I think this topic has been raised a few times in the community before but not sure if it came to any conclusions or recommendations.
I am looking for some general advice on how to use the onboard Pre-Amp controls on an acoustic guitar. I think Justin has covered a lot of similar things for electric guitars but not aware that he has for Electro Acoustic Guitars.
I appreciate that a lot will be dependent on the song, and whether you are strumming or fingerpicking. I guess the answer will probably be if it ‘sounds good it is good’ but that assumes you know what sounds good and that is where the problem lies for me. I should add my hearing is not what it was once was, given my age and I do not hear high pitched frequencies that my daughter can, and also struggle when people speak very quietly, get you hearing checked I can hear you say, I guess that is not that far off.
Up to now I have recorded when strumming my guitar using a condenser mic which I think has generally be at least reasonable but perhaps not that good. I have started to work on fingerpicking songs and wondering if this would sound better with the guitar plugged in.
The set up I would have is, guitar plugged in 2i2, then into Windows PC and being recorded in OBS. There are no filters or plug ins set up in OBS and no DAW is involved.
My Yamaha guitar has the System 66 Pre-Amp the Controls which look like this and the documentation that came with the gives this information, not a great lot of help for a novice like me.
There is no indication what each of the EQ points are, the slider for the mid-range adds another level of complication. What I get from this is that the mid-range is adjustable and can be somewhere between 80 Hz and 10K Hz so assuming a liner scale then the mid-point is 5K Hz. The human range of hearing is 20 Hz to 20K Hz I think so high point might be say 15K Hz and low 50 Hz. All this might not be correct and an assumption on my behalf.
There are lots of Videos on YouTube, but they are virtually all deal with adjusting the sound when it is in a DAW. I had thought about using a DAW to see what effect that each of the EQ controls do, and to what frequencies, is that a way forward I wonder.
Some indication on what to cut and boost as a starting point would be a big help then I guess will have to use my ears.
Any thoughts or suggestions would be welcome.
As with most advice, set all the EQs to their mid points 5/10 for example. I am not sure about the AMF but I’d do the same with that. Record and listen and adjust. Too much Bass/Low back that off a couple of points, same for Treble/Hi. Minor tweaks until you find a setting that is sweet to you.
TBH I leave all my acoustic on board pre-amps dead flat and am normally happy with the sound. But if I want something different I’ll push them through my PlayAcosutic.
I think the AMF sets the center of the MID control knob. You can slide that frequency up and down to target what you need. I think the comment about having the mid set to 50% means that you should expect a flat response across the mid and setting the AMF will of course just traverse a flat line and you won’t hear any change.
I’d bet the low and high will be “rolloff” - a simple reduction from some frequency starting point to the end of the frequency range. They should have indicated the cutoff frequency for those, but I don’t see it in the image. That means you just have to guess a bit and use your ears.
I think I would start with the LOW and get a strum to sound not too overwhelmed with bass. Then start to nudge in the HIGH so the high strings are a good balance. The MID and AMF will be set in conjunction with each other to reduce or highlight some range of frequencies you want to hear more strongly or weakly. I’d think about keeping this toward the lower end of the range because that is where the the strings are vibrating - low E is about 82Hz and high E, 12th fret is about 659Hz for standard tuning. They did not state the frequency width of the MID control. They did not state what the slider is doing (indicating the mid point frequency would be really useful! - is it log (so center is 1kHz, or linear so center is 5kHz??) This is an oversight I see in the music world nearly everywhere.
There is one range that I have discovered that I like to boost outside of the advice above - I like to get a distinct string picking “edge” and I have found that to be a boost at about 3700Hz. This works for electric guitar, and I do not know if it would do so for acoustic. It seems to be distinctly boosting part of the pick scraping off the string and the string probably rolling a little when it comes free of the pick possibly giving some higher frequencies to the vibration.
If this is all confusing, ask a bit more and I’ll see if I can add detail! Also, my hearing is not so good either and I just turn the volume up a bit to get over the tinnitis. This helps me hear the whole sound of my guitar.
Thanks for your responses, been a bit tied up with other guitar things this week hence the delay in getting back to you.
Toby
Yes, the controls seem to have an ‘indent’ which I assume is the flat position and rotate either way to 4 and 8 O’clock position. When I listen to it flat the base sound does not quite right and I can notice the difference, when I adjust to low range, as you say back off a bit. Not sure I am so confident about saying that I hear much difference about the mid and high range adjustments. I intend to record into a DAW and try and see if I cane determine what different settings do and get a better appreciation of what the adjustments. I do prefer the guitar being recorded by a condenser microphone but want in the future when I am plugged in to know if I need to make any adjustments. Not so crucial at the guitar club performances as the signal goes to a mixing desk and somebody adjusts things then, hopefully.
Michael
Yes, the AMF control is a bit of a strange one and perhaps gives me too many options, but I guess in the right hands it can be very advantageous. I think the AMF must be a linear scale as that is what seems to be used for frequencies whereas sound in dB is a log scale.
As you say there is no indication of the range that the controls operate with and done a lot of searching on the internet to see if I can get any indications, but came up with nothing even on the Yamaha site, I suppose could try and contact them and see if they can tell me, worth a try at least.
It was because of finger picking that made decided I really need to get an understanding of the controls for future reference.
As I said above going to record a lot of variation into a DAW and try and get some feel for things visually and hearing wise. Sounds like a deep rabbit hole to get into and if I get any meaningful insights, I will post it up but don’t hold your breath in the meantime.
Keith @Majik
Interesting, looks like I will have to dig out my school and university notes as well as search the internet to make sense of the divisions.
Michael
Don’t think too hard on the math, look at the plots and how the frequency (x-axis) is set up. Note that it has the frequency in “log” format, even if it looks like it is linear.
I always thought of log plots as a linear scale of the exponent. so 1, 10, 100, 1000 is just 10^0, 10^1, 10^2, 10^3. I was able to quickly plot all kinds of stuff during my university and career days with this understanding.
also - the slider on your ‘amp’ looks like a potentiometer - a variable resistor. I know these come with either a linear change over the range or a log change over the range. This is also part of what I was thinking in my earlier response.
Michael @sequences
Thanks for this, at least I think so, not the sort of wiki page you want to look at first thing in the morning. Will spend a bit of time to see if it makes sense but on first look I think I can see how it works but that might be wishful thinking. In the meantime I am going to contact Yamaha and see if they can clarify things.
Michael
