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1949 Dearmond FHC on a 1951 Gibson Super 300 - a little Empress ParaEQ / Catalinbread Talisman Plate Reverb sounds mighty like the natural/naked acoustic sound to my ears.
Will
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12-09-2018 09:06 PM
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This guy gets a pretty convincing acoustic sound from an archtop with magnetic pickup, and sounds pretty good soloing as well.
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The reason I asked is because I think the DPA might be a bit tighter so might be less susceptible to feedback.
Originally Posted by BBGuitar
My cellist friend gets a great sound with the mic in ideal conditions, but it can be problematic in noisy environments and echoey rooms.
I’d also wonder about drums.
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Another possibility are contact mics like the Schertler Dyn-G and the AKG C411?
Anyone worked with those on an archtop?
Also can a Fishman Aura make a piezo on an archtop sound ok?
The biggest problem is really that no one gives a crap about archtop players who aren’t the 90% who are happy with the magnetic sound. While a plethora of nice sounding and feedback resistant solutions exist for flattop guitars, we are pretty limited in our options.
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My impression is that what you’re hearing as he plays rhythm is the acoustic sound, basically unamplified. Then the solo comes and he just raises the volume. Dream situation. I had a wonderful afternoon like that playing with a double bass and trombone. My Loar was perfectly audible, at just the right level, acoustically, and when my solo came I just had to turn up the FHC through a tiny 5F1 champ for great tone. Originally Posted by sgosnell
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You can do it with a drummer too - if you find the right drummer:
I'm happy with this - to me this the right level for the guitar.
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Watching the other videos, I'm pretty sure he's using the amp, but not loud, for comping. He's not going to get much acoustic volume out of an L5CES. But lower the pickups and the volume control, and it's not a bad sound. It also helps, of course, to have horn players of that caliber.
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what you sexy young things need is something like this. plug whatever you got in there, and use a low pass filter to cut out low feedback (howls) and a notch filter for the higher feedback (squeals). easy. takes two seconds. especially mandatory if you want to use a mic. i prefer an analog product with knobs that you could adjust easily, but digital eq works just as well if you have the patience for that.
i'll plug my g400 with a floating kent armstrong into this and any other pedal i've got into a pa, acoustic amp, electric amp or into a preamp/interface and it'll always sound pretty great. not exactly that acoustic sound, but awesome none the less.
i might also suggest some kind of dual-source setup, combining a mic with something else, and keeping the mic as low and controlled as possible for the space you're in while leaning on the other source for most of your sound. as a rule, the louder you need to be, the less mic you can roll into your sound. that's how it works with my flat tops, anyway.
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built-in compressor, transposable tuner, pre/post di, low cut/high pass filter, foot switchable boost (that you can set the level for), defeatable notch filter, guitar/bass eq curves... not sure exactly. i've never used the baggs or anything else. it's a rare one-stop box that is actually worth owning. it does more than most might need, but it doesn't saddle you with useless extras like chorus or digital effects or tone band-aids like you'd get from tc electronic or boss or whoever else. analog, 9v battery powered, works with your power supply, and knocks a few things off your board (or is your entire board, if need be).
i'm not saying you guys need that specific box, per se (though i have one and love it and use it with electrics, acoustics, archtops and bass), but the concept. sweepable mids, high pass filters, notch filters and such. the filters to fight feedback and the parametric mids to attack the quack, and give you a more natural sound. plenty of boxes could do it: empress eq, tech 21 q strip, probably the lr baggs venue, too. one of the grace boxes if you are super rich.
another cool thing about a box like that is that it not only "fixes" your guitar sound, but you could go the other way and use it to fix a backline amp that is ass, too. or something in between. or forgo the crappy backline amp and go straight to the front of house. or use it for direct recordings as your "amp", or your tone stack when you plug into your interface or preamp. i've found several neat ways to use it, and that's why i use it with almost all of my setups/amps/pedal boards.
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Here it is with the band at last years Christmas concert. That's me in the back. Different guitar than the one pictured with the mike, that one was stolen and replaced. If you listen for it, it makes it's presents known. It is how I see/hear a big band rhythm guitar. Originally Posted by BBGuitar
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I can't say that I have had the same experience with an AER/mic combo - it's been one of the most friendly amps I've ever used with a mic. Either with a DPA or AT831b, I've found it to be more feedback resistant than I would've expected. Originally Posted by christianm77
However, the biggest issue with feedback isn't the amp brand or model; it's whether the mic is picking up the output of the speakers. The first thing to look for is preventing excess low end (the "howls" as someone else put it). Low end is omni directional, so it can foil even good placement. So, if you put the mic over the f-hole, you're going to putting out a ton of low end that is begging for feedback no matter what you do. Similarly, if the board/pre-amp/amp has a bass cut switch, use it. And so many sound people, bass players, etc. are used to using subs - making bass you can "feel" - and at least in the kind of music where an acoustic archtop would be appropriate, you don't need that much bass. If there's excess bass frequencies floating around on stage, turn them down.
