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Acoustic guitar amplification

7/15/2012

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    I played a gig last Friday evening at a local farm that has buffets a couple times a week with live music. I was set up outside on a porch and it was a lot of fun with families, locals and tourists enjoying some great food on a summer evening here on Cape Cod. As usual, I used my Carvin AG-100 amp and it performed flawlessly as it has for about 10 years. The folks at the event seemed to like the music and I even received some very nice comments the next day at my regular Saturday morning gig at The Daily Brew from a lady who happened to be at the buffet the evening before.

Of course I’d like to think the good reception was entirely based on my playing (!) but in fact a big part of how I sounded was thanks to that Carvin AG-100 amplifier. My quest at most gigs these days is to be just loud enough to be heard but never be obtrusive and for my guitar to sound like, well, my guitar, without any extraneous modifications of the sound like chorusing or excessive reverb. As the years have passed I’ve found those sounds – which are very popular with some performing acoustic guitarists – to be distracting to the point of being annoying. Chorusing in particular sounds to my ears very fake and I’m sure some performers use it to cover up mediocre playing. Then there is the subject of “looping,” which is very popular right now. That is a subject that I have mixed feelings about and will no doubt be the subject of a blog entry at some point in the future.

In recent years it has come to pass that there are lots of choices in acoustic amplification. It is certainly possible to use a regular guitar amp to boost the sound of an acoustic guitar but due to their very high gain they almost always cause severe issues with feedback when an acoustic guitar with a pickup is anywhere near them. Feedback is of course that high, screeching sound of a certain frequency emitted by the guitar signal “feeding” on itself, growing louder and louder until the sound is like something out of a bad horror movie. Avoid using electric guitar amplifiers with acoustic guitars!

All of the big name amplifiers companies now make acoustic guitar amps, with highly variable rates of success. Some are OK and have enough on-board features like equalization to tailor the sound to the point of being fairly representative of what the guitar really sounds like. Gain in the “mids” – the midrange area where acoustic guitars are most prominent – is a good feature to have. Sadly, I’ve heard very few acoustic amps that have reverb that is anywhere close to the rich reverb produced by the separate tube-based reverb units incorporated into electric guitar amps like those classic tube amps from Fender and Ampeg. I am not an expert in amplification so I have no idea why “tank” tube-type reverb is not available on acoustic amps. Perhaps it has something to do with feedback issues…. In any case, don’t expect a solid state reverb function to sound better than barely passable. There is an alternative solution that I’ll get into in a bit, however.

I’ve owned and/or tried out about a dozen models of acoustic amps by various manufacturers. Here are my conclusions, for what they’re worth!

First the bad. As I said above, I want my guitar to sound as natural as possible, just louder. Fender makes a line under the “Acoustasonic” label that I found to be very, very disappointing. Granted, I have not tried their top-of-the-line model, but that thing is HUGE – more of a “stack” rather than a “combo” amplifier. The three other models from that legendary company sounded muddy, artificial and the reverb was terrible, very fake sounding. I tried various adjustments on each of the three models and had no luck improving the sound. Plus, two of them had a cabinet shaped with a bottom that was larger in depth than at the top; they were very heavy and the shape made them difficult and borderline painful to carry, with the thing knocking my leg every time I took a step.

The other big name in acoustic amplification is Fishman and I found their models to suffer from the same deficiencies as the Fenders, with the addition of a very thin and abrasive sound.

I bought a Roland AC-90, which is part of a series from that company that gets great reviews and was severely disappointed in its muddy sound. I returned is almost immediately.

In a more positive vein, I was moderately impressed with the sound of a couple of the slightly less expensive models from Behringer and Kustom, both of which had a wide range of controls to tweak the sound. They didn’t sound fantastic but I could recommend them with a clear conscience to someone who was not a professional but wanted to try out acoustic amplification.

There are quite a few “boutique” amps out there by companies like Rivera, AER, and other even smaller companies that are supposed to be wonderful but alas, they are not something I can afford at this time. Also, some of the mid-priced companies like Genz-Benz and Acoustic make some higher priced models that from all reports are quite fine. I have not heard of tried them so I really can’t say one way or the other.

What you definitely want in an acoustic amp are at least two enclosed speakers in the unit, one at least 8” in diameter to handle lower frequencies and a smaller “tweeter” for the higher end. More speakers is probably better, but not necessarily. At least 40 watts of power is required, in my opinion.

