T-Rex Engineering SOULMATE-ACOUSTIC Guitar Multi Effects Pedal with Compression, Modulation, Delay, Reverb, 3-Band Equalizer, Built-In Tuner, and Looper (10036)

After a two-year buy-and-resell venture to find my perfect acoustic pedalboard for playing in church, I found it ALL in ONE unit, which I never expected, this T-Rex Soulmate Acoustic. I got back into acoustic guitar in 2013 (borrowing one) and then in 2015 bought the Taylor 618e V2 with the Expression2 system, which is an OK pickup system (not stellar on the huge maple 618e) but needs some tweaking to sound good in a house system. After that the expensive pedalboard research began, and ended on the Soulmate. I'll quickly list the things I bought and sold, why they didn't work, so you can see why the Soulmate Acoustic DOES, or at least does better than everything else.Electro Harmonix Small Clone Chorus - bought this back in 2013, first whack at signal processing, used to own EH pedals in the late 70s. The chorus sound is gorgeous, to me it's the best single pedal chorus for acoustic guitar. Problem is, they're built exactly the same way as in the 70s, so besides the sharp edges on the case, the footswitch to turn the effect on and off goes PUNK!! through the sound system when you step on it. Maybe it was a bad unit but that was the dealbreaker. Sold it.TC Electronic M-350 Reverb and Effects Processor - this was a mistake in 2014, I was thinking I could inject this on a channel on the mixer, which I did, but I had a lot of issues getting gain-staging correct, so the signal was brittle, not sweet. Plus I couldn't control it from the stage. Not sure what I was thinking. Sold it.The following I tried after buying the Taylor:Fishman ToneDEQ - I like this box, it does sound good. At first I was OK without a stereo signal, figuring that wouldn't matter much in the PA (wrong). The chorus sounds nice, I like it subtle, not 80s and this does it well. Reverb sounds decent too. And besides the built-in DI (more on that in a sec), there's an amp out for a small onstage amp for your monitor, which is great. I use the AER Compact 60 Clone made by Bugera, it's cheap, lol). The Not Good Stuff: the DI doesn't sound all that great, at least to my trained ears. I had to add a separate DI (explained next). Also it has delay separate from reverb, you pick one or the other. I'm stumped. Also, as a the main sound engineer in our church, I need sweepable frequencies on the EQ, without that an EQ is no help. And it's not Phantom Powered! The thing eats batteries so I had to get the power adapter. PLUS, NO TUNER, so I got the ever-amazing Boss TU-3 also on AC power. Now I have a bunch of units on the floor and power adapters and patch cables all over, and I still can't sweep EQ not have delay and reverb. Earlier this year I plugged into the built-in DI on the ToneDEQ temporarily and I heard the local Phoenix TV station discussing the Olympics in the house system! I wish I was kidding. SOLD IT.Radial J48 - Best 200 bucks you'll ever spend on a DI for your acoustic guitar, worth every penny. Tons of pros from Tommy Emmanuel and on have used the J48. I sold it because the DI's in the Soulmate are nearly or arguably equal. This is why you spend $599 for a pedalboard like the T-Rex, the components they use are superb. But if you just need a DI for your acoustic, J48 al the way. Bring it to every gig, don't use the cheap one provided. It does need phantom power.This explanation is getting long, so let me summarize the next phase which was all Boss pedals. I got the AD-2 acoustic preamp, CE-2W Waza Chorus and put those with my TU-3 tuner in a BCB-30 pedalboard. I was hoping for a sweeter more processed sound to fill the room. The AD-2 is OK, does make the Expression system more listenable, but really only because it cuts a lot of midrange. The ambience in the AD-2 is really nice. But overall it sounded too processed. The Chorus I immediately disliked because it sounds exactly like the coveted CE2 of the 80s. Problem is, I never ever liked the all-too-clean metallic glass Boss sound. I had tried the distortion pedals in the 80s and teh delay, but it's just too metalic, always has been to my ears. I do love the TU-3 tuner. I actually gave it to a missionary passing through that needed a tuner, then bought the TU-3W Waza version (yeah, 150 bucks for a tuner), because it looks so cool in black with Blue LED. But they both work great. ANYWAY, sold the Chorus and tried the new Boss CP-1X compressor in line with the AD-2. Very nice, very good compressor pedal. If you want a separate pedal compressor you need to check the CP-1X out. SO, I liked the organized pedalboard but the sound of the AD-2 was good, not great, and now I have no real EQ or controllable reverb or Modulation of any kind.So NAMM came along this past winter and I started