ADI-21 Acoustic Amp Modeler/ DI

I had initially been looking into purchasing either a dedicated acoustic amp or an amp with an acoustic channel. I then stumbled across the Behringer range of foot pedals, and which included the V-Tone. Because of the ridiculously cheap price combined with a plastic construction, I was somewhat sceptical that it could be a worthwhile purchase. After all, this £20 device (purchase price/date £21.48/02:03:2021) is in direct competition with those costing three figure sums, and made of metal to boot, not withstanding the even more costly, dedicated amps. However, the relatively small financial outlay (and standard "returnability") made its purchase a virtual "no brainer". Experience gained from the very recent purchase of other Behringer pedals meant that I already knew the plastic construction would not be detrimental, as it is of a robust, high density, heavyweight variety. The performance didn't disappoint either. The documentation comes with some helpful settings preferences for a number of user scenarios such as "Folk", "Country" and "Finger Picking", and which can be used as time saving starting points that can then be fine tuned/customised. I found the audio results to be nothing short of stunning, but you will need the right type of amp and a piezo equipped guitar to get the best "acoustic" results. Your amp needs to be either clean or have a clean channel as this (or any other similar) pedal will, in true "silk purse" fashion, struggle, strain and ultimately fail to wrangle an acceptably authentic acoustic sound out of any "unclean" amplification. Nevertheless, there are many impressive non-acoustic sounds that can be produced by enjoyable experimentation, and you can easily get your acoustic guitar to really rock! This pedal is now happily daisychained with three other pedals (all Behringer as it happens), and are all, thankfully, audibly totally unaffected by its inclusion. One word of note. I have not tried any other alternative pedals, but if one produces results any better than the V-Tone, not only would I be truly amazed, but paying two, three, four, five times the price might just be worth its metal! Addendum: Since writing the above review (which was within hours of receiving the V-Tone) I have discovered a couple of noteworthy points, the first of which might already be common knowledge to more experienced users. 1. If powering by battery, when not in use, never leave a jack plug in the "In" socket because whether or not the pedal is in the "on" depressed position, your battery will be drained "flat"! There is reference to this in the accompanying documentation, but didn't notice. Consequently, having set up and put aside a new four-pedal chain, replete with fresh batteries, I later discovered, on its next outing, that all but the first pedal was "dead" (first pedal had guitar jack plug removed). 2. When removing V-Tone from the velcro covered pedalboard (so as to access the underside battery compartment), the pedal's rubber base started to become detached, and so will have to be reglued. Closer inspection indicated that it had not been particularly well secured, but is a problem that cannot affect my other three pedals as their design doesn't incorporate an additional "base" material! Should really deduct a star, but am so pleased with the sound and general functionality that it seems a bit churlish. Any additional problems, though, and there might be star carnage!

First, this is far better than it has any right to be, bearing in mind the exceptionally low price. Second, it does not perform as well as a Fishman Aura Spectrum pedal, but then, at this price that is hardly surprising. What it does do, and does well, is provide a basic DI for both active and passive piezo transducers, and adds in some useful EQ options, and a kind of 'imaging blend' effect. This certainly helps to tame 'piezo quack' and is quite usable in moderation. It does have a couple of drawbacks. The EQ is somewhat 'rough and ready' compared to the EQ on more upmarket boxes, the residual self noise is higher than you would find in a top class DI of this kind, and the 'blend' control is only natural up to a point.... use too much, and it becomes quite muddy. Those drawbacks aside, used carefully it can sound perfectly OK. The overall construction quality feels solid enough, and the jacks and XLR appear to be of decent quality. I purchased this for a friend and was able to do a straight A-B comparison with my own Aura Spectrum pedal. Considering that this is almost 10X cheaper, it really fared pretty well and honestly, nothing really to complain about at all. If you listen critically, yes, there is a difference, but on stage, the Behringer sounds totally acceptable. My final comment: incredible value and more than good enough for most stage applications.

I play mandolin and banjo in a bluegrass band and I recently bought piezo pickups for both instruments. Plugging them straight into the amp produced a sound akin to a tin can on both instruments, so I asked advise and was told that I really should get a preamp to match the output signal from the piezos and the amp requirements. I didn't want to spend a huge amount so did some investigation and the reviews for this product were pretty good and I decided to give it a go. Ordered it from Amazon. Arrived next day and I plugged it straight into my practice amp to try it out on both instruments. First of all, I was impressed with the build quality. This is a heavy box, well made and won't break easily. The controls are easy to use and give a large spectrum of adjustment, so you can really get whatever tone you want. There is also an on/off stomp button. Useful for tuning, switiching instruments, etc. OK, no banjo is going to sound great on a piezo, but this box doe go some way to giving you a decent tone. On the mandolin, it sounds spot on. The other great feature is that there is a balanced XLR output so you can go into the XLR channel on your amp, which will also help with signal integrity. If you don't have XLR, there is te usual jack output so no worries either way. I used it during our latest gig and it really made a huge difference. There are man other preamp/DI boxes out thee that cost a lot more, but frankly, I don't think they'll do that much of a better job than this one for the extra cash involved. Only time will tell re longevity, but it does look and feel like it'll outlast a lot of more expensive boxes I've used in the past. Highly recommended.

For the price you cant really complain as it does alter the dynamic of the acoustic guitar, and you can use it just to boot the signal if nothing else. I have a good quality Faith model, over £1,000 and to be honest, my guitar produces a better signal by just using its own EQ controls. I did try it on an electric and it does not work well on that, so only acoustic instruments would work.

