, need advice for a far trickier instrument: a hammered dulcimer with internal pickup. And a fiddle with a Crown GLM 200 mini-condensor mic.

I'll give the context, then have 2 questions:

The dulcimer needs a bit of EQ to reduce the 'thunk' of the hammers picked up along with the more pleasing sounds. The fiddle needs a touch of fattening and smoothing.

Channels 1 and 2 on her unit will be taken up with vocal mics (she and other bandmate).

With our current system, the dulcimer goes into an LR Baggs Para-DI into our Mackie CFX -16, which offer enough EQ between em to make it sound right. The Baggs alone, into Channel 3, doesn't quite cut it.

Here's my current attempt, which fits into a 2-space, shallow rack box:

-each instrument gets an ART MP pro preamp, a wondrous small unit for $49 bucks!

-a dual 15-band EQ for knocking out the thunks, sweetening each instrument

QUESTIONS:

- Anybody dealt with this successfully in some other elegant way?

- Any recommendations for a stellar EQ unit? Just tried the ART model, and was sadly unimpressed and greatly annoyed. It hissed, the bypass button popped, and the Dodgers game came in loud and clear! (Yes, we changed cables, ground lift, plugged, replugged...)