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TC Electronics "Play Acoustic"


BluesKing777

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Wow. I don't think I'd want one, but I'd sure love to fiddle around with one! I wonder if it works with the Baggs Lyric? One downside for me would be having to play with a UST. Icky. Suppose one could mic along with it. The zombie invisible backup singers wouldn't need to hear the guitar mic, just the UST (which could be turned down) and the vocal mic.

 

Can't wait to see YouTube demos of it. I want to see how it sounds with other types of songs and with singers who are not perky gals. :P

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Of course, if you overdo the effects it will get boring for an audience after 3 tunes, so have just enough effect on guitar and vocal to give it body.

 

Handy size for a little gig bag, eh? I was keen on an early G Natural guitar processor from them and saw the harmony gadget and now glad I held out for this puppy!

 

 

 

BluesKing777.

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I bought the farm! Taties and all!

 

No, I bought the gadget and it is cool! It has, as promised, some presets to get you happening immediately and a ....gulp...settings menu to delve into next year.

 

I rang a local shop that advertised it for max price, probably would have paid close to that to save the drive all the way to the shop that actually had it! They had it listed $121 cheaper and I said..take it and he took another $80 off! Put it in the car and headed to an acoustic guitar shop close by that had Santa Cruz and Martins, no Gibsons. Played a SC rose dread that sounded like my D28, but about 3 times the price. Played a OM18 Authentic, superb...and then the star of the day, a Brazilian 1969 D35. Selling the potato farm!!! Wow! $8K!!! Worth 2x that. wonderful warm dread!

 

 

 

BluesKing777... Back to gadget testing....

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Buy with a good 100%/no-questions return policy. The Harmony Singer just wasn't working for me at all. I had mentioned the queasiness-inducing when searching for the harmony line effect I had experienced with the H. Singer in Sal's thread where he'd done some experimenting with a Bruce cover, "I'm on Fire".

 

Jesse, in researching reviews on the Harmony Singer, some had made mention that they were able to get the unit to "read" the correct harmony line with mic alone. Designed for use with guitar input, instructions suggest a slow strum first to allow a good read on the key for the TC box to harmonize to.

 

If nothing more, the Harmony Singer taught the lesson of what was appealing to the ear with real human harmonies; the soft high-lonesome, coming up/in to the harmony note, and occasionally following a bit behind the beat. The human factor.

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I think this one is supposed to be simpler, Sal...you know for the....dopey acoustic guitarist singer! [mellow] Hence it is called the 'Play Acoustic'

 

Worth every cent for a performing solo guitarist!

 

 

I have played around a lot more since I last spoke...... I could survive doing a gig with the BodyRez effect that adds fullness and takes the quack from USPs in guitars, but I just patched in my Fishman Aura Spectrum into the guitar input and NOW we ate talking beautiful guitar sound. I had previously downloaded some Custom Aura images for my J45, L-00 BK, 000-15...superb really.

 

 

But the vocal presets and extras are great on the TC unit! Given myself a RSI type strain from button pushing with my left hand while holding the guitar with right! Rest up til tomorrow.

 

 

BluesKing777

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It is great, isn't it?

 

 

The big plus is the obvious quality tone of the vocal sound and guitar together in the easy to dial presets.

 

A couple of low points, but there is always a catch, isn't there? Big one being the skinny and short power lead and country adapter would last about 3 seconds if you used it for gigging - proper power chord needed.

 

It is mainly a 'fun' item, and using the effects too much would be monotonous, well to me, after the second song.

 

But leaving the more 'unnatural' sounds out, you have a great separate tone for acoustic guitar and vocal with easy presets for a working combination of reverb, delay, compression and all that is needed to help get a great sound. It would probably be better to delete the stupid before it gets used! People that have the rows of equipment it copies will turn their nose up, until they need to take that to a gig or a friend's.....

 

The pros don't need this stuff because they have their pros working the sound, but some might consider.... The rest of us turn up at Lousy Bob Cafe for the gig or open mic and get handed a basic mic for guitar and another for vocal, all run flat in the budget mixer with some reverb a la toilet. Your voice sounds like Bob and your expensive Gibson sounds like a Taylor and away you go!

 

So for now, more to come maybe, I would be extremely pleased at a little bar gig or even a big event, to have a couple of those presets ready to go. I wouldn't feel comfortable doing anything 'fake' like triple vocal backing or even looping, at the purist blues night......but the gadget would sure be handy for some reverb, plus having a D.I. of the sound you practiced at home ready to hand to a soundman with a lead or 2 ready for you....and hopefully a close power point!

 

 

(I know a couple of the local open mics and a popular blues night DON'T have a stage multicore and connections - just a budget mixer off the side of the stage....so if you turned up there hoping to use your new gadget, you would be playing from the corner next to the mixer! And the crowd would be scratching their heads at your stage placement!).

 

So you would need a power extension cord and 2 long mic leads and 2 xlr to pmg adapters and...and....

 

 

BluesKing777.

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Me again!

 

Spent a lot of time diddling with various settings. Reading manual. No way around that one. Updated firmware via a supplied usb lead, and loaded the extra preset packages from the site. Missed a step and when I retreated to my music room, no new bits.

