Radial PZ-Deluxe: Studio-Grade Acoustic Tone Under Your Foot

The Radial PZ-Deluxe is a single-channel acoustic instrument preamp and direct box packed into a compact, road-ready stompbox for live stage use. It pairs a low-noise, high-headroom front end with a full tone-shaping EQ, a piezo-optimizing boost stage, and a genuine Radial DI output, so any acoustic instrument reaches the PA sounding like itself. For the player who has fought thin, harsh, feedback-prone acoustic sound all night, it is the pedal that finally makes the instrument sing.

Why Piezo Pickups Need the PZB Stage

Piezo transducers are extremely high-impedance sources, and plugging one into a typical instrument input loads it down, thinning the low end and adding the brittle 'quack' many acoustic players know too well. Engaging the PZ-Deluxe's PZB gain stage raises the input impedance to 10 megohms, a far better match that lets the pickup deliver its full frequency range. The result is a rounder, more natural tone with the harsh piezo squawk tamed at the source.

Headroom From a 15-Volt Design

Where most pedals run on 9 volts, the PZ-Deluxe uses an external 15-volt supply to open up its dynamic range. That extra rail voltage yields +21 dB of clean gain, a 105 dB dynamic range, and total harmonic distortion of just 0.03%, giving percussive strums and hard-plucked upright notes room to breathe without clipping. More headroom simply means more of the instrument's natural dynamics survive the trip to the front of house.

Shape Your Tone and Fight Feedback

A responsive EQ section lets you contour the instrument to the room, while a sweepable high-pass filter rolls off the low-frequency rumble that triggers stage feedback. A 180-degree polarity reverse switch flips the phase to find the quietest position relative to your monitors, and a ground-lift switch clears hum from ground loops. Together these controls give you fast, musical control over the two problems acoustic players face most: tone and feedback.

A Real Radial Direct Box Inside

The PZ-Deluxe carries a genuine Radial DI on its output, presenting a balanced, low-impedance XLR feed that drives cable runs of over 300 feet (100 m) to the PA without noise or high-end loss. Separate 1/4-inch outputs let you feed a stage amp and a tuner at the same time, so you can monitor on stage and stay in tune while the house gets a clean, direct signal.

Boost and Mute Right Under Your Foot

Two footswitches put stage control where you need it. The boost lifts your level for a solo or a quieter passage without touching your amp, and the mute silences the output for tuning between songs or swapping instruments without a thump through the PA. Both are instant and silent, so transitions stay smooth in front of an audience.

Who the PZ-Deluxe Is For

The PZ-Deluxe suits the gigging acoustic guitarist, the upright bassist, and the fiddle, mandolin, or banjo player who needs studio-quality tone from a pedal that survives the road. It adapts to active or passive systems, magnetic or piezo pickups, and arrives with its 15-volt power supply included, ready to drop onto a pedalboard and take to the stage.