Acoustic guitar settings

[tthcore]

Help!! I bought a Gibson j45, cool huh? Well i can't get a decent sound out of it to save my life. Do i need to buy some Eq pedal? If, i do which one? I plug in direct to my little studio and it sounds like cardboard, what are the usual eq settings for an acoustic guitar? I've looked on here, googled, but nothing really helped me out, i'm pretty frustrated, if i wanted a shitty guitar sound, i would keep playing my old yamaha. Any help would be mucho appreciated.

[HangDawg]

Most of the time, you'll get shitty results using the pickup in an accoustic. You'd get a much nicer sound if you mic the guitar instead.

[rpe]

I agree with the Dawg, going direct is rarely a good thing with acoustic guitar. Mic'ing a J45 should sound great.

rpe

[tthcore]

Well how about playing live? I plugged into an amp, good, didin't sound good. I've seen a bunch of guys who play out have pedals, and they sound really really good. What are these pedals? I looked all over musicansfriend, but its all distortion stuff, not geared towards acoustics.

[guido #2]

If you are recording, MIC it.

For live, you can use the P/U. I am assumingg it has a Peizo (ugh!) P/U....

For pedals, try Fishman, the Aphex Acoustic Xciter Pedal, the Alesis AcoustiFX Acoustic Guitar Multi-Effects Pedal, or just a simple graphic EQ. Start by trying to notch out 1K.

[rpe]

What style of music are you playing live? Folk, country, acoustic rock? What other instruments are accompaning you? What kind of amp? Try to describe the whole scenario and maybe we can give you better suggestions.

rpe

[XLR]

tthcore, are you talking about doing live sound or recording?

Tim

[tthcore]

The style is really just me. I write my own songs and play at open mics and such. Its alt country i guess. My fav dude is steve earl. SOmetimes i have a bass player with me, but usually its just me. I have a small studio (magix, mobile pre, sm57, m-audio condenser). I'd like to at least get a sound out of it where i can burn some demos to hand out and such. I've tried and tried to get a good sound out of my guitar, i even paid more $$ to get a rosewood, but it sounds like cardboard. I can't figure out how to Eq it with my studio, or even with a PA when i play live. I don't have any experience with recording or mixing, i'm sure that is the biggest problem. What are the usual settings for eqing a acoustic on a track, and playing live? are they different? I liked the pickup deal because i can plug into direct and still sing and not have too much overplay from the mic and guitar(my mobilepre has 2 ind. streams).

[tthcore]

Alright, i messed around with it again last night. I still wasn't able to dial it in with a good sound. My DAW is Magix music studio, is this a decent program? The mixer and effects seem pretty lame to me. Is their a pre set setting for eqing acoustic guitars? Like if you want thrash you crank the gain, turn down the mids to about 3, put the hi's up to 8, and the bass all the way up. I'm looking for something like that to help me in the right direction. I really dig this place, its a godsend to a guy like me.

[XLR]

Getting a good sound in recording is a different process than getting a good sound for live amplified performing.

For recording:
1. Sit in the middle of the largest room with the highest ceiling you can get
2. Put a condenser mic 12 to 24 inches out from the neck/body joint of the guitar (an MXL603 is good for this) Use just a preamp into your converter - no compression or effects.
3. press record. The rest is determined by your playing skill.
4. tweak the recorded file with EQ, compression and reverb, but these are just for finessing the sound... they won't make it sound good if it doesn't already

Tim