Routers from Canada's Radial have long been the professional standard for switching and utility solutions for the guitarist. For every routing problem, Radial has a solution and you are choosing a rock solid product that has stood the test of time, is packed with smart features and the highest achievable audio and mechanical quality; in all respects a "boutique" product, but without the "boutique" price tag. What more could you want!
As a guitarist, you often do have more than one guitar. And not because you have such an uncontrollable collecting frenzy...no; as a guitarist you use different guitars with the goal of creating different sounds. Or maybe you use different acoustic guitars with different pre-amp systems, or you are a bassist who alternates active and passive basses.
Either way, in such a case, you know the problem of differing output levels of those different instruments; one guitar goes louder than the other. It disturbs the balance in the band and is immensely irritating to not only yourself, but also to the rest of the musicians you play with and especially a FOH / sound engineer. Despite all your good intentions, they look at you again with rolling eyes...
Fortunately, Radial has a solution for this! The BigShot i/o is a 2-in / 1-out line selector (input 1 OR 2, not simultaneous!) with which you toggle between two instruments and route them to an output. However, the magic is in the parameter control for input 2. It is equipped with a volume trim function which you activate with the trim on/off slide switch. That means you can turn back / trim the volume of the instrument you connect to input 2. So it is not a pre amp and does not boost the volume, but works more or less like the volume knob on your guitar. This way you can level the different output levels of two instruments to each other.
However, because the effect -especially with passive instruments- can be that you lose some high-frequency audio, there is a bright filter provided to compensate for the loss in top-high. Basically like a treble bleed. If you use instruments with active electronics, you will not experience this and that is the perfect guitar to connect to the second / trim input.
An additional and very useful feature is the tuner out and mute switch. These belong more or less together because you can assign that the tuner output is active in mute mode (and thus you can tune in silence) or not and thus always on. In the latter case, the mute mode also still works, but is not necessarily linked to the tuner output.
The BigShot i/o works completely passively. So the entire audio circuit and all switchable and adjustable functions also work without a power supply. An external 9Vdc power supply is only required for the LEDs and thus the visual feedback.
In addition, the BigShot i/o is 100% true bypass with no sound-altering buffers or pre amps.
Bonus tip; if you find it annoying to have to work with two cables and thus always have a cable lying across the stage from the instrument not in use, use the Radial BigShot ABY (in A and B mode) for the BigShot i/o to avoid this.
Specifications:
- Toggle between two instruments at the touch of a button
- adjustable volume to match exhaust levels
- true bypass for pure tone retention
- separate tuner output and mute switch for silent tuning