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Semi acoustic, hollow body and archtop distortion


houndman55

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Hey,

 

A really big request. Could someone please, please make a youtube video with a gibson (or any other brand for that matter) semi acoustic of hollow body with really high distortion so I can hear what that kind of feedback sounds like. I've seen articles about it being a problem (duh) that if you want to play hard rock, metal etc. yer gonna get feedback but since I don't own any semi acoustic guitars I can't test it out myself (I'm broke). And if you can't/won't do it could someone please post a link if they know any videos or songs were this type of feedback occurs.

 

Thank for reading,

 

houndman55

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There's also early YES with Steve Howe..

 

 

It's a matter of physics, at some point you're going to have to deal with feedback if you're lookin to rock out hollow body style of course I think this is all within reasonable limits.

 

I don't think you can ever expect a hollow body to go to the extremes for volume overdrive and gain. then again, why would you take something like a Brydland, or an ES175 (using Ted and Steve as an example) and try to make it sound like a chainsaw? I don't think these guitars are made to do metal... Some may disagree but, I just don't see why you would WANT to do that?

 

at the end of the day, I think the better you pups, the more you will have control. I've got a Swingster Royale that can go just about anywhere (Blues/Rock mind you), I had a Joe Pass Emperor II which is the same body size as the Swingster. (it was a late 80s with crappy MIK pups) that guitar would feed back as soon as you looked at the amps volume control.

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The original questions states "semi acoustic" twice. I take this to mean semi-hollow "Thinlines", which by design, are made to reject feedback.

 

I've plated either a Gibson ES-335, or 345, for 35 years with no feedback problems (regardless of clean tone, or distorted). Feedback is not directly related to guitar tone (clean or dirty), it is simply a function of VOLUME.

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semi acoustic of hollow body

 

I read this as semi acoustic or hollow body

 

Center blocks go a long way to preventing feedback and you can push them a bit more, and yea, volume is the issue.

 

semi or no semi, I think you're still going to have issues if your lookin to Dime Bag Daryl it.

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Thinline hollowbodies just resonate at higher frequencies than full-depth acoustics of similar shape. Pickups mounted to the top may resonate with it relative to the strings and exacerbate feedback problems. The center block of a semi-hollow/semi-solid guitar will dampen or virtually mute top and back resonances.

 

Howver, with respect to feedback, solidbodies are farther ahead than magnetic pickups could ever prove. Just for fun I used solidbody piezo signals at extreme gain and volume settings. As a matter of course, body noise through fretting and plucking would blow any bass guitar or bass drum - one may start to fear for the speakers -, but that's not the point here. I had no feedback trouble with gain and volume settings making state-of-the-art magnetic pickups in same state-of-the-art solidbodies uncontrollable.

 

This is even more amazing because piezos put out way higher levels than the hottest magnetics. Therefore the midrange, although scooped by the EQ'd circuits, is about same level as e. g. provided by 498T or Dirty Fingers. Piezo levels are attenuated in real life when adapting them to whatever magnetic pickup at unity gain. Piezos are far less prone to feedback than magnetics, and the "sustain" through amp overdrive is beyond any reason.

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