Best pedal for multi effects and anti quack?

BluesCam · #1 03-24-2016, 03:24 PM

Hey folks. I have an acoustic- electric with an UST that sounds OK through my tube amp, but is incredibly horrible sounding directly through the PA with a pre-amp and direct box. I am looking for a pedal that will cure the quack and give me some effects like flange, chorus, delay, and subtle overdrive. Vocal enhancement would be gravy.

I have researched TCH Play Electric and Voicelive 3, but the demos on Youtube have not inspired me that much. I am primarily an electric player, and singer, but I am trying to do a duo with a bass player, so, I am using an acoustic-electric instead of an electric guitar.

Please give me your suggestions.

Thank you.

Bob

Matt McGriff · #2 03-24-2016, 04:12 PM

I would look at the fishman products. The aura technology will help with the quack of a UST. There's not really a multi effects that is going to help with that. Fishman also makes the tonedeq which has the effects you are looking for.

Guilty Spark · #3 03-24-2016, 05:34 PM

Check out the Zoom line. Not sure what their latest offerings are.

zabdart · #4 03-24-2016, 06:51 PM

Why, oh why do so many people today insist on approaching acoustic guitar as if it's just another electric? Django Reinhardt never needed a pickup and he did just fine... so did Robert Johnson, Bob Dylan in his folk days, Hank Williams and a ton of other artists who just played real acoustic guitar, not to mention Bert Jansch and John Renbourn.
If your technology is giving you problems, maybe it's too advanced for its own good or yours.

drive-south · #5 03-24-2016, 06:59 PM

As far as taming the quack I've got several preamps but what works best for me is an Art Tube MP or Art Tube PAC. These are mic/instrument preamps that can be used for recording or live sound. They have 12AX7 tubes and make great DI boxes. The Tube MP is dirt cheap at about $50.

Other than that I would skip the effects. I never use anything other than a little reverb on acoustics and vocals.

Sarasin · #6 03-24-2016, 07:02 PM

I just picked up a Yamaha AG Stomp. Its kinda of hard to find but I am really liking the way it sounds. Reviews are really good also.

It has reverb, delay, chorus, but I mainly use it to tame the sound coming from the guitar. The main thing most people say about it is that it does a great job of getting rid of that quack or hi piercing tone.

Tico · #7 03-24-2016, 07:18 PM

...........

#8 03-25-2016, 03:38 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by zabdart

Why, oh why do so many people today insist on approaching acoustic guitar as if it's just another electric? Django Reinhardt never needed a pickup and he did just fine... so did Robert Johnson, Bob Dylan in his folk days, Hank Williams and a ton of other artists who just played real acoustic guitar, not to mention Bert Jansch and John Renbourn.
If your technology is giving you problems, maybe it's too advanced for its own good or yours.

It's an acoustic if you're playing and I'm sitting there listening. If you use a mic for sound reinforcement, if you record - it's no longer "acoustic."

jazzbass12 · #9 03-25-2016, 03:43 AM

I am happy with the Voiclive3. The acoustic settings do a nice job. Unplugged always sounds better but, when I have to plug in for gigs it does the trick.
I like the vocal effects as well, except the harmony only cuz I think it sounds cheesy...

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Marty C · #10 03-25-2016, 05:00 AM

Why not the TC Helicon Play Acoustic. It now has the ability to save guitar presets. It has Bodyrez which helps a ton with quack. I really love mine.

JimLin · #11 03-25-2016, 06:57 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by zabdart

Why, oh why do so many people today insist on approaching acoustic guitar as if it's just another electric? Django Reinhardt never needed a pickup and he did just fine... so did Robert Johnson, Bob Dylan in his folk days, Hank Williams and a ton of other artists who just played real acoustic guitar, not to mention Bert Jansch and John Renbourn.
If your technology is giving you problems, maybe it's too advanced for its own good or yours.

Django plugged in...

lschwart · #12 03-25-2016, 08:28 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BluesCam

Hey folks. I have an acoustic- electric with an UST that sounds OK through my tube amp, but is incredibly horrible sounding directly through the PA with a pre-amp and direct box. I am looking for a pedal that will cure the quack and give me some effects like flange, chorus, delay, and subtle overdrive. Vocal enhancement would be gravy.

I have researched TCH Play Electric and Voicelive 3, but the demos on Youtube have not inspired me that much. I am primarily an electric player, and singer, but I am trying to do a duo with a bass player, so, I am using an acoustic-electric instead of an electric guitar.

Please give me your suggestions.

Thank you.

Bob

There are different approaches to getting rid of the quack of an UST, and how you go about it depends on what sort of result you want in the end. To get a more realistic acoustic sound, you could either mix a mic into your signal chain (internal, external, clip-on, etc.) or another type of non-quacky pickup (a SBT or mag, for example), or you could use a modeler/imager like the Fishman Aura system. The other way is to use EQ to quiet the offending frequencies. Most people do that with a DI/Preamp unit like the Baggs Venue, etc.

