Quote:
Originally Posted by VictorV
So I have purchased a Composite Acoustic GX. I love the way it plays and sounds. I play in a rock band and some of our songs are acoustic based, so I play a live acoustic rig. I bought a QSC K12 and I have a LR Baggs parametric DI. I have a couple of problems.
1. When I play unplugged, I like the sound of the guitar, but when plugged in, I feel the sound is sterile and unpleasant, not warm in any acoustic way.
2. When my bass player starts to play, it vibrates through my guitar to the point that I have to hug the guitar to my body and it creates feedback, especially when I play bar chords. I get a vibration in the strings that carries into a feedback. So I find I play less and dont enjoy my performance.
So, do I give up on this guitar and get something that will be better for a live gig or should I try to improve on this setup if so, how?
Any help with this would be greatly appreciated. I have a show this week and would love to have an improvement soon.
Thanks VictorV
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Hi Victor V
I wouldn't give the CA GX guitar up at all. The next hollow instrument you buy will encounter the same issues (unless it happens to be a Godin A6 or something like that).
I am far from an expert and only play as a hobby (in an indie/rock band), but, like you, we have a number of songs with an acoustic in it and have had feedback issues. Anyway, I found this very useful blog about the frequencies of different instruments. In the case of acoustics the 120-200Hz is what causes the booming feedback. You can dial these freq out on the acoustic which in a band environment will not be noticeable as the other instruments that dominate these freq will fill it in. You want the acoustic to cut through in the mid range.
http://blog.sonicbids.com/the-ultima...mon-instrument
What we did was dial out, by way of the mixing desk EQ, the "unnecessary" frequencies of instruments - in effect aiming to get each instrument to occupy different frequencies in the spectrum. It really helped and I could play without having to plug up the sound hole.
"Gain staging" also helps. This is sound engineer-speak for going through each microphone or instrument and setting the gain to just below the maximum level without peaking (done by using the PFL on the mixer). Once it is set (needs to be done for each individual venue) the gain knobs should no longer be tampered with during the performance - only the channel faders or the master volume.
Hope this helps!