Accoustic Amps

ridgeback

ridgeback

New member
My wife plays a 70's Gibson Hummingbird (was mine :confused: ) which is equipped with Martin Gold Series P/U under the bridge. She's a relatively new guitar player and recently started singing and playing in my band. For rehearsals she's been playing through my old Yamaha G112 which she hates and rightfully so. It sounds like crap. She's thinking she needs an accoustic amp and she might be right but I have no experience with them. Any recomendations or thoughts on this?
 
Personally I've sort of run into a brick wall on the amplified acoustic electric thing. On one hand you have this famous pizieo 'clack sound that, from what I've found may never go away regardless.
I've tried the Korg AX10A simulator pedal which get the trappings of various mic'd acoustics just fine and is a step in the right direction -but the clack remains. (There is a ('Mama Bear'?) not sure of the name) that looks promising.)
As for the amp end, IMHO, the main issues are at the source not there. I'd say any fairly smooth system that you can tailor and shape the tone to your preference is good to go -way better than say a rough sounding guitar amp.

I haven't tried but a few of the 'acoustic' amps, but so far I'm not to keen on the piezo tweeters many seem to use.(again, not what you might call a smooth solution.)
There's a Rolland with two six or eight inchers' that's the sweetest I've played through, maybe not real loud though.
Hope that helps.
Wayne
 
I've consistently had my best luck with SWR California Blonde. Surprisingly (maybe it shouldn't surprise me), a small PA can work really well. I use a Fender Passport PD250, and for small solo gigs I use it as a PA also. I expect a PD150 would work fine as well. As a 150 watt PA, it's pretty weak, but if you see it as a 150 watt acoustic guitar amp, it has more than enough balls for the job.-Richie
 
I tried out 4 different "acoustic" amps. You get out what you put in. If you put in a "real" acoustic sound, through a good microphone, then yes, you get a good acoustic sound out of the amp. There are no spring reverbs, or tube coloring with these amps. Just a good, clean reproduction of what goes in. However, if you put in a piezo sound from a bridge pickup, or a soundhole pickup, or a soundboard pickup, you get a faithful reproduction of a very piezo sound. If your wife continues to use that Martin bridge pickup, then the "acoustic" amp will be no better.. no worse, than any other "regular" amp.
 
Consider a DI box into the PA system, (sort of what hungovermorning said). Fishman or LR Baggs make good ones.


Nick98338 - you're really from Graham? I've actually been there once!
 
Nick98338 said:
If your wife continues to use that Martin bridge pickup, then the "acoustic" amp will be no better.. no worse, than any other "regular" amp.
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I disagree. An electric guitar amp will generally sound pretty bad when amping an acoustic electric guitar because electric guitars are all about the midrange, and amps for them are configured to produce those tones. Additionally, to an electric guitar player, a little distortion sounds good, but not to someone who wants an acoustic sound.

An acoustic electric will sound much better through the PA or through an amp designed for that instrument than through an electric guitar amplifier.
 
scrubs said:
I really like the Fender Acoustasonics.
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I second the Acoustasonics, I have a JR and it is the best I've heard to this
point but I've never played an SWR.The 30W version sounds really nice but
there isn't a lot of power if your playing out without a PA.

I've tryed the Marshall, Rolands, and the cheapies which I am hesitant to even mention. Any way none of those amps hold a candle to the Acoustsonics.
 
The SWRs are nice, and the older Fenders w/ the offset bottom speaker throw sounded pretty cool, but IMHO unless you are purely playing acoustic guitar, you can pretty much EQ and FX any decent electric amp to sound close. This is an ongoing arguement that I have w/ a freind who sunk 1K into a high end acoustic amp... he swears that It sounds better than my twin, but I always get pretty close with a single electric amp.
 
A piezo pickup only senses how the top vibrates. It doesn't know anything about how the rest of the instrument affects the sound (quite a lot). An acoustic amp may well give you a very usable sound, but it won't accurately reproduce an acoustic guitar. Many people like the result they get.

The D-tar Mamma Bear and the Fishman Aura use samples of great acoustic instruments to let you send an acoustic guitar soud to your system. The reviews look promising but I have no personal experience with either one.

These are not at all the same technology as a Line 6.

The best approach is a quality microphone, but if she wants to move around those preamps or similar may be worth a look.
 
Yo Ridgeback! I think the Strawberry Blonde may be a better pure guitar amp than the California Blonde. The latter has a mic input and can be a micro PA for a coffeehouse gig, but I got even better results with the smaller SB. It really likes the Fishman system in my Taylor. Where the other acoustic amps I played through sounded like a piezo pickup through an amp, the SWR sounded like I was standing inside the guitar. It could be some other amp is your Holy Grail, but I don't think the SWR will disappoint. Best of luck. Post up what you hear, and your conclusions.-Richie
 
Well she's in love. She ordered it. It'll be here on Wed. so I'll post my review then. Thanks for all the info folks.
 
It's here! I sure hope it sounds as good as it looks! Cool features I didn't know it had.
Balanced line out XLR
Effects loop with a "blend" control on the panel
Tuner send output!!!
The tweeter can be bypassed or -6db drop

Really a beautiful amp. Trial run tonight at practice. I'll post the results.
 
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