Yamaha LLX6A (ART pickup) with octave pedal?

[Penrith Pete]

Hi folks

I play in a folk trio. Generally I plug straight into DI but would love to add a bit of polyphony and some extra bass to the sound on driving Celtic tunes.

The Yamaha ART system works on piezo pads under the bridge / on the soundboard and I understand these can be tricky with octave pedals for reasons to do with tracking.

I do often have some issues with live sound to be honest and have to entirely remove the sub-mix from both treble and bass on the guitar's barn door controls to get the simplest possible signal for the desk - otherwise I can have feedback problems and generally unpleasant tone.

Anyway, I would like to add some colour and depth to the guitar sound and I know some players like John Doyle use an octave pedal at times for similar tunes but will it live with my signal - any thoughts?

I was thinking about the Boss OC-3.

Any other suggestions greatly appreciated!
Thanks in advance
Pete

[YamahaGuy]

I have the same guitar and use the POG Nano, which tracks very well if using one octave up, plus the dry signal, or one octave down plus the dry signal. Does not track so well using an octave up and an octave down simultaneously.

Not a cheap pedal, but the best tracking one for the money.

[Penrith Pete]

Thanks a lot, YamahaGuy, much appreciated.

Since you have good experience of this guitar, do you use much of the 'pickup sub-mix'? I seem to need both dials virtually off when playing live/

Would be interesting to hear your thoughts.
Thanks a lot for the recommendation
Pete

[YamahaGuy]

If I'm playing through a couple thousand watt pa system and using my main pedal board (with the POG, ParaDI, tube-pre, and other effects, I use very little of the bass side and treble side pickups, if any. I recall actually zeroing them out at one show. When I play through a small acoustic amp or couple hundred watt pa system and don't use my main pedal board, I never go past 11 o'clock on the bass side and 9 o'clock on the treble side. It only takes a very little bit to get the gain needed. The only time I will use a bit more is if I'm looping percussive tones or vocals (singing into the soundhole).

Otherwise, I love the guitar. It was dropped (not by me) awhile back and I paid $200 to have it repaired. I will never sell it, as I love the pickup system and Engelmann top. It sounds soo natural. Many pro sound guys cannot believe how good it sounds.

Do you use the soundhole rubber cover? I seldom need to, but often do as a precaution. It should dampen the feedback if it happens.

In my experience, some sound guys have their idea of an acoustic guitar in mind and totally screw up the beautiful tones this guitar can put out. The pre-imaged acoustic guitar presets in mixers don't do it justice. I'm not a fan of scooped mids, especially with the Engelmann top. I ask sound guys to just set all the eq dials at 12 o'clock and let the guitar and my pedals to the rest.

Cheers.

[Penrith Pete]

YamahaGuy

that is immensely helpful and very much appreciated.
When I play at home I plug into a Marshall AS50 and play with everything flat, no effects and both sub-pickup knobs adjusted to virtually zero. I then add just a touch of the bass side until I get a little more oomph at that end.

The sound is terrific - very natural as you say.

Then I go to play gigs! It often seems, somewhat counter-intuitively that the most experienced sound guys struggle the most to get a nice smooth, even tone.

I agree, the way to go seems to be to set everything as neutral as possible and go from there. I have been wondering about the use of a compressor pedal too but that is another story! :-) Really I believe the guitar and pickup system to be flexible enough to play anywhere, through any system despite experiences - and I am trying not to get into collecting pedals and other equipment when I am sure that, treated correctly, the system should do the job.

Thanks again for your kind help,
Pete

[Penrith Pete]

PS, I don't have a sound hole cover having bought the guitar second-hand (not sure if they come with them when new?) but might well try something like this. Thanks a lot!

Pete

[YamahaGuy]

Glad I could be of help.

Once you start with pedals, it's hard to stop. Lol. I have a compression pedal on my main pedal board and for acoustic, I find myself almost never using it.

If we could get the sound guys to quit scooping the mids, we'd be ok.

And the LLX6A did come from the factory with a rubber Yamaha embossed soundhole cover.
Cheers.