This is an amazing DI box which I use with nylon string guitars and electric guitars going directly into the mixing desk of a PA. The Mid control is parametric which means you can select the frequency with one knob and cut or boost with another, so, I can sweep through the Mid frequencies to find the really offensive Mids then dial them out. The frequency range is much bigger than any other similar product. The Bass and Treble pots are very "musical". The Blend control gives me a huge benefit - on the nylon string guitar it can get rid of the "click" that you usually get with piezzo pick ups by listening to the sizzle from the speakers without playing and slowly turn the knob until it fade to an acceptable level, I only move this knob to about the 8 o'clock position. As many people have said, if you use any more of the Blend, the sound is thick, muddy and is too "hot". That's all related to nylon string guitar. It works brilliantly with electric guitar too. I use it to get a clean jazzy sound going directly into the desk. I use the EQ in the same way as above but this time use more of the Blend - sometimes going all the way up and then back off the volume so it's not too "hot". Can't really explain why it works in different ways for nylon and electric. With the stomp switch you can use it as a straight DI box without the EQ and Blend (mic modelling), it has a ground lift and you can attenuate the signal as with other DIs. Brilliant! I've used other DI which have been very expensive and this is so much better I have bought 3. One for me, a spare and one for my band mate.

I use this for solo acoustic gigs and it allows me to connect the output from my acoustic guitar directly into the mixer desk and still have a natural sound. You can just plug the guitar into the mixer without a DI box, but you usually end up with a rather tinny and unpleasant sound. Fiddling with the EQ on the desk helps, but it assumes the person doing the sound knows what your guitar is supposed to sound like. The other, and overlooked reason for using a DI box is that it allows you to use long cable runs without introducing noise. Use a short, regular guitar lead from the guitar to the DI box, and then you can use a balanced XLR (microphone) cable to the mixer desk. That cable can be as long as you like. If the mixer desk is really far away on the end of a multicore cable, it's pretty much essential to use a balanced connection. There's an un-balanced 1/4" jack output as well as the balanced XLR. You could run that to a small on-stage monitor amp in addition to the balanced output to the desk (or your laptop), although I haven't actually tried that. I'm not sure if both outputs can be used at once. The mixer desk in question can be a live-sound mixer, or an interface into a home-studio. Usually I'd record the raw output from the guitar and use plugins to shape the sound, but sometimes you just want to plug the guitar in and record, without messing around. I've got this on a small pedalboard with a compressor and reverb pedal. I put this last in the chain, and send the balanced XLR straight out to the desk. No effects needed on the desk, set the EQ flat and leave it alone. I can then twiddle the sound at my end to my satisfaction. I have found that you need to be a bit careful with the 'Blend' control. It adds a lot of warmth to the sound, but can also introduce some distortion if you overdo it. The EQ is pretty easy to use. It has the usual Bass, Middle, Treble controls, and also a 'Mid Frequency' control, which allows you to adjust the frequency that the mid control influences. This is handy for controlling boominess and body feedback on acoustic guitars. This device doesn't really 'shape your tone'. Ideally, it wouldn't have a tone at all. It's a DI box for hooking your guitar to a mixer desk. It does have some tone shaping, but it's not intended to radically change the sound of the guitar - indeed, it's intended to keep it as natural as possible, and dial out the zingy piezo sound. It's also intended to do it in the simplest way possible, which is invaluable if you are setting up for a solo acoustic gig in a busy pub full of half-drunk punters. I mention this because seen complaints saying things like it's, "Not that effective with a dedicated acoustic quality amp". Well, no. It won't be, because your dedicated acoustic amp is doing all the work. That's why you buy a dedicated acoustic amp. Plugging your guitar into a dedicated acoustic amp and then DIing into the desk through a £20 plastic box is like buying a 50" 4K widescreen TV and watching it on your phone's camera. Why not use the Line Out that's actually built into the amp? Another odd thing I accidentally discovered is that ES2-equipped Taylor guitars already have a balanced output, but on a 'stereo' 1/4" TRS jack. If you have the right cable, you can plug them straight into the desk without a DI box, which you should always do, because if you plug them into this DI box the signal level is strangely low, it distorts and sounds pants. This is NOT an issue with the Behringer DI box (or the guitar) - everything is working how it should, but the guitar and DI box are not really compatible. It took me AGES to find out why my PRS Tonare sounds great into this box, but my mate's Taylor doesn't. For the price this box costs, anyone using acoustic guitar live should have one of these in their gig bag. Even if you have a dedicated amp, because it might fail mid-gig, and with this you at least have the option of going into the desk.

Given the low price you might not expect to much from this pedal. However you might be surprised. Overall sound quality is pretty good, and there is quite a range of adjustment both in the tube amp effect and in the EQ. I've used this with an Acoustic Violin (with pickup) An electric violin and with a mandolin, and in each case was able to produce an overall sound which I liked. There's a little bit of noise from the unit but its quite low and certainly better than with some more expensive pedals I've tried. Having a balanced XLR output is great and saves using a separate DI. In fact if you don't wont to use the modeling or tone controls, the unit seems fine just used as an active DI and would still be excellent value. Build quality also seems fine. Although its plastic its pretty robust, and i'd be happy to use this on stage. I'm sure there are better units around but your probably going to have to spend 10 times the price. I was so pleased with mine I ended up buying a second one. If this had been £50-70 Id have recommended it highly, but at under 20 its a steal!

Worked 3 times and was pleased with the results. Now won't switch on. Tried new battery, still won't work.. returning for a refund