J-45 electronics

[livemusic]

My 2010 J-45 has a factory pickup. L R Baggs Element? I wonder if players find it to be just acceptable or exceptional. I think mine sounds good and I don't notice a bad piezo quack but always willing to consider something else. Or to augment with an additional one. Anyone have an opinion? Anyone changed theirs to something else?

 

I also have an Aura Spectrum DI, need to try it with the J-45.

[EuroAussie]

I was about to add get the Aura Spectrum DI ... but you alredy have that !

 

I think the spectrum really adds to the warmth of the tone and takes almost all piezo quack. I have mostly fishman UST pups but it should also work fine with the element.

[blindboygrunt]

my 2006 j45 has the fishman pickup , finally got to plug it in for a gig a couple of weeks ago and was very impressed . i have no soundhole volume which i miss a little for switching to plectrums needs a bit less volume . but the sound had a lovely tone .

this spectrum di thing.... and forgive my ignorance , the guitarist i gig with is the expert on the speakers and u just plug in and sing the songs . we go through a little behringer board so i am taking a guess here and saying that the spectrum is for guys who go through an amplifier ? i read that EA uses an amp . so the spectrum is just a little thing for tweaking your sound ?

thanks

[livemusic]

my 2006 j45 has the fishman pickup , finally got to plug it in for a gig a couple of weeks ago and was very impressed . i have no soundhole volume which i miss a little for switching to plectrums needs a bit less volume . but the sound had a lovely tone .

this spectrum di thing.... and forgive my ignorance , the guitarist i gig with is the expert on the speakers and u just plug in and sing the songs . we go through a little behringer board so i am taking a guess here and saying that the spectrum is for guys who go through an amplifier ? i read that EA uses an amp . so the spectrum is just a little thing for tweaking your sound ?

thanks

 

It shapes the tone with acoustic images of actual guitars recorded in a studio. Plus, serves as a DI.

 

http://www.fishman.com/product/aura-spectrum-di

[EuroAussie]

The specutrum is quite a few things in one. First a DI box, secondly and EQ but most imortantly it holds what Fishman call 'images' whci is designed to blend with the tone of your guitar to provide a mike like tone, clear without quack. Its not an image shaping device as much.

 

Basically fishman recorded thorugh a mike hundreds of guitars and prepared 'images' of these. So if you have a J-45 you download the J-45 image, blend it with the UST pickup and you get a more natural, mike like tone.

 

Here is a clip where I blended a J-50 image and used it on my AL SJ, pretty natural, quack free tone in my book.

 

[blindboygrunt]

ok , i went to youtube and watched the tutorial , i dont think it does anything that i cant already do except the imaging thing and when he does the demo i think it sounds better with it switched off

i am ignorant about all this stuff so theres a massive chance stuff has just went over my head :-D

[blindboygrunt]

cheers EA . we mustve been typing at same time . whatever you're doing it sounds great .

i have to admit i was a little panicky about plugging the gibson in after reading about quacky pickups , but like i said it sounded great with just a hint of reverb i think is all was on it

[Mojorule]

I've only played mine through a Zinky's Smokey (just to check it works), and the VHT Special 6 I bought myself for Christmas. Obviously sounded like a giant raspberry through the Smokey, but through the VHT it sounded really nice. Evidently you're not supposed to put acoustic electrics through single-ended valve amps, but actually it didn't sound electric, and there appeared to be no serious quack. Kept clean the valves just rounded out the tone a bit. I can't really imagine ever seriously gigging with this set up as the amp would be breaking up if it were turned up to a point where it were significantly louder than the guitar's acoustic output. On the other hand, I mainly fingerpick, and there might just be situations where a little added volume might just work to get above background noise when doing delicate stuff - even small rooms can get noisy. I think that the point is more that I wouldn't be too afraid to try out the Woody with my Fender Pro if a bit more volume were needed. I note that Anne S has an aversion to using electric amps with acoustic pups, as does Jackson Browne in one long discussion of his decision to have the Trance Audio system fitted to his sig model. I don't feel that the element brings out the best in the valve amp, or that the valve amp plays to pure acoustic tone, but I like the growl of my Gibson, and I'm not sure I've heard any plugged-in recordings online which really capture that through any form of PA or amp. Some recordings of guitars with the Fishman system still sound tinny and quacky to my ears, while some DI recordings of J45s I've heard sound pretty close to the acoustic tone, just not quite with the full-on growl (or bass thump). Anyways, I'm not sure that the valve amp really makes the amplified tone signficantly less true to the acoustic tone than some acoustic amps. Which brings me to a question that perhaps Matt Sear can answer. Matt has a Vox acoustic amp that incorporates a valve. If the usual properties of valve amps are not supposed to be compatible with acoustic guitar amplification, what does that valve do?