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'properly' acoustic...


Duende

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At the end of the day its about ensuring your music / performance is heard at its best. If that means amplification then you have to do it.

 

You can be as purist as you like, but if half the audience cannot hear then whats the point. You do what you have to do based on the venue.

 

But I do get the point about people destroying the sound with pedal after pedal etc..... acoustic guitar amplification should be subtle unless of course you are after particular effects.

 

Madman Greg

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+1 Greg.

 

As you say, it's more important to have your audience hear you than be a tone purist who can only play to a handfull of people in a small room. I'd certainly rather play to a crowd of 100-150 drinkers with a fair bit of ambient noise being drowned out by my as100d and the PA, than half a dozen people in a coffee shop.

 

What I've compromised in tone I've gained in payment and opportunity for more gigs.

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My guess is that without amplification there would be a lot less 'acoustic nights' in city centre pubs and clubs.... perhaps not so much difference for classical/worship based stuff, but general 'open mic' stuff would be very different indeed.

 

 

I think you've hit the nail on the head there - It is absolutely necessary for certain situations for sure! My wife and I run a guitar society which always has an open mic the first half. We have never told/encouraged people in the audience to be quiet, but they are just as good as gold. Who ever plays, whether it is a complete beginner or an acoustic veteran, the performer is watched by people who are just fascinated with guitar and hardly make a sound. You still get guys though, who come and do a set who bring the whole kabang!![scared][biggrin] One guy for a 20 by 80 foot room brings a PA, A Boss multi effects unit and even has a sound man. I kid you not! He is really good too but likes having all sorts of affects on his vocals and guitar.

 

re the opening post I made,

 

I was fascinated in the original clip I posted, as the idea of the house concert is something that appeals to me greatly. The nylon guitar in the romantic period was used in house concert settings and I think it is a lovely tradition that seems to have come back, It is just really personal and intimate.

 

I do quite like the sound of a good mic amplifying an acoustic guitar, but as long as it sounds still like an acoustic guitar

 

Matt

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p.s

 

p.s this is my 'acoustic' I use if I am playing with my friend. We do some pub gigs playing blues and 60's/70's rock. (I use this and a Grestch 6120 for the heavier stuff)

Amplified, it sounds better than my 'proper' classical guitars, a truly awesome and inexpensive little thing [thumbup] People are quite surprised how good it sounds!3965-Yamaha-SLG120-Silent-Nylon__76178_zoom.jpg

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The guys I listen to - Lightnin' Hopkins, Elmore James, Lonnie Johnson and all, of course, had no choice but to play unamplfied. But when they came back during the folk music revival and the technology was there they jumped on it. As Rev. Davis once said, they have to be able to hear you at the back of the church.

 

The way I see it - pickup, amps and all are musical instruments as well. You have to put some thought into what you choose and be set up and dialed in to get sounds out of them.

 

I play sans electronics quite a bit. My guitars (which are all old and so are not decked out with onboard pickups, preamps, or any of that stuff) but they are loud and nobody has ever accused me of having a light touch. But there are times when I want the sound I get from a DeArmond 210 pickup slapped across the soundhole and plugged into a Supro tube amp - especially for slide. Other times plugging into a PADI preamp and the P.A. is the way to go.

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p.s

 

p.s this is my 'acoustic' I use if I am playing with my friend. We do some pub gigs playing blues and 60's/70's rock. (I use this and a Grestch 6120 for the heavier stuff)

Amplified, it sounds better than my 'proper' classical guitars, a truly awesome and inexpensive little thing [thumbup] People are quite surprised how good it sounds!3965-Yamaha-SLG120-Silent-Nylon__76178_zoom.jpg

OK, Matthew, now that you have teased us, tell us more about this creature. Because I travel and work constantly, I am always on the lookout for a more "portable" instrument that sounds something like a guitar. Yeah, I've got a little Martin backpacker, but have you ever listened to one, or tried to play it?

 

On the "to amp or not to amp" question, we have always recognized that some form of amplification--both of the voice and the guitar accompanying it--is essential in venues that are not well-designed for music. This includes outdoors, as well as bars and clubs. We have some pretty crude historical aphorisms about the problems associated with performing in bars and clubs. Outdoors, the sound literally vanishes into thin air about 10 metres from the performer.

 

Generally, however, we sound professionals in those days (I'm talking the late 60s and early 70s here, and folk and folk-rock performances, not straight full-blown rock) used to concentrate on amplifying both instruments (the guitar and the voice) without significantly altering their character. Mind you, I had a fairly early analog concert-mixing board with built-in spring reverb for the voice channels, but I used it sparingly, either for special effects on some songs or to offset the natural attentuation of the lousy concert microphones we could afford back then. I remember the first practical inexpensive condenser mic's (Sennheiser, as I recall) as a gift from heaven.

 

What bugs me is the total alteration of the sound of an acoustic guitar through effects. Call me old-fashioned. I expect to do that with a "pure" electric instrument like one of my ES 335s, but not with a bloody acoustic guitar.

 

Actually, I play my ES 335s through a little Fender Champion 600, which isn't much larger than a lunch box. The only control on it is volume. For tone, you depend completely on the guitar's pickup controls. That's about as pure as sound as you can get for an electric. Call it "roots" stuff, if you want. And yes, you can get pretty neat tube upgrades for those little boogers that really make you pay attention. It's amazing what you can do with five watts, a pair of '57 humbuckers, and a couple of bumble bee caps.

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on the purity vs non purity thing, I can totally relate to the posts submitted, however, aren't we always looking for something new and exciting? There are many great performers out there, but it still shines through when you see something that's really 'new'.

 

Fans of acoustics will always have a soft spot for small intimate gigs and a pure sound, but equally I'd be fairly impressed to see someone in a bigger show do something really slick with an acoustic even if that meant embracing effects. I'm not talking wah wah and real course effects where it sounded like a processed hell.... but it's amazing what folk can do with compression, delay and reverb, while the core of the acoustic sound is still there (albeit now processed) the tone has changed to take into account the effects and as such a new sound is caught with it, if that in turn is applied to a piece of new music that we really like it's deemed 'to work', if it's something we don't like it 'doesn't work', like everything else unquantifiable about music, it often is as simple as taste....

 

I seen a guy years ago do something amazing with an acoustic guitar, he used two pickups on it, almost like a home made j-160e if you will... and a stopper/damper for the bass strings, he had that Brian Setzer rockabilly sound coming from his dampened bass strings, but the fact he used a damper rather than his hand freed him to do wicked stuff with the G, B & e strings... did it sound more electric, yes for sure but only on the A, A, D, but more importantly the crowd was wow'd by him and it sounded ace, the treble strings still had that acoustic from an acoustic pickup sound mixed with this rumbling slapback bass from the E, A & D. It was awesome, he was no spring-chicken either, he must have been 50 10 or more years ago...

 

Ive never figured out how he did it unless both pickups were on and one was only amplifying the E,A & D and the other picking up the acoustic sound. It was superb, but before the days of smartphones and youtube.

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As Rev. Davis once said, they have to be able to hear you at the back of the church.

 

Of course, he also said "The electric guitar, you're just playing electricity." So I count him as a member of the YGBHBKYAATANAP* Club.

 

-- Bob R

 

* You Gotta Be Heard, But Keep Your Amplified Acoustic Tone As Natural As Possible

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