I would appreciate hearing experiences, opinions, and results from people playing Taylors with the Expression System with the L1.

I have used preset 49 (since it was 25!) but with a Fishman equipped piezo and preamp. I am particularly interested in a jumbo model, with the ToneMatch preset 97, and anyone with experience with the Taylor K4 Equalizer.

Love it, hate it, in between? Solo or with a group - I'd like to hear specifics and details.

THANKS!

Hi

I have a Taylor 810ce Limitied Edition with ES.

I am not 100% happy with it.

I was hoping to just have guitar / L1 with presets but it has alot of high mids that I can't dial out.

I am thinking of getting a presonus eq and trying.

No experience with a K4.

SRMBR,

Awhile back I shared an L1 with a friend who has the ES system. We used a mixer. Because my guitar has no onboard control I set the guitar channel preset to 49 and the remote EQ as I normally would if playing alone.

I left the mixer EQ flat and told my friend to adjust his Mixer channel to suit his taste. His response, "It already sounds better than it ever did, leave it alone."

I usually use a sizable cut of the mids -6 or -8, in extreme cases more.

I am "not" playing a Taylor or an ES system I just want to say don't be afraid to make drastic cuts if it will result in the tone you are after.

The preset is a great starting point that many will be happy with but guitars and people are different, sometimes you have to twist the knobs to find what you are looking for.

In my experience the higher you set the trim the brighter the guitar sound. Follow closely Taylor's instruction for the ES system and see if it makes a difference.

I sat in last Sat. with a friend and played one of the new GS Taylors with ES, on conventional PA. I noticed there was not much energy tranferred to the PA when I tapped on the guitar top which suggests that the ES system is somewhat removed from the actual sound created by making the top move.

Hope something here helps.

O

Hey Mike

I have been playing a Taylor W10-CE with the ES system through the L1 now for a little over a year. My signal chain is

Taylor Guitar > K4-eq > Bose L1 (taylor tonematch 91)
before it was Taylor Guitar > Fender acoustisonic 30 > sure sm57 mic > house PA


I am running a balanced signal through out the entire chain. And I have never heard a better acoustic tone, I am always recieving complements about how clear and crisp my sound is. I play in our praise & worship team at church and since I added the L1 to my equuipment the worship pastor is always wanting to feature the acoustic guitar more & more in our sevices. (keep in mind we have drums,keyboard,organ,bass guitar,tuba,2 trumpets, acoustic guitar & a clarinet) I ask him why he was wanting more acoustic guitar now than before and he told me.

1) He has noticed my ability in playing the guitar has improved alot over the last six months. (which I contribute alot to being able to hear myself in the mix now with the L1) I no longer have to depend on the mix coming out of a wedge monitor.
2) He has also noticed how warm and clear my guitar is now. He said the sound of the guitar sounds like it is surrounding him on stage.

Mike I have been playing guitar for over 28 years and I have never heard a better acoustic tone being amped than the Taylor guitar & the Bose L1 with the taylor tonematch.

I run the eq on the Bose remote flat and make all tone adjustments on the Taylor K4 eq. I love the K4, it gives you such a large range in your tone control. If you haven't seen the video on the K4 go to Taylors web-site and watch it. It will be worth your time.

I hope this helps......do you have a taylor now or are you thinking of getting one?????

Keep me posted......

Gerald

THANKS guys!

I have a lot more dialing and experimenting to do, and your suggestions and experiences are very helpful.

Steve, my initial plug-in sounded a lot like what you described, and is what my luthier said to expect and watch out for.

Gerald - what you describe is what I HOPE for! I appreciate the breath of encouragement!

O - your voice of experience and tone is always welcome and valued. One of my guitars has no onboard controls - I tried this CABLE I found with a volume and shut-off on the PLUG, and it works really well, for me. I'll get you the specifics if you want to know...

More later as I go on with this...

Thanks, Mike

(Oh - Gerald, yes I just got a 615-CE, and my K4 should be in soon. There's a pic of it in the topic "Bird's Eye Bose"... it plays and sounds wonderful acoustic...)

Hey Mike

Glad I could help.........but keep me posted OK.....

Gerald

O

I have ordered a Presonus eq.

Hopefully, this will help get rid of the upper mids.

I guess my initial thought was that if Bose and Taylor designed the presets then this is the way that the ES should sound...but everyone has a different ear.

I will say, on preset #90, the low end is killer but the string attack is not quite there.

Should have the eq in a few days, time will tell.

Mike, good luck.

Hi All,

I play a Taylor 615CE with the ES system through the L1 with a single B1, on Tone Match 97 with the eq settings 11 0Clock on the Treble 11 OClock on the Mids and about 2 OClock on the Bass. I have a great sound live and have had many comments on my guitar sound. I also have the ES system set on about 2 OClock on the Bass, and 11:30 on the treble on the guitar.

I am interested in getting a K4, but the wife is vetoing it for now. I hope they come down in price a little.

Hope this helps.

Hey Gordon

Went to your myspace address and watched your video. Great song and great sound. Was wondering how far was the video camera from where you were playing because it was a good sound I thought.

Also loved the Taylor you were playing, which one was it. And what year is it......

Isn't God GOOD!!!!!!!!

Gerald

Wow Gorden - we got the same guitar, cool!

Mine is "translucent black" (I wanted to see the grain), and I got the Florentine cutaway, and added the ebonoid tuner buttons. DIG the guitar! You blue is wonderful too - how long have you had it?