Since you also want effects, however, something like the Zoom A3 would give you both modeling and EQ options, plus an input for a mic (it's also a DI) and it offers effects, although no overdrive, which as you may discover is trickier to use with acoustic than you might imagine, but it has lots of reverbs, delays, and modulation effects. If you want a wider menu of effects, the Zoom G3, which is aimed at electric guitar, offers the same ones, plus a bunch more including overdrives, distortions, and amp models, along with enough EQ to deal a bit with the quack. That into a DI is another option if you're not seeking the most acoustic sound you can get and you want lots of effect options.

I've been experimenting for a while now with using heavy effects on my acoustics for a sort of jammy/ambient project, and after trying out a lot of pedals I've settled on a Flashback Delay as a main delay and a Fishman AFX reverb plus a Zoom MultiStomp MS-50G for adding various modulation effects (it uses the same effects as the A3 and G3), and it seems to be working pretty well for now. The delays and modulations all sound good with my various guitars (magnetic, UST, BigTone floating bridge transducer--the UST and the BigTone through an Aura imager). Overdrive is, however, an ongoing unsolved puzzle..... I don't use it for EQ, since I have enough control of that on my preamp (a Radial PZ-Pre) and on the amp I'm using in this project (A Genz Benz ProLT).

Louis

BluesCam · #13 03-25-2016, 08:38 AM

Thank you all for your helpful input. I have two acoustics with built in pre amps and UST. One has a LR Baggs element pu with a Crafter pre amp (don't like the Crafter too much). The other has a Fishman UST and pre amp. Although USTs don't sound very good, they seem to offer higher gain before feedback. BTW, the Fishman can sound pretty good with a bit of overdrive for slide playing, not so with the LR Baggs.

Thanks for all of your suggestions!

Bob

rokdog49 · #14 03-25-2016, 10:01 AM

I use the Fishman Pro Platinum for my Taylor 114e. The Taylor uses only a UST and quacks pretty strongly.
The Fishman tones my UST in the Taylor way down and I can eliminate about 80% of the quack. I can't say enough about that little DI. Look it up online it has a ton of features.

kurth83 · #15 03-25-2016, 11:29 AM

I think others here have covered a lot.

For me, I too would avoid a quacky pickup to start with, we have had quite a few threads recently on great pickups.

For multi-effects pedals, I have tried:
- TC Helicon Play Acoustic (has bodyrez, which is a multiband parametric EQ and a compressor with some presets that work great for many guitars and can be tweaked to your liking), if you want to sing and play at the same time this pedal is killer because of the wonderful voice effects. It has some guitar effects too, but I forget which ones, but reverb and notch filter at least. It has great EQ, so if you want lots of effects another pedal might be what you are looking for.
- Zoom A3 - has modeling and two slots to choose from its many, many other effects. Also has two inputs the other one is intended to be a mic, again for singing and playing. Doesn't have any voice effects that I recall.
- Zoom G3 - no modeling, only single input, but can have any 6 effects active from its huge library of effects simulations. This is what I settled on, I use the parametric EQ plus the graphic EQ, plus whatever else I want such as reverb, delay, boost. The zoom's mostly share the same effect choices and have about 100 to choose from, 2/3 are aimed at electric guitar players, but enough are useful for acoustic it is a great all-in-one pedal. I dabble in electric and this has all I need there too.

If the A3 modeling (which is just a multiband EQ with a bunch of presets that you cannot modify) works well for you, and you want to sing, then the A3 is a great choice. While it was helpful, I found the modeling a bit limited so I had to consume the effects slots with EQ, and I didn't like the black box part of the modeling anyway, so I went with a G3 so I could see what I was doing.

Both the Zoom's I tried benefit from a guitar with an active pickup, a low input signal and they hiss a little bit, given they are a sub $200 pedal with 100+ effects, I can live with that. They are also hard to dial in simply because they can do so many things. The A3 is also picky about its power supply, clean power and great sound, low voltage (like a weak battery) and they do horrible things, so don't panic if that happens to you, easily fixable.

There are more choices out there, but those are the ones I have actually used.

I for one have never met a pickup where I didn't want to apply a little EQ. And I like graphic+parametric EQ as opposed to black box modellers because the settings are repeatable on any device, meaning I can transfer my settings to a newer device down the road.

The one device I would make an exception for is the upcoming tonedexter, which we hear is roughly the equivalent of a trainable dynamic 100 band EQ, no way that will transfer to another device, but it's sound is so over the top I would live with being locked in, and use my G3 for all my other effects. The Fishman Aura is supposed to be similar, but to train it you have to send your guitar to Fishman for them to generate a custom preset for you, that fits in the "yeah right" category to me, but some have done it and are pretty happy with the results.