Second, I would argue that speaker placement is key. If the output is pointing at the face of your guitar, the top will simply reflect that signal back into the mic - FEEDBACK, and generally the "squeals". So, I always place monitors to the side - generally to my left. If you're a right handed player, the guitar body is closer to the right side and the mic (as I place it), is also closed to the right side, so I avoid having a monitor to my right.
If you can avoid re-amplifying excess omni-directional bass, and then avoid aiming the monitor signal so that it reflects back into the mic (off the top of the guitar) or otherwise resonates the guitar body, you've really done 90% of the work.
Finally, look - there's a point at which the ambient noise of room makes all of this impossible. And there are volume levels at which it becomes impossible. I've been places where the sound of the room reflecting off the face of the guitar is seriously competing with the acoustic sound output of the guitar. And there's no magic that will ever fix that.
And as last aside - I really BELIEVE in the mission of keeping acoustic archtops "acoustic". Part of my artistic raison d'etre is making acoustic archtops viable - one of the reasons I even started being a bandleader 16 years ago was because I don't believe it's acceptable to use an electric guitar in a swing rhythm section. But that also goes along with a drummer that plays in a similarly vintage way and with vintage-y gear (which affords much more reasonable volume levels on average), and a gut-string (or faux gut-string) bass player, and playing music where I'm not trying to make the acoustic archtop do things it's not really meant for.
We played in Austin three weeks ago, and I was using my DPA into a Mute Switch, into an A/B Box into two different channels on the board. The rhythm volume was great, and I had the sound guy throw a bit into my wedge. But when I tried the solo channel, I could tell by how loud it was in the house, that I should have him leave it out of my monitor. So, the gig starts, and every time I switch over to take a 4 or 8 bar chord solo, it starts of fine and I can hear the guitar clearly in the house, but the sound guy turns it up a bunch right into feedback. EVERY TIME, ALL NIGHT - on average 6 times a set for three sets. Now, I could tell that the initial volume was plenty, but this a-hole keeps cranking it so that my little quiet 4 bar solo guitar break is as loud as the loudest horn. And the guy did this 20+ times all night.
The coda to the story is that, after that gig, which was 9pm-12, we move to a different room in the same venue, and play 1am-3am, and the assistant sound guy, who'd watched the whole miserable gig, had taken over for the late night slot. And I just told him that he should avoid riding the faders, because we'll play our own dynamics - it's more of a "set it and forget it" type of music. He knew what I meant, and the sound was SUBLIME. One of those gigs where I would close my eyes, and think "remember how this feels right now", because it was so magical.
And then the next night, we go back to the first room, now with my full big band. The senior sound guy from the company is working, and he sees my DPA, and says "yes, awesome, I love those." The sound was perfect all night - again SUBLIME.
But if I'd been playing a transducer or a magnetic pickup, I might have avoided the first failure, but neither of the other two would have been as transcendent as they were. If my average was 2/3's winning, I'd probably be weary. But, I've played 75 gigs this year - and there was ONE time that it didn't work fine. I'll take those odds.
Here's a video of last night's sideman gig. L-5->DPA->AER.
Tina K. Jordan - My life does not suck.
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The Pigtronix Real Deal is designed for acoustic guitars with a pickup and/or a mic. I don’t know if it would work with an archtop- don’t see why not- but might be worth checking out:
Bob Weir’s Real Deal – Pigtronix
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Actually as soon as I posted that, I remembered I often gig with a cellist who uses a DPA through my Alpha. It sounds absolutely great for quiet gigs, but I find it a bit tempramental, and on louder gigs she uses an AKG C411L, which can also be a bit problematic sometimes, albeit less Originally Posted by campusfive
I'm talking about bog standard function and bar gigs.
Both these options would test my patience TBH. But - I know several well known players - including modern guys like Julian Lage and Chico Pinheiro - who use this mike and get great results. I notice though that this is generally in situations with good sound - auditoriums and so on.
It would be cool to have a DPA in the guitar case, but I have no current incentive to get one, as one bandleader hates lavelier mikes (no really) and in most other situations no-one cares too much either way. I'm fed up of being the one who actually does lol.
I might mention I was doing around 200 gigs a year of this music. I do understand the dynamics of on stage sound to some extent....However, the biggest issue with feedback isn't the amp brand or model; it's whether the mic is picking up the output of the speakers. The first thing to look for is preventing excess low end (the "howls" as someone else put it). Low end is omni directional, so it can foil even good placement. So, if you put the mic over the f-hole, you're going to putting out a ton of low end that is begging for feedback no matter what you do. Similarly, if the board/pre-amp/amp has a bass cut switch, use it. And so many sound people, bass players, etc. are used to using subs - making bass you can "feel" - and at least in the kind of music where an acoustic archtop would be appropriate, you don't need that much bass. If there's excess bass frequencies floating around on stage, turn them down.