I couldn't use it at last Saturday's gig because I couldn't dial in an acceptable tone, without the EQ (I HOPE!). I hope to have it all going by NEXT Friday's gig on the 9th.

Thanks for your reply and hope for good tone,

Mike

I got mine in April last year, and love it. I have owned a 414CE, 814CE and a Baby Taylor. I liked them all very much, but the Jumbo really fits my style of playing. I tend to bang on them a little when I strum, and the Medium strings and the bigger body just sound great no matter how hard or soft you play. I liked all the colors of the maple body's, except for the standard brown that the stain them. I have even seen a blonde one that had no stain at all, and a rosewood binding, talk about beautiful. The blue was the color of my wife's 73 Olds Cutlass, and thats why I got that color. Less hassle from her about the price. She actually went with me on the Taylor plant tour last June. If you haven't gone it is worth it to go. Just call it your pilgrimage to mecca.

Hope that helps. :-)

The video was actually taken from about 15 feet away on my Cannon Powershot S2 IS digital camera, set on video mode. It wasn't even a camcorder. I had to set everything up myself on a tabletop tripod, with a 15 second self portrait delay, hit the shutter release button, and walk to my set up, play the song and walk back to turn off the camera. I then cropped the length of the video to get rid of the beginning and end lapses, and viola. I attribute the sound quality totally to the L1, cause this camera ain't made for good sound.

The Taylor is a 2006 615CE Jumbo Maple 6 String. It is the cumulation of 5 years of Taylor ownership starting with a 414CE, then trading for an 814CE and then to the 615CE. As I mentioned on another post, the 615 fits my style completely. It sounds great loud or soft, finger picked, solo, or hard strumming, and I love the color. It matches my wife's 73 Cutlass that she had when we got married.

Yes Gerald, God is...Great. I have been very blessed in my life, and one of the best blessings is being able to make better music with Bose and Taylor.

quote:

Yes Gerald, God is...Great. I have been very blessed in my life, and one of the best blessings is being able to make better music with Bose and Taylor

Amen to that Gordon.........keep on lifting up his name....

Hey Mike has your K4 came in yet?????? remember to kep me posted.....can't wait to hear what you think about it....

Gerald

Hey Gerald,

Yes, I've had the K4 Eq for a week or two now, and it really DOES make a positive difference - VERY good sound.

I have NOT yet mastered the sweeping parametric mid controls - this is not intuitive to me. I first just turned the mid way back, almost off, and that made the ES sound a lot better, before I read anything about it. Then I tried the "Mid Cut" example setting in the book, and that's better, and I adjusted from there a little more.

My sound is better now, but not quite yet the "really nice acoustic" sound I'm hoping for. Pretty close though...

Now, in the tutorial DVD - the section about RAISING the mid controls to IDENTIFY the frequencies you DON'T want, and then dialing them back... THIS I don't get at all - this is the part that I don't understand yet and is not intuitive to me. I feel like I need to get a Taylor customer service guru with me on the phone while I'm trying it, but I rarely have time or access to my system during the day - have to work for a living!

Anyway, it is an excellent device.

Thanks, Mike

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Mike in Texas,

I have done the video on the Taylor Website that talks about the K4. It is excellent. I don't understand it all, since I don't own a K4, Taylor K4 Video but I think what they are talking about on the mid cut is to turn the attenuation all the way up, then pan the frequencies until you get more of the sound that you don't want, then turn that sound down until you think the overall sound is where you want it to be. If you watch the video, about 15 minutes, you will get a visual of what they are saying. It would be nice to have the ability to have that scope on the K4, so you could see the frequency with a visual, but I think that they do a good job of portraying it online.

Good Luck.

Thanks Gordon - yeah, I'll get there, it'll just take me some more time...

Hey Mike
Glad you are liking the K4 I think it is an amazing peice of EQ.

I agree with Gordon, the video by taylor is very good in showing the sweeping abilities on the mid range control. It does take some time to get it when you are not used to this type of eq. control. I know because I wasn't at all.. but you will love it more and more as you understand it more.

I had to get the Taylor video out just this weekend to refresh myself on the X10 button.

"your K4 did come with the video didn't it? if not call Taylor customer service and request one to be sent to you".

That way you can watch it anytime you need to. It is most useful believe me.

Keep making great music keep me posted on how it is going

God Is Good
Gerald

If it weren't for Taylor, there would be no Breedlove.

That said, Taylor should branch out and make a system like Breedlove's synergy break-out, which has a 13-pin out to drive a roland synth.

Hi Michael,

I'm not sure what you mean about Taylor ===> Breedlove, but it does spark a couple of things.

First, my partner Charlie in our Rivers West band plays a couple of Breedloves, and they do sound and look great... I was aware that Godin has a synth-ready model, but I didn't know about Breedlove.

Also, I had our very expert luthier Jim Russell add the Roland permanent install kit to my Taylor (I also have it on a Gretsch Westerner jumbo acoustic). I may be crazy to "deface" a fine instrument, but it was done so well it looks like a factory job, and I decided this 2006 Taylor, while a very fine instrument, is a working guitar not a museum piece, and my work with it includes synth, so I did it, and I'm very glad I did.

Sure would have been nice TO have it from the factory that way, I freely admit and agree with you!

Thanks for your comment, MIKE