Acoustic amps

[Ears]

If I could make a few comments about acoustic amps and amplification. I play solo unaccompanied guitar, no vocals and therefore the reproduction of the pure acoustic guitar characteristic is the highest priority I have.

IMO Piezo pickups are awful. Especially on steelstring guitars, as they all too often distort (especially in chord work) producing a sound that approximates the sound of gravel being shaken in a tin can. I think microphones are the only way to go if you are serious about good tone.

Using microphones open a whole can of worms in problems of feedback and proximity effect, but I think these are surmountable. However you probably have to live with piezos or internal-mic/piezo combination if you perform in high volume stage environments.

For 18 years I've used an Audio Technica gooseneck-mounted lapel condenser mic, externally and non-destructively attached - easily removable, mounted in front of the sound hole. It is very faithful to the guitars real sound. Non destructive mounting was an important consideration to me, internal mounting requires drilling and devaluing an expensive concert instrument.

Rogs first comments re speakers is dead right. Amongst the best gear I have used for gigging is the umbiquitous home stereo, Aiwa in my case; guitar -> mic -> (mic preamp) -> (balanced)karaoke input !
The combination of the horn tweeters, 4" and 8" divers beats instrument speakers hands down.

Having opted for microphone it has always irritated me that every dedicated acoustic guitar amp I've looked at hasn't fully catered for a balanced mic output from the guitar. Mic inputs are often provided but the channels that they drive never have the notch and/or parametric filters and controls so very useful for acoustic guitar equalisation. These options are always reserved for the jack input channel that the manufacturer has deemed to be the "guitar channel" the other channel designed for vocal or backing tracks, although I may have gained enough expertise with a soldering iron over the years to modify this drawback.

[B45-12]

whats with all this acoustic amplification stuff, i thought the whole idea of Acoustic, was that it wasnt plugged in, if your plugged in its electric not acoustic
its as bad as all those albums that came out mid nineties unplugged this and unplugged that... :

Well if you is doing classical or fingerpicking, then a decent amp will allow you to reach good 'audience hearable' levels whithout shredding your fingernails or putting up with fingerpicks - for some reason those are OK on banjo but seem to get in the way of guitar feel. Moreover if, like me, you frequently play 12 string and mostly instrumentals on it, then it's even more important becasue those beasties EAT fingernails given half a chance.

Go listen to Leo Kotke, Robbie Basho, Fred Gerlach or the Aussie buigger (forget his name) if you want to hear the sort of 12 string instrumental music where an amp can be really usefull

[B45-12]

I've used/use pizeo, shadow, Maton AP4 and AP5, martin thinline and Barcus Berry Hotdot transducers on my instruments plus an external mike to capture the 'wet' sound and yes I agree with Ears it's a pain there is no notch filter on accoustic amps for the mic channel - my solution was a graphic equiliser preamp with the mike going to that BEFORE the amp. Mine is an old no name thing from the mid 70's or similar - there was a vogue for them as guitar pre-amp boxes back then, then later as rackmount gear.

As I say though I really appreciate the line out from the amp WITHOUT mic for recording - especially given the drum and bass empahsis of the neighbours stereo rap music - not loud but the thump of the bass really does carry and stuff up recording. Mind you I suppopse it would save doing a click track -

[Ears]

Off topic

<snip>
As I say though I really appreciate the line out from the amp WITHOUT mic for recording - especially given the drum and bass empahsis of the neighbours stereo rap music - not loud but the thump of the bass really does carry <snip>

That monotonous and sometimes barely audible "thrub thrub ...." from post 1980's sub woofer systems just drives me up the wall.
It's like chinese water torture.
It must be the ultimate torture for any musician to be exposed to, it's worse than listening to Kraftwerk.
I've even had to move house and neighborhood to get away from it, and I've once been threatened with arrest over an altercation after having that zub zub z -z - zub zub zub z-z- zub zub -zub z-z going on inescapably in my skull for 14 hours straight.