The older I get, the more I prioritize ease of loading in. If I’m playing a solo acoustic gig, my goal is to get all my gear from the car to the stage in one trip. When I started playing solo, I found out that Hozier, one of my favorite acoustic players, used the LR Baggs Para Acoustic DI as part of his touring rig.
Given that I was already playing the same Takamine New Yorker model as Hozier, I figured I’d jump in with both feet and try his choice of DI.
The result? This little brown box may as well be welded to my solo pedalboard.
The brief for this DI box is simple: it makes your acoustic guitar sound good through any PA.
Actually using it is a little more complex, but after surmounting the learning curve, it’s an indispensable piece of gear for my setup.
Like me, you might be wondering how a simple DI box could be such a game-changer. Read on to find out.
LR Baggs: Electrified Acoustic Sounds
If you’re an acoustic player, you’ve undoubtedly come across the LR Baggs name before. I knew them best for their woody-sounding acoustic guitar pickups.
The bane of any acoustic guitar player’s life is having to amplify their instrument. There’s a fundamental clash between how the guitar is built and how electrically amplified sounds work.
A beautiful, painstakingly constructed acoustic guitar is designed, at all levels, to sound good to the human ear without assistance. No pedals. No preamps. No pickups. Great acoustic sounds from our favorite records are captured live in the room with a microphone placed in front of the guitar’s sound hole.
When you want to plug your guitar in and play it through a PA or amplifier, all those acoustically optimized resonant chambers and blocks of solid wood become cringe-inducing, ear-piercing feedback generators.
Acoustic guitars, it’s generally assumed, sound much worse through an amplifier or a PA.
If you’re in, say, Skid Row, or Poison, and your acoustic guitar is just one flavor in a big arena-rock gig for the single power ballad of the night, that’s not a big deal.
However, if you’re an acoustic soloist like me, and your guitar is the only instrument on stage, that becomes a major issue.
LR Baggs’ stated mission is to make acoustic instruments sound just as good through a PA or amp as they do when unplugged.
The Para Acoustic DI aims to do this, and it fits into the neck compartment of your guitar case.
What Does the LR Baggs Para Acoustic DI Do?
Sound Good Everywhere!
This super capable DI box fits inside your guitar case and transforms the live sound of your acoustic gigs once you connect it to the PA system. It works with both passive and active acoustic guitar pickups. Also offers adjustable gain and a 5-band EQ.
Whatever your problem is when amplifying your acoustic guitar, the Para Acoustic DI is trying to solve it, most likely with a little knob on the box’s face.
Feedback? There’s a knob for that.
Fizzy, harsh tone? There’s a knob for that.
Flat, lifeless PA speakers? There’s a knob for that.
To be more specific, the Para Acoustic DI offers the chance to boost or cut your gain, volume, and various frequencies to make your guitar sound as good as possible. You can adjust it according to the room and PA you’re playing with.
The control layout is a little overwhelming at first, and I had to consult the manual to really understand it.
There are familiar EQ knobs for Low, Mid, and Treble, but as well as Presence and something called “Notch.”
There’s an input jack, an output jack, and an XLR output jack to supply 48V of phantom power.
There’s an ultra-sensitive gain knob, a phase-inversion button, and even an FX loop port for those who run extra effects in their live acoustic rig.
This isn’t an effects pedal. It’s a tone conditioner.
How Does It Work?
As a seasoned guitar player, I saw the familiarly-labeled EQ knobs on the LR Baggs and figured I knew exactly what to do. Low, mid, and treble, just like every amp I’ve ever played. Messing with the knobs like I normally do, however, yielded appalling results.
The low end didn’t add warmth, just boom. The treble was brittle and icy. The midrange offered a bizarre array of frequencies, from harsh, nasal bite to boxy, lifeless flab.
What gives?
The reality is that your acoustic guitar output doesn’t need as much tone shaping as an electric guitar. It’s going to sound like itself regardless of your creative EQ choices. It will only sound like a better (or worse) version of itself.
Accordingly, the EQ options for the Para Acoustic DI reflect the desirable traits of amplified acoustic guitar tone.
LR Baggs Para Acoustic DI - Controls
The “Low” knob controls the kind of low end that you feel more than you hear. It adds or removes the thump and thud you feel in your chest.
The “Treb” knob really only covers the very highest of frequencies. It adds a little zest and life to the sound.
The “Mid” knob is where things start to get interesting. I like to plug it in at neutral, and use this knob to tweak the sound.
How this works is you set the frequency knob to whatever piece of midrange you want to use to shape your sound, then either cut or boost that frequency.
The boost/cut of this midrange knob, like all the controls on this little brown box, is extremely sensitive. I find that a little boost at about 400, to one or two o’clock on the knob, adds pleasant warmth to the guitar’s tone.
Guitars or speakers prone to harsh, nasal upper midrange can be tamed with a cut between .8k and 1.6k.
Acoustic guitars prone to spiky, brittle amplified sounds (like those with piezo pickups) similarly benefit from up to a quarter turn cut around the 1k range.