watch videos and I saw and heard the Trace Elliot Transit A, all-in-one pedalboard for acoustic guitar, running in true stereo, and it sounded REALLY nice in the demo... I would have pulled the trigger but not in stock yet. Still no sweepable EQ and the tuner was weird, the footswitches light up across the unit, how can you fine tune with that? I almost bought it, but then I came across a NAMM vid on this new T-Rex thing, and almost blew it off, but listened to the few demo videos. The SOUND... whoa. Then I saw the features, it has everything:- Hand wired boutique quality- Whatever they use for preamps, they are clean and amazing, BEST sound I've heard out of ny Taylor Expression 2 System- Controllable soft knee compression- SWEEPABLE 3 band EQ! Finally!- Great chorus but even better: amazing Detune effect as part of the chorus, running in true stereo. Now I fill the room with the sound I was hoping for.- The Reverb is gorgeous... the tails are worth the price of admission. T-Rex also added a Shimmer effect to the reverb that I wasn't familiar with, but now I'm falling a little too much for it, VERY cool effect. You can control the effect with a foot pedal.- Separate Delay- Great controllable Boost function- The TUNER! Designed by Peterson! It is fast and accurate, and acts as a mute. I'll always miss the TU-3 but this one works just dandy.- The DI's are VERY high end quality, amazing clean full signal, and there are two for Stereo out- The build quality: It's heavy, it's all metal, it's half pedal and half weapon, lol. The footswitches and knobs are REALLY nice quality.- There is a built-in notch filter that auto senses feedback and kills it. I don't get feedback so I haven't needed that but it's there.- You would think that would be the complete list, but they decided to put in a built-in 5-MINUTE looper! I'm just scratching the surface using this but it's going to be a blast. I love how you can apply effects to what you record, THEN you can turn them off when you play the overdub part with different effects, changing those doesn't effect the loop. Way cool.Ultimately the sound is so pro quality, it's just a dream come true.I did have to interact with customer service via email to answer a few questions, and the fella Kristian who handles all that couldn't have been nicer and more helpful. That's a HUGE plus.OK, so then I recently heard a demo of the L.R. Baggs SESSION-DI Acoustic Preamp, and I thought that this might be a great preamp to feed the T-Rex with. I'm sure the LR Baggs works on its own very well especially with the pickup system they designed, but it didn't work with the T-Rex, that metallic sound returned. The T-Rex doesn't need a separate preamp, and I guess my test confirmed that, lol!So every other pedal has been sold. I simply go from Taylor to Soulmate Acoustic, with two XLR cables to the mixing desk. Done. I also run one Mogami ¼" cable from the Soulmate to an ACUS OneForStrings 6 amp on stage as a monitor. That's it. The sound quality is all I could ask for. I went to see Tommy Emmanuel, front row, and really listened to and studied his stage setup, and it's as simple as he explains in most vids. He goes from guitar to the AER Colourizer which also has a great DI, and that goes to the mixing desk. I chatted with Steve his sound guy and all he does is add reverb and probably a bit of compression at the mix position. Same thing with the T-Rex, I'm just adding Reverb and a little compression in the pedalboard. Tommy's main monitoring are just the floor wedges, the AER amp is point to the BACK of the stage, not even at him any more. I think he likes the fill sound behind him.Anyway, point is, your acoustic guitar can sound amazing wherever you go, I can't believe I found a unit that does it all. As you can see I spent a lot in time and funds to figure all this out. Plunk it down, plug into the house system wherever you go and tell the sound engineer to start flat on the EQ and go from there. He/she probably won't even need to adjust anything once you have yours dialed in on the Soulmate, which is incredibly easy with the sweepable EQ. Just crank the midrange gain UP all the way and sweep the frequencies to find the worst section. Believe me, it will ALL sound horrible, but you'll find that one that makes your ears hurt. Keep it on that frequency and now cut it with the gain knob, and the crud will now be out of your natural acoustic sound. That's why I keep harping on that subject, lol. BTW, The EQ is OFF at the board in our church system other than a 75hz highpass filter, don't need to do anything, I can control it all at the Soulmate. Last thing: I paid for everything, bought it at Sweetwater. I do have the Vine Reviewer badge but that had nothing to do with this effects board, I financed (painfully) the whole journey. But glad I did.