Some questions about Guild Peregrine

[Zexus]

I had a show about 2 weeks ago and that was the first time i plugged my Guild Peregrine direct into my Sansamp active D.I. without any guitar amp and straight to the mixer of the house. The distance between the house mixer and my D.I. was at least 30-40 metres away. To my dismay, the signal of my Peregrine was extremely weak and there was this obvious bad intermittent distortion in the tone of my guitar.

I was lucky to have brought my Yamaha silent guitar as a backup.

Does anyone know what went wrong, or have any similar experience?


Here's what i found on one of the Harmony Central reviews:

"The guitar is equipped with 10,000 oam pots as oppossed to the 20,000 oam pots Fishman recommended with the pickup. Because of the electronics unique design no one makes the pots it needs. Guild did not find it worthwhile to contract with someone to make the appropriate pots so they used the 10k pots that were available. Technically the 10k pots work but the signal from the guitar is weak. As a result I can reach enough volume through my amp. I don't like turning the gain up to much to reach the appropriate volume levels because of distortion. This is really the only thing I don't like about the guitar, everything else is great."

"Guild won't have anything to do with the preamp problem. They claim the only people to complain has been me and the two band members from Vertical Horizon that own Peregrine's They claim the 10k pots work (technically) and won't fix it because not worth their time and trouble to have the parts made available."

 

[Guildmark]

Batteries?

 

[Zexus]

Sorry, i forgot to mention about the battery. It's brand new. Alkaline.

 

[Guildmark]

I'm afraid that's the limit of my expertise.
Good luck! I really hope you get it fixed! The Peregrine is one beautiful guitar.

 

[count_scrofula]

I have seroous doubts about this...20k audio taper 1/4" pots are not some rare custom item. You're claiming this to be the issue based on a single report from someone on guitar central...have you even checked the pot to see what guild installed?

Even if it is the case that the fender folks decided to save a dollar or two on a $1000+ guitar by using whatever they had in stock, then just go get a proper pot and replace it, or have someone who knows how to solder do the job.

I just did a quick search and found them from mcm electroincs for a little over a dollar.

 

[axiology]

I have recently acquired a Peregrine Custom, IMO the output level from the guitar is not weak. I have a practice amp that I can't use with it because the guitar overdrives the little amp and I can't get a clean sound through it.
I love the sound of this guitar - it sounds like a big booming acoustic guitar through my Fender Hotrod amp. My complaint with a lot of acoustic-electric guitars is that the low end is weak. Not with the Peregrine, I find I have to cut the bass a bit.



Andrew

Guild X160 Rockabilly
Guild B302-A
Guild Peregrine Custom

 

[chazmo]

I'm not very knowledgeable in this stuff, but is there any reason not to use an active pre-amp for the peregrine? Is it a low-impedance XLR or high-impedance 1/4" output jack from the guitar? If the latter, then why not run it into a XLR-capable pre-amp, and then run the XLR to the mixing head.

30-40 meters sounds quite long for a high-impedance cable.

 

[Guest]

The Peregrine pre-amp output is weak (with a new battery) by approximately 10-15 dB relative to my Songbird, F4CE, Godin A6, Seagull, and even the Little Martin pre-amp. It's been a while since I checked but I remember matching levels by engaging the 10 dB pad on direct boxes whenever I used the other guitars. I think this lack of output may explain why the guitar sounds reasonable plugged into electric guitar amplifiers.

The Peregrine volume slider is linear, not rotary. I can't vouch for the Harmony Central story but it seems plausible given how I was unable to find a replacement volume slider for the Peregrine I use most. In the end, I just added a jumper wire to bypass the volume control entirely.

I've tried several direct boxes, including the Behringer GI-100, BBE DI-1000, UltraSound PDI, Boss AD-8, Demeter Tube Direct, and the Roland AC-60/90 amps. The Behringer is actually quite decent but has no tonal or volume control and with the Peregrine seemed too bass heavy. The UltraSound is the best value and has input and XLR DI volume controls, plus some basic tone controls and an FX loop. The Demeter has the coolest sound but I'm not sure if it sounds that much better relative to its price.

Ultimately I use the AC-60, which has adjustments for input gain, master volume, and a mute control. It has a fixed line level XLR output for which I use a 20 dB Whirlwind attenuator to get it to microphone level. If it had a built-in XLR pad it would be the perfect direct box.

I have seroous doubts about this...20k audio taper 1/4" pots are not some rare custom item. You're claiming this to be the issue based on a single report from someone on guitar central...have you even checked the pot to see what guild installed?

Even if it is the case that the fender folks decided to save a dollar or two on a $1000+ guitar by using whatever they had in stock, then just go get a proper pot and replace it, or have someone who knows how to solder do the job.

I just did a quick search and found them from mcm electroincs for a little over a dollar.

 

[axiology]

I recently tried my Peregrine Custom plugged directly into the line input on a mixer board - it easily tripped the +8db LED on the mixer channel.


Andrew

Guild X160 Rockabilly
Guild B302-A
Guild Peregrine Custom

 

[Mr. P ~]

I have seroous doubts about this...20k audio taper 1/4" pots are not some rare custom item. You're claiming this to be the issue based on a single report from someone on guitar central...have you even checked the pot to see what guild installed?

Even if it is the case that the fender folks decided to save a dollar or two on a $1000+ guitar by using whatever they had in stock, then just go get a proper pot and replace it, or have someone who knows how to solder do the job.

I agree with the Count. Finding a 20K pot to replace that 10K is not rocket science. Should be fairly easy to find.