Piezo pickups can also make an acoustic guitar sound overly “zingy” and bright. This is where the Presence knob comes in. More presence means more zing. Less presence means less zing. This can similarly help if your guitar is prone to mild fret rattle.
The other area where the Para DI excels is in eliminating feedback. Feedback is the eternal nemesis of the amplified acoustic guitarist. The very features that make your acoustic guitar sound heavenly when unplugged push it into unlistenable squealing feedback when plugged in.
The LR Baggs solution to this is twofold.
The first is a simple switch labeled “Invert.” This allows you to invert phase between input and output signals. Push the button down to knock your guitar out of phase, removing any low end feedback.
This little box also gives you the chance to remove the offending frequency. The “Notch” knob allows you to place a “notch” or a little gap in your frequency response by removing the feedback “note”.
If your guitar starts to feed back, try to identify which note it is. My Takamine tends to feed back a high, piercing G note. In this case, I set the knob to the letter G, and turn the “Notch” knob to the left until there’s no more feedback. Easy.
The Volume knob performs best when run as high as possible without distorting your sound. The hypersensitive Gain knob on the front face of the pedal, similarly, performs best as high as possible, without incurring feedback or distortion. In my case, this is very, very low: I barely run it a few millimeters north of zero.
I typically run my DI box from phantom power, via an XLR cable. This turns on a little green LED, a handy way to let you know you aren’t running down your battery. I do typically keep a 9 volt battery in the DI box, just in case the phantom power lets me down, but it’s a great feature for those of us without an unlimited battery budget.
How Do I Use It?
Primarily, I use the Para DI instead of an acoustic amp. I bring it with me to just about every solo acoustic show I play, which means it gets used at least once a week, if not more often.
For this reason, I tend to prize reliability and durability above all.
The Para DI’s all-metal construction is reassuringly heavy in your hand. The switches and knobs are very sensitive, and don’t protrude enough to be concerning.
LR Baggs Para Acoustic DI - Knobs
The only durability concern I have with the Para DI is that, if you’re running an XLR out from the DI on your pedalboard like me, a standard XLR cable will stick straight up off the ground.
I prefer having my cables parallel to the ground as much as possible to minimize trip hazard. However, at most gigs, it’s easy to accidentally step on or kick things at foot height, and there’s always the risk of an audience member stumbling into your setup.
I have found three solutions to this minor issue.
The first is not to move around too much. Easy to do when you’re playing a seated acoustic gig. Harder when you’re up and moving.
The second is to go wireless: just put one end of a wireless setup into the XLR out (or the ¼ inch out), and the other into your PA. This prevents you from using phantom power, however.
The most useful solution I’ve found is a right-angled XLR cable, so the cable isn’t pointing straight up. It’s not perfect, but it works for me.
Extremely User Friendly
I tend to approach my gigging gear as a “set and forget” setup. I like to make things sound good, then get on with the show.
For this use case, the LR Baggs Para DI is excellent. The raised knobs feature easy-to-grip sides so you can comfortably turn them. Some sensitive controls feature knobs or switches with too much travel, making tone sculpting much harder than it needs to be. It can be like using a shower at someone else’s house, where a minor turn of the hot or cold tap turns the water alternately scalding or freezing.
Fortunately, the Para DI’s controls are both sensitive and offer the right amount of travel to easily find your preferred sound. The white lettering over the brown chassis also makes reading the pedal, even in the low-light environment of a stage, very comfortable.
The battery drawer, too, was clearly designed for ease of use. You simply pop it out, put your standard-issue 9 volt battery in, and pop it back in. No fiddly wires or screwdrivers needed. The battery also disconnects during phantom power operation, so you won’t wear your battery down while running phantom power.
Conveniently, the red LED labeled “ON” will start to flash as your battery begins to die, to let you know it’s time for a replacement.
Although the midrange controls and taming feedback takes some getting used to, most likely demanding the consultation of the user manual, this pedal was extremely user friendly and very durable.
Other Features
The final feature of this fantastic little box is its effects loop. You can run a TRS Y-cable out of the sole jack, and plug your effects in here. I tend not to use too many effects pedals for acoustic playing. My setup is limited to a compressor, tuner, a looper, and the LR Baggs. Occasionally I’ll add chorus or reverb.
Accordingly, I don’t use the effects loop. I, however, can see this being a useful addition for those players who use effects pedals for their acoustic gigs.
In Conclusion
I bought my LR Baggs Para DI secondhand back in 2021. It’s accompanied me to every acoustic gig I’ve played since. That alone should tell you how highly I regard this little brown box.
It took some tinkering at home before my first ever gig with the LR Baggs to really get to grips with how best to use it, but I’ve been thoroughly enjoying how it makes me sound ever since.
Whether I’m using my own PA or plugging into the venue’s in-house system, my Para DI lets me make my acoustic guitar sound as good as possible with the simple turn of a few knobs.
Sound Good Everywhere!
The sheer convenience of simply connecting it to the PA system (instead of having to carry a hefty amp) and getting the best possible sound output in live situations makes this a favorite for acoustic players who gig regularly.
