Crafting Your Signature Acoustic Guitar Sound
This article will discuss why you want to craft your own signature acoustic guitar sound, and how to begin planning and designing your own acoustic guitar rig. Let’s start by taking a look at a couple of common scenarios.
Scenario One: You’ve rehearsed for your upcoming performance dozens of times at home, in your living room or basement. Your acoustic guitar sounds amazing, whether you’re strumming with a pick or playing fingerstyle. You arrive at the venue, plug your acoustic guitar into the house p.a., or electric guitar amplifier, and hit the first chord of your opening number. You’re shocked to hear the sound blasting back at you through the monitor, sounding absolutely nothing like the beautiful, natural acoustic tone you’ve been hearing at home. What happened?
Scenario Two: You strum through that folk song or acoustic rock standard, and the guitar sounds great through the house amplification. The crowd loves it and you’re feeding off that energy. Then you kick into your favorite fingerstyle piece, and you can barely distinguish between the mish-mash of frequencies coming out of the monitor. The sound is so muddy that you have trouble hearing your guitar parts. You get distracted and lose the confidence you had just a few minutes ago. How do you solve this problem?
First, let’s identify the cause of the problem. Each acoustic guitar is unique, as is the playing style of each individual guitarist. And each guitarist may use several playing styles, each requiring different gear settings to produce the ideal tone. If you leave it up to the house sound engineer, you are taking your chances. And chances are he won’t get it right. Read the rest of this entry »
Effects and Processors for Acoustic Guitars
With the right pickup and/or microphone, combined with a great acoustic guitar amp (or PA or recording console), it is certainly possible to faithfully reproduce the sound of your acoustic guitar on stage or in the studio. However, in some situations you may want to modify, add to, or completely alter the natural tone of your acoustic guitar. If you’re playing a long set that features only your acoustic guitar and vocals, you may want to keep things interesting by adding some variations in your acoustic guitar tone for particular songs. When you’re playing with a band, you may want to modify the tone of your acoustic guitar to better blend in with the other instruments, or to cut through a busy mix. When recording in the studio, you may want to create the illusion of playing in a large concert hall, or use your acoustic guitar to sound more like an electric guitar or other instrument.
For these and other tone modifications, you can use effects and/or processors, some of which are designed specifically for use with acoustic guitars. This article presents a brief overview of some of the effects and processors that are commonly used with acoustic guitars. Future articles will look at each of these components in greater detail, including reviews and comparisons of the acoustic guitar gear available on the market today.
In this article, the terms “effects” and “processors” will be used interchangeably. Technically speaking, however, effects are distinguishable from processors as follows: an “effect” is added to the original signal, whereas a “processor” alters the original signal. When using an effect, such as reverb or echo, the original signal is heard along with the effected signal. On the other hand, when using processors such as EQs, phase shifters, and compressors, the processed signal is heard without the original signal.
Acoustic Guitar Amplifiers
One piece of acoustic guitar gear you will definitely want to consider is an acoustic guitar amplifier (“amp”). If you’ll be performing in any venue larger than your living room or back porch, you will probably need to amplify your acoustic guitar if you want it to be heard. It is possible to use an electric guitar amp, or the house PA. However, if you want to get a truly faithful reproduction of your acoustic guitar, while at the same time minimizing feedback, you’ll want a dedicated acoustic guitar amplifier.
The clean channel on an electric guitar amp might be acceptable if you’re playing your acoustic guitar with a band, and you just want to cut through the mix. However, the electric guitar amps will probably sound too tinny, as the high frequencies will be more prominent than the mids and lows. In fact, a keyboard amp will probably offer a more faithful reproduction of the acoustic guitar, since it is designed to reproduce a greater range of frequencies.
There are now a number of acoustic guitar amplifiers available on the market. Most include at least two channels, at least one of which will support an XLR, or microphone, cable. This allows you to combine the signal from an acoustic guitar pickup with that of a microphone. With the two-channel configuration, it is also possible to use the acoustic guitar amp as a mini-PA for solo acoustic performers, using one channel for the acoustic guitar, and the second channel for a vocal microphone. Some amplifiers have built-in effects, such as reverb, EQ, etc. Read the rest of this entry »
Intro to Acoustic Guitar Pickups
If you want to amplify or record your acoustic guitar, the first piece of gear you will need is a transducer –a component to convert the sound of the acoustic guitar to an electrical signal, to send to an amplifier, PA, or recording console. You can use either a pickup or a microphone, or both. This article will present a brief overview of the various types of pickups available for acoustic guitars. Future articles at Acoustic Guitar Gear will provide more detailed reviews and comparisons of specific pickup models.
Generally speaking, a “transducer” is a device that converts one form of energy into another. In the case of an acoustic guitar pickup, the pickup converts magnetic, mechanical, or sound energy into an electrical signal, which is then sent via a cable to the guitar amplifier, P.A. system, or recording console. Additional components may be introduced into the “signal chain” between the guitar and the ultimate destination. For example, you may want to pass the guitar signal through a pre-amp, equalizer, reverb, or other effects or processing unit, before converting the signal back into sound.
There are several types of acoustic guitar pickups: magnetic pickups, contact pickups, and internal mini-microphones. Pickups can be permanently installed in the guitar, or they may be mounted or inserted temporarily. Most guitar manufacturers offer models with pickups installed at the factory. However, many players prefer to purchase an acoustic guitar without a built-in pickup, and then select a pickup and have it installed after market. This allows the guitarist more flexibility to match a particular pickup with a particular guitar, as the guitar manufacturer’s choice of pickup may not be optimal for the individual guitarist’s particular performance requirements.
Welcome to Acoustic Guitar Gear
Acoustic guitars come in a wide variety of shapes and sizes. In broad terms, acoustic guitars can be classified into two main groups: nylon-stringed and steel-stringed. Within these two broad categories, acoustic guitars are further distinguished by their features, such as number of strings (6-string versus 12-string), body shape (dreadnought, jumbo, etc.), and body size (parlor, grand concert, jumbo, etc.).
Your acoustic guitar can generally produce enough volume, even when played without amplification, to be heard by a small audience in your living room, on your front porch, or in a coffee house or similar setting. However, if you want to be heard by larger audiences, if you’re playing with other musicians, or if you want to record your acoustic guitar, you’re going to need some extra equipment, or “gear”. At a minimum, you will need: (i) a transducer, such as a pickup or a microphone, to convert the mechanical sound waves into an electrical signal; (ii) a “lead”, or cable, to carry the signal from the pickup or guitar; and (iii) an amplifier, PA, or recording console, to convert the electrical signal back into sound and either (a) broadcast the sound to your live audience, or (b) capture the sound to a recording.
This is the first in a series of articles to be presented right here on Acoustic Guitar Gear to explore the different options you have for recording and performing with an acoustic guitar. We will discuss the various styles of acoustic guitars (and electro-acoustic guitars) and how to select and purchase one. We will look at different pickup and microphone options, including the option of using a combination of a pickup and a microphone. We will also review and compare the many possibilities for amplifying and recording your acoustic guitar. And, of course, we will also take a look at optional acoustic guitar accessories such as capos, tuners, preamps, and processors.
In addition to exploring the world of acoustic guitar gear, we will also discuss various aspects of playing the acoustic guitar. Topics will include fingerstyle guitar playing, alternate guitar tunings, and the history of the acoustic guitar and related acoustic stringed instruments. Please check back often for interesting and informative articles, and to contribute your own comments and observations.