“Pretending” with a SingTrix “PA” System

[PrairieDog]

Asking for help/indulging a recovering beginner with a little hive knowledge?  

A couple of our new guitars (the J45 studio, and the Taylor 714)  have pickups so we are now curious about getting a little practice amp.  I’d been looking at the Bose SP1+ and the Fishman 60 (and getting rightly confused) when I realized we already have one of these “party” Karaoke systems tucked away. 

It has an effects mixing “studio” unit with presets feeding out to a 40 watt speaker. Besides the mic inputs, there is a line in for an external music source (it’s supposed to turn any song into a karaoke track by dampening the vocals).  They make a point of saying you can plug in a guitar or keyboard into it to use live  with a couple of maneuvers to calibrate the studio unit to the guitar input.  

I was wondering if we could try this first just to fool around with to see if an amp is really anything we need. 

First I realize it is kind of a toy, and it is not a real acoustic guitar system, so I won’t judge the sound results too harshly,  but….

1. Is there any chance any of you have ever used one of these things, or something like it? And how did it work? Any tips? 

2. Are there any red flags/cautions/concerns/suggestions about trying this at all?   (I assume it wouldn’t hurt the electronics in the guitars, but politely set acoustic guitars are not likely to hurt the speaker, right? We are old people playing for each other, not looking to crank it to “11”. 

Right now, we only play in our music room, so we’re more looking for the options for effects rather than volume.  

If this works, we’d get real acoustic amps, and put the party toy back in the closet, I’m hoping we can try this before we make a trip into the cities and waste our and GCs time buying something we end up not using. 

here is a link to the specs for our older unit https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0270/7573/files/Singtrix_SpecSheet.pdf?2679494644682061627

thanks all for any help!

Edited December 2, 2023 by PrairieDog

[QuestionMark]

An acoustic guitar amp is really just a mini PA.  Though it may have some effects.  I don’t see how it can hurt your karaoke machine or guitar, as it sounds like your karaoke machine is also just a mini PA.  Let us know how it goes.

 

QM aka “ Jazzman” Jeff

[PrairieDog]

Thanks! I was suspecting that was the case, but again, last time I played seriously reel to reel tape decks were go to tech! 😆 Maybe not quite, but tbh, I left all the sound work to the wizards who knew where all the cables went and did not pay nearly the amount of attention I should have.  Dang ignorant youth. 

Edited December 3, 2023 by PrairieDog

[Murph]

I have a Bose S1-Pro and could play ANY gig with it because it has 2 mic inputs (I prefer to mic my acoustic) and a "line out" jack. I can line out to my L1-Compact and cover any club up to 200 people, and if the room is larger than that I'd just line out to the board.

I have no idea what a Sing Trix is.

Best of luck.

[PrairieDog]

1 hour ago, Murph said:

I have a Bose S1-Pro and could play ANY gig with it because it has 2 mic inputs (I prefer to mic my acoustic) and a "line out" jack. I can line out to my L1-Compact and cover any club up to 200 people, and if the room is larger than that I'd just line out to the board.

I have no idea what a Sing Trix is.

Best of luck.

Nod, when we started thinking about amps, I searched the forum to see what people used, and it was your posts about your Bose that got me comparing it to the Fishman.  (I think we will go with the Bose plus, on your posts, and since it has a battery so we could have little yard jams with our friends.  We are out in the country so won’t offend anyone).  

The thing we have is a karaoke system. It has 3  line-ins  (two mics and another source) and two line outs.  I could either mic and/or line in the guitar.  The specs look  at least in range with the other two.  I was worried it was missing some filter or something since it ‘s intended primarily for vocals, and would feedback or get hum/noise from an instrument going in, and if it was insurmountable or how to control it.  The makers “say” it will work with both guitars/keyboards, so we’ll try it out.  

Btw, even for being aimed at “fun” it is a actually a nice little vocal system.  Because it is meant for parties and entertainment it uses a catalog of hundreds of presets, (there are tons of “vocal trick” presets if the kids want to sound like Taylor Swift or Leonard Cohen) and massive levels of auto pitch tuning.  But you can ignore all that fluff in the pro mode where it has at least decent settings for straight vocals.   At least good enough for the barn where I could only scare the cats, chuckle.  

Edited December 3, 2023 by PrairieDog