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Old 03-21-2018, 06:07 PM
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Tele1111 Tele1111 is offline
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Default Boss Acoustic Singer Pro-My Assesment

Boss Acoustic Singer Pro

My gigging rig for the past 8 years has been a Bryston power amp, a Raven Labs PMB II and a raven labs True Blue EQ through a Daedalus C-81 Cabinet. Fantastic sounding set up, but heavy, and almost impossible for one person to carry.
Unfortunately, about two years ago, this rig and nearly all of my equipment was stolen.
I’ve been using various amps and preamps since. I did think about trying to replace the Daedalus rig, but decided it just wasn’t going to happen for a variety of reasons.
I settled on the Boss Acoustic Singer Pro. What follows is my assessment of this amp/rig.

First, let me be clear: nothing I have ever heard can really compare to the Daedalus rig. It’s really in a class by itself.

The choice between the Live or Pro version was an easy one for me. I’ve yet to hear a 6.5” speaker that can reproduce an acoustic guitar faithfully (8” in the Pro) The fact that the Pro is double the wattage (60 for the Live, 120 for the Pro) was also a deciding factor.

The guitars I’m using are my Schenk Ophirio Reserve and my Breedlove C25. Both have the Baggs Full Anthem installed.
With all controls on the amp set to flat (12 o’clock), all effects off, tweeter att off, the sound quality is very good. There is a hi-fi quality to the sound. That’s a good thing, as to be expected from a well designed solid state circuit. Dialing the mids and lows down to 10, is necessary at higher volumes. I toggled the tweeter att on and off, and find that with my guitars (and the Anthem) that the sound is more natural with it off. I imagine if you were using a UST alone, it would be helpful.

As I have described, that’s all it took for me to get a very natural and balanced sound. It’s no Daedalus,
But at 32lbs, it’s light, has a looper and vocal harmonizer (plus more effects) built in, and sounds very good.

Let’s look at the effects.
The mic channel has the same bass/mid/treble eq section. Nothing special, but certainly adequate. Let’s start with the same flat settings as we did on guitar.
I use a Sennheiser E835 for vocals.
Any detail I give here, will have more to do with my voice and the mic itself (all cables are Mogami) so I’ll skip those settings. Suffice to say I’ve been very happy with the sound I’m getting. My vocal range is about a baritone to low end tenor.
I haven’t used the Delay/Echo on the mic, and doubt I will.
The harmony I do use, and it sounds very good as well. As with ALL these types of harmonizers, there is a minuscule delay to the effect. It’s hardly discernible, but if I pay attention, I can hear it. No one else in any live setting has noticed, or at least they’ve never bought it up. I was most surprised by the quality of the vocals (and the harmony) through this amp. It really is a high level vocal reproduction.
The harmony is just an added bonus. You can choose high, unison or low for the harmony.
It has its own level control as well.

The reverb is good but I don’t use much of it in either channel. Just a touch. It sounds very good-I’m sure it’s from one of their previous pedals, but I have no idea which one.

Now you can control all or most of these effects with foot switches.
This is an area where the ACSP (and ACSL) comes up short.
They recommend the GA-FC.
The GA-FC controls for the guitar:
Chorus and Reverb.
For the Mic:
Delay/Echo, Reverb, Harmony and Mute.
Notice anything missing?
Where’s the Looper control?
Really? I don’t need to toggle Reverb on and off, and the same for the mic. I can not for the life of me comprehend the exclusion of the looper. It’s just silly.
Oh yeah. The looper.
The looper is great. That is the quality of sound you get is great. Adding layers does NOT reduce the previous loops volume to any great extent (unlike some very popular loopers do). No need for volume adjustments as long as you don’t go above four or five loops.
Now the bad news. The looper only records 40 seconds. Read it again. 40 seconds. Again, big disappointment. 230 has been the standard for years now. At high quality. Unless you’re doing very basic two or three chord songs, it’s not very useful. I hope that a software update may change this, but we can only hope.

For my use, I only want to control the looper, harmony and mute with a foot switch. I wound up selling the GA-FC and getting two FS-7 foot switches. The ability to mute the rig with a foot-switch is a great convenience, while the looper and harmony are a must for live performance.

That’s my assessment, based on my experience with this amp.
To recap, the guitar and vocal tones reproduced by the ACSP are high level. In other words- they both sound pretty **** good. This rig is obviously aimed at the solo singer/guitarist. In a lot of ways they succeed. The loopers short amount of record time is a glaring oversight. The foot-switching capabilities could be better organized for this amp, but I can’t really hold it against Boss for not addressing these concerns right away. It’s a tough market they’re going after, and other amps have dominated this niche for years.
They got the basics done, and done very well. I like it.

