Caline CP40 Preamp DI Box For Acoustic Guitar Recording

Great value for money for an acoustic pre-amp and D.I. pedal. It is well featured, sounds good, the boost adds a fuller more detailed sound and the anti feedback works. Here’s where it drops a star, it is a bit noisy and mine also had a fault with the D.I. XLR out which made strange noises, unfortunately they would be picked up when recording or performing. I intend to return it and pay the premium for the Zoom AC-2 to replace it which is a pity as I probably just got a rogue one.

For its price range this unit works well. You can use it to shape your acoustic sound and it also has a treble boost which significantly alters the output and sound of your instrument. There both an independent gain and anti feedback filter which can be tuned to isolate any troublesome frequencies. The casing is solid steel and the design of the pedal is not unattractive.Now for down sides to this pedal - hence the four stars - The pedal's casing has not been designed to house a 9v battery internally. There is an attachment supplied which you can use to plug into the back of the unit to connect a battery, but this seems like an obvious shortcoming in the design and a bit of an afterthought. If you're simply adding this pedal to a pedal board with a 9v power supply then you'll be happy. However if you're hoping to just take it on the road without access to mains power and plug it into the PA then you may find this unit clumsy to use. Finally the sound from the unit is not transparent and there is a small amount of noise produced in the processing of your guitar signal.Overall for the price, this is a good pedal. If you simply need to preamp your acoustic signal or want to experiment with shaping the sound of your instrument this may be a good option if you cannot justify paying for an L R Baggs or Fishman preamp unit. It's not high end but it is functional; this is not an expensive unit but you are able to significantly alter the bass and treble to create settings that do enhance the raw acoustic signal. It will not blow anyone's mind with its performance but it will definitely improve the harshness of a raw piezo signal.