Is anyone else "falling out of love" with acoustic guitar body resonance modeling?
When I first got my Voicelive 3, I couldn't get enough of the "BodyRez" modeling. Slowly, my ears started to adjust and I grew to prefer the sound of the guitar without it. When I got my Boss VE8 and AD-2 pedals, I really liked the sound of the body resonance modeling all over again, but now some months later, this love affair has gone away as well. I remember going through the same love to dislike thing with my Line6 acoustic several years ago.
Is it just me, or do a person's ears eventually learn to hear through the trickery? I really, really liked it at first, and it bothers me to the point where I'd rather leave off the effect now. I've gone through something similar with vocal harmonizers: initial love gradually turning into mild, then more intense dislike. |
Not sure if my ears became more critical, or I just got to a point where I don't like it. Yesterday, I plugged my guitar direct into my Behringer xr12 and I really like the clean sound. I am with you. I think I have spent lots of time and money trying to improve my sound but in the end, I come back full circle. I also think we learn a lot Through those processes. I certainly have. Mainly about eq.
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YES! Tried them all (well not Tonedexter) and ended up getting rid of them. I used a harmonizer on a few gigs and let that go too. I recently was at a restaurant where the singer guitarist had a harmonizer on the entire time and thought it sounded irritating (but my non-musician wife liked it).
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AFAIC - if you plug an acoustic guitar into something (as we have to do from time to time) - you are compromising the tone.
If you add an FX or (good heavens) a "modeller" effect - then you have left your guitar sound out of the loop - might as well be playing some cheap laminate job. We buy Acoustic guitars for their tonal qualities. I see no happy relationship with a good acoustic and a "modeller". |
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If you have a crappy piezo to start with, then there isn't really a nice tone to compromise now is there. So, to counter your statement someone could say: "AFAIC - if you plug in an acoustic guitar - you are compromising the tone." |
I had a Play Acoustic and used it for a while until a patron spilled beer into it and fried it!
I initially liked the Body Rez thing, and have nothing bad to say about the Play Acoustic. But when it fried I decided to try the LR Baggs Venue, and I will say that I like my new tone better. It seems more punchy and analog. I got compliments on my guitar sound from a friend who came out to hear me last weekend. He's not a musician, but is a big music fan who loves live music and has a critical ear. Another guy I play with occasionally who is an amazing pro player said he heard a big improvement in my tone when I got the Venue. Could be I just never got the PA dialed in well. It's a very nice unit. But the Venue is simpler and easy to get a good tone out of. |
If I want to sound my best, I mic my guitar. No effects, just natural acoustic sound.
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Manufacturers keep building equipment which perform this 'service' for players, which means you are not alone in liking it (sometimes). Given the fact you describe a history of liking…then liking-it-less…then being bothered by the effect…for a while and then LIKING etc all over again, it seems you are never settled on what you like. I saw the pattern you described beginning to creep into my own guitar-life, and decided I had to get it under control. So I set out about 15 years ago on a quest to develop a live pickup rig I could 'live with' (usually the best amplified sound in any room I'm playing in) and then living with it even when new gear emerges. I decided it's ok for me to like the tone of my guitars at home in the living room way better than the tone through the PA/amp, and then assemble a live-play-pickup-system which sounds very guitar-like through PA systems and acoustic amps which I take into public even though it's not an exact representation of my guitar. The audience doesn't care… Part of that process was based on the truth that audiences-don't-care about our pickup sound (unless it's making their ears bleed, and feeding back). Once I start a gig, I have 30 seconds to grab their attention, and if I don't have their attention, it doesn't matter what kind of guitar, pickup, PA I'm using. And even if I do grab their attention in that first 30 seconds…it doesn't matter what kind of guitar, pickup, PA I'm using. People just want to hear good music and playing. I shoot portraits for $$$ and in over 40 years of making some serious $$$ doing it, I've never had a client obsess over my camera/lens or retouching software. Clients don't care about cameras, just pictures. Same with music. |
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One thing I really do like is analog EQ. To my ears, the difference between analog and digital EQ is what happens when you boost the frequencies. A digital EQ cuts and boosts frequencies. A decent analog EQ adds a little saturation as it cuts or boosts which just sounds so good! It rounds out a thumb bass, takes the quack out of a piezo, adds midrange warmth, and stretches the highs.
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I meant to say that an analog EQ add saturation just when you boost frequencies.
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My Yamaha AC3M has on board modeling/imaging in the preamp. I am still satisfied with it. I bought it to use plugged in based on how well it compared to the other available options. It still does fine. Decent albeit a little small acoustic sound too.
hunter |
I think that the advantages provided by a modeler depends on the pickup in your guitar, the unaltered tone it produces,how that tone compares to your original guitar, and whether the modeler brings those two closer together. I use a dread w/a Baggs LB6 and run it into a Body Rez and then into a Tonebone PZ Deluxe. Personally, I think it sounds swell and I have received compliments on it. That said, there are some caveats to this that clarify my recommendation of the Body Rez.
1. I think the Body Rez works best w/a passive piezo: The Body Rez employs some compression, EQ, and reverb (and more, I'm sure) to your pickup sound. The compression is great at reducing quack, which is really the sound of a piezo clipping. This will only help if your pickup has no endpin preamp. You can't undistort a signal that's distorted, especially one with a preamp that early in the chain. However, if it's passive, the Body Rez can clean that up. 2. The EQ is "one-size fits all": The Body Rez cuts some mids on your pickup, which is usually needed. However, the amount of mids it cuts is more than my guitar's natural EQ. It's a Cedar/Mahogany dread, which means it has a full and warm midrange. The Body Rez wants to make it sound more like a D-28. 3. I only use it a little bit and even then, it needs a good preamp: I only use my Body Rez between 9 and Noon as that keeps the signal clean and helps get the EQ right more easily. More than that and it gets squishy in tone. However, it then goes to a PZ Deluxe which has 15 volts of headroom, so I don't have to worry about quack. It's still possible to overdrive a 9 volt preamp with the Body Rez. Ultimately, it doesn't sound exactly like my guitar, but I frequently receive compliments because the sound is clean and realistic. There isn't the electric feel of a mag nor the ice pick high-end and distorted quack of some undersaddles. It isn't as warm as a SBT but it's also more clear. As LJ said, the fine nuances of my guitar that I appreciate will be lost upon the audience. As soon as you need volume for a live performance, the intricacies available in studio recording are lost. I don't try to recreate or capture those tones, I just want a sound that's good and is clean, free of any distortion or excessive tonal artifacts. My LB6 doesn't sound like a condensor mic in front of my guitar, but with the right tools it sounds clean and acoustic, which is all I need. I won't obsess over a "perfect" tone as much as a good tone that everyone can enjoy and recognize as an acoustic guitar. People I play with are always surprised by the quality of my tone and I say that you don't need the fanciest pickup to sound good, you just need a quality pickup and the right signal path. Passive pickups like the Sunrise, LB6, and K&K with good preamps will never sound bad. The Body Rez (or something comparable) may help you get closer. Maybe. |
I tend to agree with ljguitar. Audiences don't care about much but that 30 secs is key.
Digital processing is wonderful but has to be used sparingly I think. I can seem a bit bland to me a bit too smooth - a bit of grit is always better. Harmonisers can be astonishing but using one on a gig I guess there is a tremendous temptation to use them too often. |
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