I can also say that my AER Alpha does NOT like my Pro 70. My ZT Acoustic Lunchbox was fine with it (but was quite a shit amp).
You are patient and fastidious guy who leads a band dedicated to getting it as period correct as possible.Second, I would argue that speaker placement is key. If the output is pointing at the face of your guitar, the top will simply reflect that signal back into the mic - FEEDBACK, and generally the "squeals". So, I always place monitors to the side - generally to my left. If you're a right handed player, the guitar body is closer to the right side and the mic (as I place it), is also closed to the right side, so I avoid having a monitor to my right.
If you can avoid re-amplifying excess omni-directional bass, and then avoid aiming the monitor signal so that it reflects back into the mic (off the top of the guitar) or otherwise resonates the guitar body, you've really done 90% of the work.
Some people REALLY don't get how you have to be a bit patient and careful in the set up and sound check to get the guitar sound right. It's easy for clarinet and trumpet, right?
Most of these guys are happy with electric so it's fine, but I spent some years working in a band where this wasn't fine and the guy leading didn't get it. Every guitarist who has succeeded me in this band says the same thing as me lol.
Also, I could list the situations where this sort of thing is a nightmare - postage stamp size stages, sound engineers who really don't have a clue - etc etc - it's all above.
There you go. That point represents most of my day to day money gigs sadly!Finally, look - there's a point at which the ambient noise of room makes all of this impossible. And there are volume levels at which it becomes impossible. I've been places where the sound of the room reflecting off the face of the guitar is seriously competing with the acoustic sound output of the guitar. And there's no magic that will ever fix that.
It's an uphill struggle, and you have to believe hard to want to do it and that's your mission, and you do it credit. I can imagine the amount of organisation and dedication it takes.And as last aside - I really BELIEVE in the mission of keeping acoustic archtops "acoustic". Part of my artistic raison d'etre is making acoustic archtops viable - one of the reasons I even started being a bandleader 16 years ago was because I don't believe it's acceptable to use an electric guitar in a swing rhythm section. But that also goes along with a drummer that plays in a similarly vintage way and with vintage-y gear (which affords much more reasonable volume levels on average), and a gut-string (or faux gut-string) bass player, and playing music where I'm not trying to make the acoustic archtop do things it's not really meant for.
For me, that ship has sailed. My artistic interest in music lies elsewhere, but I still get booked to play swing and enjoy it. Most people I work with don't have a clue about this stuff, so I just go with it lol. I'm a jobbing player.
But that's not to say I don't appreciate it when it happens, or respect when it's done properly. A drummer on a vintage kit with small cymbals and hide heads, a bass player with guts and a respectful audience, and suddenly we can enjoy the beauty of acoustic swing guitar. It does happen. Not often for me, but sometimes.
Man I wish more sound guys would get that message.We played in Austin three weeks ago, and I was using my DPA into a Mute Switch, into an A/B Box into two different channels on the board. The rhythm volume was great, and I had the sound guy throw a bit into my wedge. But when I tried the solo channel, I could tell by how loud it was in the house, that I should have him leave it out of my monitor. So, the gig starts, and every time I switch over to take a 4 or 8 bar chord solo, it starts of fine and I can hear the guitar clearly in the house, but the sound guy turns it up a bunch right into feedback. EVERY TIME, ALL NIGHT - on average 6 times a set for three sets. Now, I could tell that the initial volume was plenty, but this a-hole keeps cranking it so that my little quiet 4 bar solo guitar break is as loud as the loudest horn. And the guy did this 20+ times all night.
The coda to the story is that, after that gig, which was 9pm-12, we move to a different room in the same venue, and play 1am-3am, and the assistant sound guy, who'd watched the whole miserable gig, had taken over for the late night slot. And I just told him that he should avoid riding the faders, because we'll play our own dynamics - it's more of a "set it and forget it" type of music. He knew what I meant, and the sound was SUBLIME. One of those gigs where I would close my eyes, and think "remember how this feels right now", because it was so magical.
Yeah, I might get a DPA and try it one day. I still hold out the dream of being able to get the acoustic archtop sound - but louder. It's so different from the electirc tone and I love it.And then the next night, we go back to the first room, now with my full big band. The senior sound guy from the company is working, and he sees my DPA, and says "yes, awesome, I love those." The sound was perfect all night - again SUBLIME.
But if I'd been playing a transducer or a magnetic pickup, I might have avoided the first failure, but neither of the other two would have been as transcendent as they were. If my average was 2/3's winning, I'd probably be weary. But, I've played 75 gigs this year - and there was ONE time that it didn't work fine. I'll take those odds.