Mark
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Last edited by Tele1111; 03-21-2018 at 08:24 PM.
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Old 03-22-2018, 07:54 AM
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noledog noledog is offline
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* Nice and interesting review Mark...this amp seems comprable to the Loudbox Artist in power, speakers etc. I've seen these in stores, nice looking as well, I've yet to plug in tho.

** I have 2 Performers and an Artist which is older and gigged with a lot in small venues it's just so easy! Even tho the Artist is a bit warmer, I need the power and extra oomph the Performer has. My Artist is my backup, however, I have run one of my Performers and the Artist in tandem and it produced a very nice warm and articulate sound! ...when I slow down and play smaller venues/cafes, the Artist will be all I ever need.

*** You have me intrigued to demo the Boss and would like to know your thoughts on the acoustic resonance feature. I bet it's similar to what they use on their Boss AD-2 pedal of which I own one and use it once in a great while. Mark as I've always liked your jam and educated way of putting things together over the years of knowing you... excellent review buddy, thanks for posting!

Cheers!

eric
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Last edited by noledog; 03-22-2018 at 12:21 PM.
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Old 03-22-2018, 04:34 PM
TNO TNO is offline
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Thanks for the very thorough review. I think one of these amps is in my future.
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Old 03-24-2018, 12:14 PM
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Tele1111 Tele1111 is offline
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Hey Eric,

Thanks for the kind words. I can’t really call this a “review”. It’s really an assessment based on my style, pickups and the effects I find useful. I am really pretty impressed with this amp.
The “Acoustic Resonance” feature. The pickup I use (Baggs Full Anthem)
Has a mic that’s mounted inside the body-right on the bridge plate. When I set the crossover point for the UST and mic, I set the system to almost full mic, and then bring it back a small amount to the UST. Doing this way allows for a much more natural and “acoustic” sound. That’s exactly why I don’t like the Anthem SL. The crossover is fixed, and if it works with your guitar and whatever amplification you use, great. If it doesn’t, well it just doesn’t.
I mention this because the amplified sound (to me) doesn’t really need any “air” mixed in to the signal.
I did try the three types of AR available on the amp. The first one is very nice sounding, and adds just a touch more “air” as it were. The other two are much more “in your face” and I imagine if you had only a UST it would sound pretty good. I do use the “green” or first AR, usually for solo finger style guitar pieces. The other two I really haven’t used since I originally tried them.

Mark
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Old 10-02-2018, 08:29 PM
Zandit75 Zandit75 is offline
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Hey Mark,
Sorry to resurrect an old thread, but I've ordered my Boss Acoustic Singer Pro, as well as a single Boss FS-7 pedal.
I've just received the pedal, and was surprised to see that it is not supplied with a power supply. That's just my fault by not double checking these things, but the info supplied with the pedal says that it can still be used when set to momentary use without the power supply.
Is this how you have yours set up for the harmonies?
Thanks in advance.
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Old 12-24-2018, 03:20 PM
EmirSavas EmirSavas is offline
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Hi,

When I record a loop by pressing the button on the guitar amplifier, there is no problem in switching between the loops.

But when I start with the footswitch and record the time between loops, I wait about 1 second and then start again, which breaks the rhythm. What would be the reason?
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Old 07-01-2019, 04:36 AM
jlynch401 jlynch401 is offline
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Default Popping in a Electric Guitar

Hi - Has anyone used an electric guitar through this unit?
A side from some setting changes, I wondered if there would be any issues.
Thank in advance.
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Old 07-01-2019, 08:19 AM
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Tele1111 Tele1111 is offline
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Hey jlynch,

I do use it for a half dozen or so tunes in my sets. I use my Strat, along with a Keely Tone Workstation. (Gary Clark Jr type stuff) I never crank the volume though. The Workstation allows me to get some classic electric tones without pushing the amp too hard. Works fine, sounds relatively good. No issues.

Mark
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Old 07-01-2019, 06:12 PM
jlynch401 jlynch401 is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Tele1111 View Post
Hey jlynch,

I do use it for a half dozen or so tunes in my sets. I use my Strat, along with a Keely Tone Workstation. (Gary Clark Jr type stuff) I never crank the volume though. The Workstation allows me to get some classic electric tones without pushing the amp too hard. Works fine, sounds relatively good. No issues.

Mark
Hi Mark - Great to know - Thank you so much!
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  #10  
Old 02-28-2021, 06:09 PM
asmithx25 asmithx25 is offline
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Default Still Seems Relevant

Just landed on your 2018 assessment of the Acoustic Singer, in my search for something like this. Thanks for the detailed write up.

I did have a question. We’re you able to resolve the foot switch/looper issue with that amp?
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