Acoustic Guitars and effects

  • Thread starter Thread starter dmakfan
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dmakfan

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Hey guys,

Is there anything wrong (electrically) with using pedals for an electric guitar on my electro-acoustic guitar? Someone at the guitar store told me to watch out for feedback issues that could be damaging to the guitar... I dunno if I believe him, but I also don't want to smell any smoke coming from my pickup :)

Thanks,
D
 
If your to loud you'll have some feedback issues but you can do it. One trick is to stuff the gitfiddle with some cloth than again iffin yer not to loud you dont have to worry. Cheers Gag
 
Huh? Feedback issues that could damage the guitar?

Sure, if the stage volume is high and you have an internal mic. But that has nothing to do with pedals or effects - it has to do with putting an acoustic instrument in the middle of a high SPL kind of loop. If that becomes a problem, try a soundhole baffle (like a bottle stopper - "feedback buster").

The big issue with boxes and pedals will be sound - you will get stuff that is less and less acoustic sounding and progressively less controllable. You may also run into impedance issues, in that the signal from most pedals is pretty high impedance, and the one you begin with from a guitar direct out is usually somewhat lower impedance, except for straight undersaddle transducers. You start heading for generally lower quality sound and incrementally greater noise when you add a cascade of stomp boxes.

I have loads of fun with an octave box and my acoustic, but I don't pretend that it has anything like the tone I paid all that money for. For that I want "clean and cleaner"- a volume pedal and a small EQ perhaps, but otherwise right into a direct box, a balanced cable and into the mixing board.
 
Choris sounds great with acoustic guitar. Try it with lots of depth and regeneration but turn the speed and delay almost all the way down. This should make the sound fuller and a little brighter.
 
Maybe the store dude meant that an overdrive or a distortion that feedback could occur, but NOBODY want that on an accoustic guitar!!

You might get into slight difficulties when you plug your active output into a Hi-Z input, such as on a stompbox.

Is your guitar equiped with a preamp?? This MIGHT be an issue.

I used to use an old ZOOM 9030 which had an Hi-Z and a Low-Z input, both worked well, but the Low-Z jack was at the back, so I used that!

EZP
 
The only way it will damage ur guitar is if u have a mic interal mic in ur guitar! But the feed back from this can be sorted easily! Juts get one of these rubber things and bung it in the acoutic hole in ur guitar simple! I u have problems grab ur self a Behringer shark! They are very usful for getting rid of feed back check out www.behringer.de
 
The only way it will damage ur guitar is if u have a mic interal mic in ur guitar!
Click to expand...

CRAZY, that's BS! (can I say BS??) My seagull is equiped with an piezo pickup and a preamp only, and when I experience feedback, I know that that's not a good thing for my guitar! All transducers can cause feedback (at exessive levels) and that feedback can hurt your guitar. The only feedback which is not destructive is when a magnetic coil pick-up gets to close to the coil of the speaker, causing a very high mic-like feedback. An acoustic guitar should be resistant to this!

EZP
 
Whats wrong with distortion on an acoustic? Ever hear Lou Reed? I know it generally sounds like shit but dont rule anything out.

Best effects for acoustic are Reverb, Delay, and Chorus (then maybe some distortion :p ).
 
Question....

Exactly how do you think feedback is going to damage your guitar?

This thread reminds me of when we were playing the college circuit a few years ago. We did this one song that ended in a ripping guitar solo, but both I and my rythm player were both using acoustic guitars for the rest of the song. So I ran an A/B box off of my Martin D-18 I was using at the time, with a Fishman acoustic Matrix. I hit it and at the end of the song, ran the signal through an Ampeg Tri-Axis head with the gain cranked. The sound was wicked, and it shocked everyone to see me playing an acoustic, and hearing this screaming electric solo. It didn't take long to set it up so that I could handle the feedback it would get...just a little tweaking the eq and such.

It was fun, we got a kick out of it.

Anyways, I've used a few effects on acoustic in the past, the best are rack mount units, since they are quieter and generally higher quality. I do have a DOD Acous-Tec, which if fun to play around with, but I never use recording or playing live.

H2H
 
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