Are electronics on Acoustic Guitars worthwhile?

Stefan one simple example would be to use reverb to emulate a large hall or concert room or just to change the acoustic limitation of your recording area (small rooms mean lots of signal bounce). Another would be to emulate the sound of a 12 string while playing a standard 6 string. Its the usual horses for courses and how and what you want you eventual recorded track to sound like. Having said that when I have recorded acoustic I have done very little to it bar some EQ.
:sunglasses:

In the case I was suggesting here, an electro-acoustic guitar with a piezo pickup doesn’t, generally, sound the same as the same guitar unamplified, or amplified using a microphone.

Piezo pickups impart a fairly characteristic colouration to the sound of an acoustic guitar that many people dislike.

On the Katana, there are a couple of effects options you can use to counter this, and to make an amplified piezo pickup sound more natural.

Cheers,

Keith

@TheMadman_tobyjenner @Majik Thank you for the reply guys, every day is a school day. :slight_smile:

@Majik So that raises another question, why would you use one of those pick-ups if you then have to counter it with another setting? Would it not just be better to amplify it though a mic? Or would you not do that because then you can’t add effects?

When will I learn and just not read these gear threads? :roll_eyes:
I’ve just gone and put a bid on Fishman rare earth single coil pup to see what the fuss is about.
Part of me hopes I don’t get it :laughing:
My rational on this one is that I have no way of recording my acoustic other than mobile phone. Might as well see what it sounds like with the amp as well.
Sigh.

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And there’s me thinking I must try micing up the T-Bucket, as it sound mhew plugged direct to the amp or AI. Hope you win ! :wink:

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It’s precisely the mic pathway I’m studiously avoiding :rofl:

It’s because that style of pickup is the most common on electro-acoustic guitars.

I’m not sure why, TBH, but it may be that it’s cheaper, or easier to deal with that style of pickup in some way.

Certainly they are far, far easier to use than micing up an acoustic guitar that doesn’t have any sort of pickup.

And, honestly, they don’t sound that bad. A lot of professional musicians will use them on stage without any major concern.

I’m not sure I would worry about it for live use, but for recording it’s unusual for people to use that particular sound. On a professional studio recording, they would normally go through the effort of micing up the guitar (and gain staging, etc.).

For home recording, that can be a fair bit of hassle and a bit hit and miss. Plugging in an electro-acoustic is a LOT easier and may give better results, despite the impact of the pickups. If you then have an easy way to make it sound more natural, then why wouldn’t you use it?

Cheers,

Keith

This might be useful:

Cheers,

Keith

I’ve had a look on eBay too. Just be careful what you offer. Some of them are for sale at more than the retail price!

@Majik Thank you for that Keith. The video was very interesting. That AER was a nice sounding amp but I thought the Fender gave it a really artificial sound, which I didn’t like.

All very interesting stuff though, which give plenty of food for thought.

It’s pretty common to use chorus, reverb and potentially delay if you’re amping your acoustic. A little chorus and reverb sounds very nice. Bear in mind if you are amping it then generally it would be because it’s not loud enough for the audience to hear. If you’re at an open mic or something playing for people most acoustic players will be plugging in (in my experience).

Thanks Jason. So is there a certain sized room that you think, “right, I have to plug in now”? So if it was a small local doing on OM, you acoustic unplugged would be enough?

Also, what do chorus and reverb give you when using them?

Pretty much…An acoustic sounds reasonably loud when strummed but much quieter when finger picked or plucked even in your own house/practice room. Even strummed the sound will still be far too low in most small venues. Acoustic unplugged is fine for camp fire stuff, small groups sitting close to you. As soon as you’ve got something larger with an element of chatter/noise you want it amplified. It’s the same for vocals really. That doesn’t mean the acoustic needs to be plugged in…you can often get away with just mic’ing the guitar.

Chorus will give you a fuller sound, it’ll also blend the notes slightly. It is as the word describes making your guitar sound as it’s a part of a chorus (multiple guitars).

Reverb will give you that “in the room” type effect. So imagine being in a large room and hearing the echos of the notes that’s what reverb does. It gives your sound space/echo. Reverb pedals will tend to offer you different types of “room” effects e.g. small hall, concert hall, stadium.

All of these pedals (in fact most pedals) will have a blend/mix option so you can increase/decrease the mix of the effect alongside your “dry” guitar signal getting more or less of the effect.

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Does anyone have experience using fishman flex blend controls on acoustic guitars?

On with the hijack.

I played more with my. BK 100 mkii and the acoustic.

I made an entire new patch with Majik’s suggested P —> AC simulator.

Crunch with gain about 10, a subtle touch of room reverb and “mild” compression and fx set to guitar sim p—> ac

It does pretty well. I will try with the clean and acoustic amps as well, but the low gain crunch is supposed to be pretty good for this sort of thing.

Again, happy to email it to anyone, but I suggest just making something yourself.

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I used reverb on this when I recorded it a while ago, without the reverb it wouldn’t have sounded anywhere near as good, I recorded it in a small room with furniture and all sorts in it, the sound would have bounced all over the place. This was played on my Electro acoustic rather than my classical for that reason.

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It’s a very similar system to what Taylor use on their guitars, it’s a mix of piezo and an internal mic, it works quite nicely. The only thing I didn’t like about my Taylor 214CE was the size, everything else was amazing.

Thank you for that Darrell. That was a lovely piece of music and beautifully played, if you don’t mind me saying.

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