How do you set up an acoustic for playing live?

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Liam_Monster

New member
Hello,

I'm playing a gig soon and i'm started to wonder what the best way to set up my acoustic is. We're quite a loud band, we have a drummer, bassist, guy on lead electric (deans and telecasters) and I swap between electric and acoustic as I play rythm. Anyway I always find it incredibly hard to get acoustics to compete with the rest of the sound. The guitars often have to be loud because of the drums and it's a struggle with the acoustic.

I'm unaware if there's a special way that people tend to do this? My amp is a Marshall 100DFX and I've found it hard to get a good acoustic sound, if I do it's very quiet as the clean channel is a lot quieter than the overdrive channel and I end up having to crank up the gain to get it loud enough . . .but I don't want a distorted acoustic sound!

Should I be usuing a completely different amp for acoustic playing, if so can anyway recommend any which might be comparable to a 100 watt marshall amp?

Also is it common place to plug the acoustic into something to process the signal before it gets to an amp? Like an acoustic effects pedal, will anything like that help? I just want the natural tone that i know my acoustic can make when i record it at home. I don't think it's necessary to mic it because I play a Yamaha APX900
 
For acoustic, playing through the same amp you use for an electric is a challenge. I find that I like acoustic through solid state amps better than tube, and vice versa for electric. I plug my acoustic either straight into the board or into a princeton chorus and mic that up, and I plug my electric into my tube amp. If you use any distortion pedals in your acoustic fx chain, they will sound like crap running them before the board.
 
If loudness is the only real concern then you either need hotter pickups or a louder amp ... at least I believe. I am constantly disappointed by my acoustic sound live ... but unfortunately it doesn't keep me from playing out:confused:.

Liam, you from north jersey by any chance?
 
My pickups are alright, I think what I need is quite simply a good acoustic guitar amp. A Marshall amp primarily designed for electrics just doesn't get the right tones. So . . . I'm thinking I just need a proper acoustic amp, I might try plugging the guitar directly into a PA as that's not going to distort the signal like an electric guitar amp.

If I can set up a good amp for it, i'm loving the look of this . .. http://www.imuso.co.uk/ProductDetail.asp?StockCode=AG00304

I'm from Nottingham, England by the way, which is also where i'm living.
 
If you are looking at that, you might also look at the Yamaha Magicstomp.

http://www.soundslive.co.uk/product~name~Yamaha-UB99-B---Magic-Stomp~ID~3941.asp

If you hunt around, there are two versions. Don't be confused, however. They are essentially the same. You can download the presets etc for electric, acoustic and bass and load whatever you want to use from the Yamaha site.. http://www.magicstomp.com/

You can also build your own and load them up via USB.

Some of the presets are useable. The effects are good. Models are variable, but some are OK. The "Natural" for example.
 
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I'm assuming you already have a pickup in your guitar, so I'll just deal with the after the guitar part.

The best thing, if you can, is to run it straight into the PA, though that means you've got to have monitors so you can hear them. You'll need a Direct Box (DI) of some sort. This can be anything from a cheap passive DI, to something like a L.R. Baggs Para DI (which gives you some controls, including a three bad EQ with a parametric mid control and a sweepable notch filter to reduce feedback issues), all the way up to some extremely complex stuff like the Pendulum, which is way more than you need if your not playing solo acoustic guitar.

If you've got a loud drummer on stage, do NOT try to use a mic, because all you will hear in that mic is the drummer, most of the time. Also, you need to stand absolutely still in front of the mic, which sucks.

If you can't run through the PA, do try to get yourself a good acoustic amp. The best one I've ever heard was the original Trace Elliot, but they aren't around anymore. The Fishman Loudbox is pretty good, though expensive, but I don't know that market really well, so you should just go out and play as many as you can, and then buy the best one you can afford. This has a big advantage over running into the PA, in that you don't have to worry about getting your guitar in the monitors, but it usually will not sound nearly as good to the audience. Most acoustic amps have direct outs, though, so you could use the amp as a monitor and run direct out of that to the PA.


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"Cowards can never be moral."
M.K. Gandhi
 
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