Is “QUACK” just accepted!!!
 

I may be the outlier here, but I’m SUPER PICKY about the tone of my plugged-in acoustics(D41/K&K, Bourgeois/Lyric) and do everything in my power to get rid of any “quack” I hear when playing. I heard an acoustic player this weekend and his guitar was so quacky and not natural-sounding, AT ALL! Is this just an accepted thing if you have to plug in? I had a pickup(not going to mention the brand and model) in one of my old stage guitars and it was HORRIBLE sounding and so metallic and quacky! It sounded nothing like the guitar did unplugged and I hated using it and bought an 814ce with the ES pickup so I could get it off the stage. Please tell me I’m not the only one who cringes when I hear a quacky acoustic onstage and just accepts it as part of plugging-in!

This comes up pretty regularly. In short:
General public and even many musicians: Yes, it's accepted. They don't give a hoot.
On AGF, domain of the tone-chasers: You are in good company. :)

That's it in a nutshell. I've been surprised when some local musicians told me my Sonitone-driven guitar sounded great, after I was wincing the whole time because it was plugged directly into the Open Mic's mixer/PA, without any of my pedalboard trickery. (I'm referring to my gig guitar, where I usually run through a Tonedexter.)

Audiences care much more about the skill of the guitarists and singers they're listening to. As long as the quality of sound reproduction doesn't sink to the level of a war crime, our delivery and engagement with the audience are all that matter.

Good summary.

I know the general public doesn’t care, but I don’t understand how any musician who hears the unplugged tone of their guitar, could so easily accept a metallic, quacky tone! Even before I knew AGF existed and I started being so analytical of tone/strings/picks/capos because of it, I hated a metallic or quacky acoustic tone.

I will be perfectly honest, I don't even care if I have quack. That's not what bothers me about UST pickups. What bothers me is that they often sound a bit bright/harsh in the high end. I have always struggled to make a UST sound full and round. If I found that in a UST, I would probably be fine.

I do agree though, the audience does not care one bit. I have played live with the Fishman Matrix, Matrix into the Aura spectrum, Amulet, Lyric, Anthem, K&K, HFN etc, and not even my band members noticed the changes. Most musicians simply do not care. A pickup is a pickup.

In general, I agree that audiences are less sensitive to quack and similar artifacts than some musicians.

However, I don't think that there is a monolithic 'audience' that has one response to everything. I think that is an oversimplification that doesn't do an audience or the player justice.

At least with my audience, there can be a wide variety of experiences. Often they don't have the vocabulary we AGFers have - but some clearly 'hear' a lot more than we expect.

Best pick that I have ever used is a Shure SM-57.

I cannot stand quack. Not at all. Never could.
I couldn’t stand it years before this forum existed. I have a real, honest and true quack allergy. To me quack is worse than scratching with my fingernails over a blackboard.

I have - among other gear and tools - three Aura pedals, had a Tone Dexter, use mic supported pickups from LR BAGGS. I tried fighting quack with Neve preamps, Drawmer EQs and UA compressors. Those expenses are a proof of my long lasting fight against QUACK!!!

I HATE QUACK! Just to make that clear. :D

I'm not a fan of quack, now that I know what it is. I never would have known, or cared one bit had I not stumbled on the AGF 13 years ago. I would agree that audiences, in general, do NOT care. I would also say that many, many musicians don't care, as so many play to their audiences (even big name people to thousands) with very quacky guitars. Heck, there are tons of touring musicians who don't even really know much about their guitar(s) at all, except how to play them. It took a couple decades of playing for me before I knew anything about humidification, as well. I've seen plenty of Youtube videos where the actual musician has no idea what woods their guitar is even made with - ha!

I don't think most of the ppl here would disagree, yea.. we don't like it and spend lots of $$$$ to get rid of it.

Not much you can do if the guy your watching doesn't care, or doesn't "hear" it.

These two quotes spoke to me because, though I don't like quack, I'm also not going to spend tons of money trying every gadget trying to fight it. If I hear someone play and I don't like the guitar tone, I don't assume they don't care. They may just be poor, frugal, playing a borrowed rig that they haven't tuned, whatever. Lots of reasons that have nothing to do with 'not caring.'

Let's not forget that some of the biggest names in music still use UST pickups. John Mayer and Eric Clapton still rely on the Matrix. Paul Mccartney I believe uses Headway pickups, but I have also read the Matrix as well. Regardless, it's a UST. Paul Simon up until his last tour was using the Matrix as well. I would argue that those four are very well known for their acoustic material yet a UST is their go to.

The first person I ever heard using a UST was Tracy Chapman. Either she wasn’t using a pre-amp or it was poorly set up, but either way it was terrible. Today, I think the public at large and most musicians are used to it. There will always be that segment of guitarists, however, who will accept nothing less than the holy grail of ‘my guitar only louder’, to the delight of pickup manufacturers.