Take your undersaddle tone farther than ever before.
Funny name. Serious tone.
by Maury Rutch
Over the past 6 months I've had the luxury of playing every gig with some top-shelf gear. Tim Perry and I have been playing a couple of prototype Martin guitars with the onboard Aura system, and the tone has been nothing short of incredible. The Aura blends the undersaddle signal with preset mic images for a very authentic tone. Tim and I have probably logged 1000 hours on these guitars, and we're really getting a serious understanding of this new imaging technology. If you're looking to get yourself an acoustic-electric guitar you will NOT find a better instrument than a Martin with the Onboard Aura. Period.... Seriously... We mean it... Just, ask Tim 
But what if you're not in the market for a new guitar? Maybe you love everything about your current acoustic/electric but you're ready to upgrade its plugged-in tone. If so, the D-Tar Mama Bear is something you really should check out.
The Mama Bear is a modeling acoustic preamp. Plug in your UST-equipped Martin OM-28V, and with the turn of the Mama Bear's dials, you now have a rosewood Dred! Turn the knob again and you now have a mahogany parlor guitar! Another turn and you're playing a Dobro! Sound too good to be true? It is. L BUT this is an awesome box. Allow me to explain .
The hype and advertising attached to the Mama Bear (especially before its release) had us all hoping for a magic box that could make any guitar sound like other guitars. Mama does enable you to sculpt your tone towards other body styles and tone woods, but I think its strengths aren't exactly what they were hyped-up to be... and I think that's a good thing! Before I had the chance to use this at a real gig, I wasn't very excited about it. I didn't want my OM-28V to sound like a dobro, or a slope-shoulder Gibson. I want it to sound like an OM-28V! As sarcastic as this might sound, I'm pleased to tell you that this box won't trick your audience into thinking you're switching guitars between songs. However, it does one terrific job making my guitar sound like my guitar!
The Mama Bear is very easy to use, especially for how powerful it is. Set the "blend" control to 50% wet/dry and you can always adjust this control to taste later. Plug in your guitar and choose the appropriate input source. This is where you tell Mama Bear which type of pickup you have in your guitar, so it's "once and done". Input sources 1-4 are designed for the ceramic piezo pickups (Martin Thinline 332); 5 & 6 are for coax film (LR Baggs Element); 7&8 are for flat film (Fishman Acoustic matrix) and etc. I chose 7 for my guitar, and I'm ½ way finished already .
Next, you select your target instrument. D-tar advertising would lead to you choose between guitar models, but this is where I like to think outside the box. Rather than read the 16 choices and let my rational side tell me to choose "rosewood OM", I simply start at preset #1 and wheel through the choices until I get near the end (13 thru 16 are funky selections like gypsy jazz & resonator). I like to listen to the room I'm in and wheel back & forth until I find the best sound. It's as easy as changing channels on a TV remote. There are no LED menus. No EQ, compression, FX. Honestly - you'll hear right away which 3 or 4 "target instruments" are worth a second listen, and that's it. If I'm feeling ambitious I'll play around with the blend again, but 9 times out of 10 a 50/50 mix is great.
In summary, if you were hoping the Mama Bear was going to turn your rosewood OM into 10 other instruments, you'll likely be less than impressed with this box. If you want to give your guitar's UST tone a studio-quality shot in the arm, this box will WOW you . with almost no effort.
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