Here's a video of last night's sideman gig. L-5->DPA->AER.
Tina K. Jordan - My life does not suck.
As I mention I'd love to try the acoustic band with overheads thing as well.... But you need the band, and you need the gigs (and you need the clout to convince the sound engineer lol.)Last edited by christianm77; 12-10-2018 at 04:34 PM.
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My AT pro35 comes with (requires) a remote power module. I plug it straight into the mike input on my Bud. I recently noticed a switch on the side with a bent line icon. I looked it up: "Filters or cuts out lower frequencies, usually 80 Hz and below or 100 Hz and below. These frequencies are often the same ones associated with ambient room noise, HVAC, and low rumbles." It defaults to being off, so I switched it on, and think it has had a positive effect. I also use a simple mic on/off foot switch. A really simple setup, works fine in a big band setting with my L7.
One other thing, I have lately been attaching the clip to my pickguard. That *ought* to introduce a lot of finger noise, since I anchor my finger on the pickguard, but it doesn't. I think that provides a bit more damping and isolation than clipping it on the tailpiece. I am not certain of this, though, and would defer on folks with more experience.
Anyway, the point of this is, as Campus5 says, use your bass cut switch.
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I have my solid electric guitar sitting like trash in a corner of my house, long time i dont set up to play. I like how it sounds unplugged, but most pickups just transform the sound of the strings, i want something who just amplifies the sound as it sounds acoustically, PAF or common pickups dont do that, at all. What pickup would do this ?
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Robot Check
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Ghost Prewired Saddle Pickup Set | stewmac.com
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The only thing that will give you the exact acoustic sound of the guitar is a microphone. But trying to get the acoustic sound of a solidbody guitar is a losing proposition. It's made to be electric, and there isn't enough acoustic volume to amplify well. Piezos sound like piezos, magnetic pickups sound the way they sound.
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Completely agree, the "natural acoustic" sound of strings on a solid body will be incredibly thin - even amplified. If what you are looking for is getting the sound of an acoustic guitar from your solidbody, then the route I would consider is a pedal that is designed to do this - there are plenty of them if you look.... you can then mould the acoustic sound to your taste with a quality EQ pedal, plus a little compression. Originally Posted by sgosnell
I'm not even sure that this is what you're asking, because you also expect the sound to be quacky lkke a strat or rolled-off classic jazz...... both of which are qualities of an electric sound.
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Well... the solid body guitar i would put the pickups is just an example, im really looking for the kind of pickup that capts the most natural sound of the guitar, not only for the solid guitar i have, I would use it for a hollow guitar in the future too, or a full archtop, or etc, the solid guitar is just an example. Originally Posted by Ray175
Maybe my english was wrong, I wanted to say that I dont want a quacky sound or either the common roled off tone. Originally Posted by Ray175
And anyway, Im looking for a pickup that capts better the natural sound of strings, im not looking for the typical PAF sound, or P90, etc.
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For full hollow bodied guitars the go-to systems are IMHO Fishman and K&K. I have been using the K&K Trinity Pro mini on my Martins (6 and 12 string) for a while. It includes 3 transducer mikes under the bridge plate, plus a goose-neck microphone inside the sound-hole. The sound, particularly using direct injection, is almost indistinguishable from the acoustic sound. Plenty of demos on the web.
For archtops there is a range of excellent clip-on mikes that do great jobs, although I have not used any. I'm sure others can offer suggestions.Last edited by Ray175; 01-05-2020 at 07:03 AM.
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Check out Chico Pinheiro's setup on his Benedetto. He uses both a magnetic pickup and a microphone. I don't know what he uses to blend them. If you don't like his tone, it should be possible to change the blend, even eliminate the magnetic pickup.
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a microphone about 12" away pointed at the 12th fret?
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I just purchased a DPA d:vote 4099 based on campusfive's (Jonathan Stout) recommendation and I am very happy with it, it was expensive but worth the money. I did not want to spend a lot of time and money trying out cheaper microphones and the availability of different clip-on adapters was very attractive. Thanks Jonathan !
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There is no pickup that is going to give you the exact acoustic sound of a solid body guitar. The question is how close can you get to that.
In my experience, the closest that I have gotten is a Bill Lawrence Wilde L280 stacked humbucker pickup in the neck position. I have that pickup in one Strat and two Telecasters, it comes closer to being just the sound of the guitar amplified than any other pick up I have tried. IME very transparent and neutral.
I have not tried their single coil Keystones or Micro Coils. I also have Wilde L90s in the Strat (middle and bridge) which are twin blade PAF size humbuckers; very clear and flexible but they have a bit more of a "sound" than the L280.
Noisefree Strat – Bill and Becky Wilde Pickups
On my archtop, a Pete Biltoft Vintage Vibe Guitars CC Rider is the closest I have come to the natural sound of the guitar but louder.
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