L.R. Baggs’ latest offering is a set of acoustic dedicated FX pedals. Ben Morgan-Brown checks them out.
For decades now, the acoustic guitarist tempted by effects pedals has been faced with a problem. While most of the stomp boxes on the market designed for electric guitar will work with an amplified acoustic, they aren’t voiced specifically for the instrument, so players have to sift through an awful lot of pedals before finding models that will suit the acoustic guitar’s tonal character..
One company aiming to change that is US maker L.R. Baggs, which has made a tremendous name for itself with its pickups and has recently branched out into amplification (we reviewed the Baggs Synapse personal PA here https://acousticreview.co.uk/reviews/l-r-baggs-synapse-personal-pa/). Now Baggs brought its understanding of the needs of acoustic players to a range of effects which it calls the Align Series.
Baggs offers four Align Series pedals: the Active DI, Reverb, Eqaulizer and Session. Ben Morgan-Brown recorded a loop track and played it through each pedal in turn, to demonstrate the range of effects on offer – be sure to watch!
As we’ve come to expect from L.R. Baggs’ products, these were very sturdily made and clearly aimed at serious and professional users. They are priced accordingly, but we feel that is fair enough considering the quality of construction and the obvious the care that has obviously gone into the design and voicing. It’s the last point that is the most important. Lots of makers offer well made, reliable pedals these days but not many have been designed with acoustic guitarists in mind, as these obviously have – it’s a difference you can hear.
As Ben points out, buying all four would set you back a lot of money but you would have an easy to use set of pedals giving you pretty complete control over your sound with top quality features if you did.
Check out our video and hear for yourself what a top notch pedal designed for us with an amplified acoustic sounds like!
L.R. Baggs Align Series acoustic effects pedals
Active DI £199.99
Reverb, Eqaulizer and Session £219.99 each.
AR Reviews are recorded in a top quality studio with the finest equipment. To get the best from our reviews and really hear the instruments perform make sure you listen on good quality speakers or headphones!
Specifications
Align Session(Saturation & Compression)
Analog saturation enhances warmth and harmonic content
Compression / EQ smooths out common problem frequencies
Adjustable gain for both passive and active pickups
9V battery, or 9V DC powering options
Engage footswitch for affected signal or true bypass
Volume level control
¼” output
Align Equalizer(pre-amplifier with 6-band eq and anti-feedback notch filter)
6-band EQ for meticulous tone sculpting
Variable high-pass filter for best sound and feedback control
Phase inversion for both passive and active pickups
3 position gain switch for easy level control
Garret Null notch filter tames resonant feedback
Align Reverb
Reverb control blends reverb signal with unaffected signal
Decay adjusts the length of the reverb tail
Tone sweeps a wide range of warmth, clarity, and everywhere in between
9V battery, or 9V DC powering options
Engage footswitch for affected signal or true bypass
Volume level control
¼” output
Align Active DI
XLR and ¼” outputs
Pad boosts or cuts XLR out to meet the needs of the PA
Ground lift switch effectively eliminates ground-loop noise
Thru/Out switch for added output versatility
Phase inversion for best sound and feedback control
Mute footswitch for accessible control of your signal when switching instruments or in between sets
9V battery, 9V DC, or 48V phantom powering options
