Recording acoustic guitar with a piezo pickup

[TalismanRich]

Sometimes when I listen to a piezo system, it reminds me almost of a bit of resonator sound with some guitar mixed in.

Yeah, if you want it to sound just like your plain guitar, well, it ain't. It's not a microphone, and it's pulling it's sound from a completely different perspective being triggered by the saddle, not a big piece of vibrating wood and air.

 

[Scott Baxendale]

It's funny that everyone dumps on sound of piezo systems, but I've got quite a few videos of people like Stephen Stills and Eric Clapton playing acoustic guitars with that obvious piezo sound. Granted they don't sound like a mic'd up guitar, but you might just consider it as it's own sound. Just as electrifying archtops in the 40s didn't sound like the plain archtop, and the electric guitars didn't sound like the archtops with pickups, maybe we need to consider them as their own sound.

It won't be the first time. A Hammond doesnt' sound like a pipe organ, a Vox Continental didn't sound like a Hammond which doesn't sound like a Wurlitzer, etc, etc. Even different pickup systems don't sound the same. My Taylor sounds different from my Dean. They are both different from Martin.

Don't give up on them, consider them another brush in the paint box.

That obvious piezo sound ruins any decent acoustic guitar performance, in my opinion. It sounds like it was made by Mattel….Or sh*t….

Amplifying acoustic guitars on a big stage is one of the hardest things to get right. One thing that really helps is to substitute a tube mic preamp in place of the standard direct box, then split that signal and run the XLR out to the PA and the 1/4” out to a small tube amp that is also mic’d. Then add a small amount of slap back delay in the small amp. This, KISS, method will transform that quanky midrange sound into a big easy to manage acoustic sound onstage. The tube in the preamp kills most of the quack and gives a natural tube compression that makes it fit in the live sound mix much better.

I carry a $99 DBX Tube mic preamp in my gig bag for this very purpose. I am using the K&K mini pickup, which is three small piezo transducers glued to the bridge plate. It uses no batteries and is the most non-invasive pickup you can buy. It adds no weight to the body of the guitar like many other brands. If you can afford a $1500 Avalon U1 then you are in heaven…,but The sound difference between nothing and the $99 preamp is far greater than the sound difference between the $99 preamp and the $1500 preamp.

The ART Tube MP, or the Presonus version all work great. You ban buy the ART for $50.