US effects firm Pigtronix has teamed up with Grateful Dead legend Bob Weir and longtime 'Dead gear guru Mike McGinn on a new acoustic preamp, the Real Deal. The pedal aims to provide a volume boost for acoustic players in live bands without jeopardising tonal clarity.
According to the firm, the pedal was born out of McGinn and Weir's own experiments, using filters to split and amplify acoustic signal in low and high frequency bands, before then recombining them at a master stage and sending the signal to a mono output.
In order to cope with the demands of changing venue and room sound, there's a crossover control that can shift the filter cutoff points between 300 Hz to 3 kHz, while Pigtronix's power know-how has helped to produce an "ultra low-noise" box.
Alongside your regular I/O, there's an extra balanced TRS input for connecting a mic, and separate microphone and piezo volume controls, with 60dB of gain available on the mic channel. Phantom power and phase inversion switches are also present on the top panel.
If the pedal lives up to Pigtronix's billing (and, judging by the above video, it is pretty effective) it could be a must-have for acoustic players trying to compete in more boisterous band environments.
Bob Weir's Real Deal is available now for $279 - check out Pigtronix for more info.