 

Took a ride on the pushbike and ate a roll and drank a coffee. Did all that update stuff again with an extra step that worked.

 

Plugged in my 2010 Gibson J45 Standard with Baggs Element and got all kinds of weird noises, new battery should be ok - guitar lead kaput. Oh Oh, I haven't bought a guitar lead this century! Got a freebie recently that didn't work. Rummage through some boxes to get a guitar lead and an XLR lead to hook the TC to mixer and Mac etc.

 

All hooked up and recorded a mono test track decided by the preset name....Norwegian.....something.... Will have to rummage through more stuff for the bag of mic leads so I can run stereo to the mixer and record.

 

It looks like Dr Franken has been in my music room now > guitar>lead>Fishman Aura> lead> TCE Play Acoustic> mic/lead >mic > xlr out> mixer > Mac....all with power leads. So much for simple acoustic guitar/vocal.... :mellow: :mellow: :mellow:

 

But what fun!

 

Long ways from the day I fronted up for a solo set while my band had a break and even though I was the only one playing, the people out front heard me loud and clear in a big PA, but for me it was like some weird kind of miming - the foldback is useless with a mic'd Dobro! Never get any level! Sounded like I was playing in a washing machine.

 

Never recovered from those weird gigs 30 years ago and the main reason I love all this new stuff. Money is the only limit for people playing now.

 

Oh, and another guitarist use to drop by to watch just asked me the other week what was the best way to mic his National for his solo set.........Oh man oh man we guitarists never learn... [cursing]

 

 

BluesKing777.

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A few more days later - I had to work...rats...but spend some time after work doodling.

 

Having loads of fun experimenting with this puppy!

 

 

Great that I can run my Fishman Aura in to it. it makes my J45 sound truly superb.

 

 

Not all my guitars have pickups, but I have a Seymour Duncan Soundhole pickup to slip in those without.... Not all my guitars have the sound images from Fishman Aura....not much to do there except use a 'similar' type guitar image, but that is not as nice.

 

 

Here is a video with a few more details from Andertons Music:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

BluesKing777.

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Wouldn't want to try the body res without an Aura (and don't have a Fishman UST to use the Aura)...

 

...but I wonder if I could just get a pedal with the body rest alone to try on my Lyric. Or I wonder if there's a better solution. All these DI boxes and stuff are more expensive than the pickup! :P

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They do sell a stompbox Body Rez.

 

But where the main unit above is better, it has a combo of BodyRez, compressor, delay and reverb set for acoustic guitars and the..ahem....hands up........dopier players that have no clue on setting a compressor etc.

 

So my beautiful Aura'd J45 is also going through those other effcts. I liked the strumming sound through the pedal, really great, but I liked a bit more for solo notes and enter Fishman!

 

And then add some megalomaniacal egoist triple vocals to brighten up a dull day! You wont hear me, but I have liked them...secretly.... It is a vocal unit with ability to plug basic acoustic guitar.

 

 

 

BluesKing777.

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I'm gonna open a shop in here.

Some of you are worse than my wife

 

 

Moonshine? Chips?

 

Have a look at Normans Rare Guitar youtubes if you want to see a shop - just a forest of guitars! Hard to call them rare when you can't move for guitars - I wonder where the cases are?

 

 

Congrats Sal, you will love it, but 64 is probably right about too much fakey harmony - but I am going to go do some more right now. More fun than processing Zombie files all day on the rubbish laptop they gave me! But I dont think anyone will get to hear my egoist megamaniac psycho killer doors lennon eagles elvis version of Roadhouse Blues - not for human consumption, but headphoned we are!

 

Hope Sal is not hoping to use it at the gig Friday - 1. Probably wont have it 2. Probably figuring the manual out still 3. Have to buy new guitar and mic leads in and OUT. 4. Would have to dcide exactly which preset of the multitude PLUS more on the website when you register to update firmware....all that. 5. I have been using mine since Saturday so am available to do that Friday gig!!! 6. What do you look like in black stockings like the girl singer in the video?

 

 

BluesKing777.

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1440488301[/url]' post='1688120']

Good luck with that. Hope it works better for you than it did for me.

 

I'll see if I can dial in minimally.. I definitely respect your opinion... It's just losing out to my curiosity now. :)

And no using it on a gig for probably months... Gotta learn it.

And no skirt for me... I'm a blue suit guy. I see myself kind of lik downey junior

 

Http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gj_BbsOp7wY

 

 

 

 

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Aside from a good weekend singing like the chipmunks and robots , wouldnt for example a baggs venue di box do the same as this thing ?

 

I'm looking forward to you two guys (ad anyone else's) reviews and samples of these thingies.

I know there are YouTube videos already but I don't trust them. And the little pretty girl in the promo didn't float my boat , musically speaking.

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How about that weird European guy on all the TC Electronics ads. He upsets me a little, but I do have a fever. I woke up thinking I was a guitar tuner.

 

I think the Venue DI is about the same price but doesn't have the bells and whistles or ads with little guitar girls and European men. Para DI is about half the cost tho?

 

It all looks way too complicated but then again 30 minutes ago I found it reasonable that I was a guitar tuner.

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