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Old 04-08-2009, 08:29 AM
guitaniac guitaniac is offline
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I've been playing around with a Peavy Generation EXP for a week or two now: Tele body style, two splitable humbuckers with five way switch, Graph Tech "Ghost" hex system with Peavy's own "acoustic modeling technology".

As an electric guitar, it was an incredible bargain for what I paid on ebay. The "acoustic" side is unusable by itself, however, because the string volume balance is grossly weighted toward the bass strings. (This is currently with 11s. I'll probably try 12s or even 13s at some point.) The good news is that blending in a bit of piezo really does enhance the mag sound noticeably. If I put the mag signal at full-on volume (with the mag tone control at full-on treble) and blend in the appropriate amount of piezo, I get a darn nice sounding blend - better than any of the pure mag sounds, for my own taste. I'm using an outboard preamp for some EQ and volume control, then running to my solid-state Fishman SoloAmp.

In fairness to the Graph Tech Ghost system, this unbalanced string volume balance is not at all what I found with a Ghost-equipped Jarrett Zaphiro (Les Paul style guitar) which I briefly owned. Peavy's "acoustic modeling", whatever it is, sounds like they added an SBT on the bass side of the bridge plate. In addition to that, what treble end there is sounds very brittle without any mag signal blended in. Its as if the very high frequencies have been boosted to compensate for an electric guitar amp's poor high end response. That could actually be the case, I suppose.

FWIW, I also experimented with using a stereo-to-Y cable to take the mag and piezo signals out separately for separate EQ before blending at the SoloAmp. I found that blending at the guitar and EQing the resultant blend worked just as well (and was much more convenient) for my own purposes.


Since I'm running to a solid-state acoustic guitar amp, my eventual plan is to get a Blackstar HT-Dual pedal for some experimentation with various clean and distorted tube tones. I'm also considering the possibility that adding some high-end even harmonics, via an Aphex Xciter, might give my mag/piezo sound more "edge" on the high end for barefingered picking.

I can't help thinking about what a weird role reversal it is that I'm using a piezo pickup to get a strong, well-defined bass end while the mag provides most of the high end. With a conventional mag/piezo equipped acoustic-electric, the piezo usually provides the high end while the mag captures the lows.

Gary

Last edited by guitaniac; 04-08-2009 at 08:37 AM.
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