So how can you make a mediocre amp sound better, or improve that weak and artificial sounding reverb? With effects boxes. I almost always use a small tube-type pre-amp between my guitar and amplifier, which “warms up” the sound quite a bit, making the nice acoustic overtones from my guitar more noticeable. There are plenty of reverb units available, most of which sound at least somewhat better than the on-board reverb in the amp. None of the solid state units can match the sound a spring/tube reverb however. In any case, I feel that reverb should be something that is unobtrusive and should be used sparingly.

A whole separate issue here is the type of pick-up your guitar has. That is a huge discussion but I can say without hesitation that the passive pick-ups from K&K are in my opinion the most natural sounding units out there and I’ve had them in many guitars. You may need a “direct box” to match the impedance between your guitar pick-up and the amp however. This allows the maximum amount of gain and the purest sounding signal.

But the bottom line, quite simply put, is that NO acoustic amplifier sounds as good as your guitar’s sound being picked up by a good quality microphone and run through a good quality PA system. Problem is, for the recreational player this is just not practical from a space and expense standpoint, and besides, learning to use a mic to its maximum capability is an art unto itself. Then there are those nasty feedback issues too (!).

So I’ll just stick with my trusty, tried-and-true Carvin AG-100. It sound pretty damn good, it isn’t too heavy or unwieldy even for an old guy like me, and it has a mic input too so I can use it as a mini PA system if needed. If I happen to discover something better I’ll let you know.

If you’ve never tried your acoustic with amplification I think it’s worth the investment even if you just play in your living room. You will hear things you haven’t heard before in your playing, and it’s just plain fun too!

Peace & good music,

Gene

2 Comments

Feeling hot-hot-hot (continued!)

7/6/2012

0 Comments

 
A bit more on summer & guitars.....

Summer on Cape Cod: lines of cars waiting in vain for someone to leave the full parking lots at the beaches, grandparents buying ice cream cones for their visiting grandchildren (a good excuse to buy one for themselves too!), an ongoing contest between the states of Connecticut and New York to see which state can send the most cars to the Cape, and of course, hot hot hot steamy days. Days that I love as my old bones can’t deal with the damp cold of winter that we get around here in a few short months.

But in spite of loving the heat and not even minding the long, sweltering nights there is one aspect to the summer around here that I just hate. As the heat and humidity rise, so does the certainty that my wonderful acoustic guitars will begin to sound like someone stuffed a pillow into the sound hole! I don’t care if the guitar is made of rosewood, mahogany or maple – the story is the same. It’s no secret that wood loves moisture and will suck it out of the air. The result is a guitar that can’t vibrate and without the transmission of vibration from the strings that $2000 Martin begins to sound depressingly like a $200 Yamaha.

As a practical matter, this is actually a good thing for the most part. A well-humidified guitar is less likely to crack and the neck is usually more stable (although the action or relief can increase a bit). Better a humidified guitar than a dry one. The problem is, a dry guitar tends to sound much better. There is a good balance, which is generally found with a relative humidity level of about 45%. Unfortunately, the gauge in my studio has been varying between 70% and 90% lately. Now, I know I could run a dehumidifier in there but I feel that moving my guitars from a dry environment to a moist one, such as happens every Saturday when I play at the Daily Brew, and then back to a de-humidified room, over and over through the summer cannot be a good thing.

Beyond the dead sound coming from my very nice guitars I have to deal with the summer sticky neck syndrome. You know what I mean if you live in a humid part of the country: that annoying feeling that your hand almost gets stuck on the back of the neck when you move from one position to another. Even if you take care to play with clean hands (which you should) this condition will have to be accepted. Some players feel that this is less of an issue with guitars that have satin finished necks; I don’t think there is much of a difference between ones with gloss or satin finish. All you can really do is vigorously wipe the back of the neck with a clean, dry cloth both before and after you play. Or even in the middle of your session. And try to keep your hands dry with a towel close at hand.

What about your other hand? It’s bad enough that the guitar is sounding dead and unresponsive but sweaty fingers can kill a new set of strings in minutes. Another thing to beware of is how sweaty the inside of your arm gets where you drape it over the guitar. Be sure to wipe the guitar off when you’re done playing because over a period of time sweat can sink into the guitar finish when your arm lays and this can actually stain the wood – and in the long term your guitar won’t smell very good either! I’ve seen some “vintage” guitars with this problem and in spite of their pedigree I certainly wouldn’t want to own one.

If none of this bothers you, well, have at it and enjoy playing under the summer stars or down at the beach. After all, playing the guitar is supposed to be fun and what’s more fun that strumming some tunes outside on a summer evening? Just don’t be too particular about the sound you’re producing and do your guitar a favor – dry the poor thing off when you’re done!

Peace & good music,

Gene

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    Gene Bourque

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