How to thicken fender acoustasonic live tone so it’s not thin.

[Fenderacoustic]

I love the playability of my Fender Acoustasonic Strat but it always sounds thin compared to my Martin etc. I was wondering if there any tips to make the sound fuller playing live. Running it through a board and 2 1x15 powered speakers with horns. I play in an acoustic duo. One guitar and vocals. I just don’t want it to sound empty or thin live. We don’t use any backing tracks etc. Thank you.

[Mobilemike]

You could try running it through an IR pedal like the Tonedexter II. Using an IR of a more traditional acoustic guitar - say a Martin D28 for example - won't make your Fender sound like the Martin, but it might help it get closer. You'll have to do some experimenting.

EQ'ing differently on stage may help too.

A little bit of tasteful reverb live can also help.

[LAPlayer]

Welcome to the board. It sounds thinner... because it is thinner and will never sound like your Martin. What I do is find a guitar that gives me the sound I want rather than try to get the sound I want from a guitar that doesn't have it.

[abn556]

What kind of amp are you using? I’ve found over decades of playing through amps that Fender amps are often quite bright in their voicing and have lots of treble. On my Princeton Reverb Reissue for example I have to set the bass up on 8 and the treble on 2 to dial out some of the brightness.

[Jimbo00]

Sounds like you are running essentially into a PA system. The Strat Acoustasonic is rather complex for me for all the relative voicings that it has. Maybe the Acoustasonic Telecaster or Jazz Master is the guitar that has a positional voicing that is better for what you're doing for your performances ? Because they did make the different versions and went a different direction with each of them to be an Acoustasonic, yet unique beyond the body shape for each.

[Monsum]

You might try something like the LR Baggs Session DI or their Align Session pedal.
Both designed to warm the signal through saturation.

[YamahaGuy]

For thin sounding vocals, I use delay. A Carbon Copy delay with some subtle delay would surely thicken up the amplified tone.

[Rudy4]

I'd opt to try a chorus pedal. You can try one out with your guitar if you happen to have something like a Guitar Center close by.
It's easy to use too much chorus, but it will thicken up your sound when used lightly.

Here's an example from a James Taylor live show which is obviously chorused:

[RogerPease]

The Baggs Session pedals is a good suggestion.
Just a bit of slap back delay is also good.

This may be going the wrong way but a Fender Smolder Acoustic Overdrive pedal might help.
Just blend in a touch of the distortion, don’t over do.
It also has an electric amp sim on board.
My thinking is you’ll get a fatter sounding sound, but it won’t sound like a Martin, of course.
Ought to be good for rock, blues and country anyway.

Good luck and happy hunting. _RP

[Ten]

Strings make a big deal on my piezo PRS…, but I stopped using it for acoustic because it always sounds, well…thin.

[meb]

A tube preamp may help or adding some tubes to the signal chain via mixer....

[Cuki79]

Try the acoustasonic IR available on my website (see signature)

[guitaniac]

If you happen to have the Player model which can provide the pure UST signal (on one of the settings), you can try using the pure UST signal with the Fishman Aura Spectrum preamp. This will allow you to experiment with a wide variety of sound images, as well as experimenting with the blend of raw signal to sound image. (Around 30% sound image tended to sound best for me.)

You’ll also find that it helps to try both phase relationships (normal or inverted) with each sound image that you try. It’s often the case that one of the phase settings will sound better than the other.

To further confuse things, it should be understood that the Spectrum has both a phase setting between the raw signal and the sound image, and a “global” phase setting which can invert the blended output signal. The global setting depends on each gigging situation (try both to see which sounds best) while the best raw signal/sound image setting always stays the same once it’s determined.

I once owned a little 00 sized Cort acoustic with an onboard Aura system. The onboard system was OK, but it worked best with one of the Aura Spectrum’s OM sound images. (I set the guitar’s onboard system for 100% raw pickup when I used it with the Aura Spectrum processor.)

[Chriscom]

Originally Posted by Fenderacoustic

I love the playability of my Fender Acoustasonic Strat but it always sounds thin compared to my Martin etc. I was wondering if there any tips to make the sound fuller playing live. Running it through a board and 2 1x15 powered speakers with horns. I play in an acoustic duo. One guitar and vocals. I just don’t want it to sound empty or thin live. We don’t use any backing tracks etc. Thank you.

I don't have specific advice with the partial exception of adding some chorus, I've heard decent improvement that way. I see good advice here from people with more experience. But I want to emphatically say it does not have to sound annoyingly thin (I am putting it that way only because you don't like the sound you're getting). A really good local guy plays an Acoustasonic Jazzmaster, through a Bose Pro32 fwiw, and it sounds great and by no means thin, through some pedal assistance and no doubt EQ tweaking to make the most of that.