Amps for acoustic guitar... ACOUSTIC amp required?

[guitarwebguy]

Take your guitar to a music store and try several different acoustic amps. Your ears will let you know if you hear a notable difference, even better take a friend who plays and have him/her play your guitar through an acoustic amp and you listen, this helped me make up my mind when I was
Looking into acoustic amps!

[Vognell]

You can get an FRFR type speaker (I use the headrush 212 FRFR) and a helix stomp, and do whatever you want. You can even get impulse responses loaded on the helix for various types of acoustics to get a little closer to a natural sound. FRFR also seems to work pretty well with the Zoom A2.

Helix already has a couple of acoustic presets, mostly just consisting of a preamp and some reverb/delay/modulation type effects that can be modded pretty easy, and the result is pretty good. Swap presets, and run electric through same rig. 2 inputs on helix allow you to leave both plugged in at same time so you don't have to switch.

[cmac]

Originally Posted by vindibona1

But I was wondering if there was something I was missing, or is there something inherently special about acoustic amps with acoustic guitars?

Acoustic amps aim to colour the sound as little as possible, so in theory the sound out of the amp is a faithful reproduction of what your pickup (or microphone) hears. In practice they don't always manage, but that's the intention.

Electric guitar amps intentionally bias the sound towards certain parts of the frequency spectrum. As a result you get 'the classic Marshall amp sound', or 'the Fender twin reverb sound' or the 'Vox tube amp sound'. Electric guitar sound is a package of the guitar, pickup and amp. This is why electric guitarists on stage often play through an amp that is miked up.

So there's nothing inherently special about acoustic amps - it's electric amps that are inherently 'special', i.e. have their own characteristics.

[varmonter]

Originally Posted by vindibona1

I'm actually pretty impressed with the G-K MB112. It isn't geared to do anything special except deliver whatever comes through it. It's a very basic amp as amps go, but 200w in a 30 pound package with one 12" speaker. With bass I almost never take the tone knobs off of flat.

I always find it interesting when folks say they like
the sound of there acoustic through something
not normally associated with an acoustic. Like
a bass amp. Im a tweaker. its a sickness .
Ive found bass and mandolin have similar eq
settings. I play bass ,mandolin and guitar in my band
so this interests me. I wonder if the gk210 would
sound even better and its 500w. and 30 lbs or so.
Like said above you wont know if your missing something
until you try it. I would bring your guitar to a shop and
try some acoustic amps. Just to satisfy your curiosity.
Im going to do the same with the gk210. 112.

[Krash58]

The amps I would recommend are the Fender Acoustic series, (100, 200, Pro and SFX) and the Fishman offerings.

https://shop.fender.com/en-US/guitar...oustic-series/

https://www.fishman.com/products/type/amplifiers/

[vindibona1]

Originally Posted by varmonter

I always find it interesting when folks say they like
the sound of there acoustic through something
not normally associated with an acoustic. Like
a bass amp. Im a tweaker. its a sickness .
Ive found bass and mandolin have similar eq
settings. I play bass ,mandolin and guitar in my band
so this interests me. I wonder if the gk210 would
sound even better and its 500w. and 30 lbs or so.
Like said above you wont know if your missing something
until you try it. I would bring your guitar to a shop and
try some acoustic amps. Just to satisfy your curiosity.
Im going to do the same with the gk210. 112.

I've already tried a few acoustic amps and while exploring/testing preamps to purchase. And I tested the same preamps at home with my bass amp. And this is what prompted the question "what am I missing if I don't have an acoustic amp?

Last week I gigged with a AAP/Phil Jones 4x5" as a "mic'd monitor" into the house system (not sure which model) and while it was good wasn't that I was missing anything that my preamp (now a Fishman Platinum Pro) and my reverb and chorus pedals couldn't do with that amp or my bass amp.

And then there is my Line 6 SS amp which I hadn't thought about before getting the preamp. I tried it for a few minutes today and it's crisper. Not sure if better or not. I guess I have to play around with amplified sound a lot more.

[varmonter]

Originally Posted by vindibona1

I've already tried a few acoustic amps and while exploring/testing preamps to purchase. And I tested the same preamps at home with my bass amp. And this is what prompted the question "what am I missing if I don't have an acoustic amp?

Last week I gigged with a AAP/Phil Jones 4x5" as a "mic'd monitor" into the house system (not sure which model) and while it was good wasn't that I was missing anything that my preamp (now a Fishman Platinum Pro) and my reverb and chorus pedals couldn't do with that amp or my bass amp.

And then there is my Line 6 SS amp which I hadn't thought about before getting the preamp. I tried it for a few minutes today and it's crisper. Not sure if better or not. I guess I have to play around with amplified sound a lot more.

Not sure if you gig or not. But what we generally hear at home
and what we perceive at a gig are usually vastly different. At a gig we are generally much louder. The highs and lows are then perceptually attenuated.
At home i try to place the amp as far away as possible. facing me . I have a 30 foot snake i use. Than i eq it as loud as i can without feedback. This allows me to
approximate what it will sound like at gig volume. Or close anyway. Then there
is not so much of a surprise when i get to a gig. (That pesky fletcher munson thingy). So if you have the space and a long enough chord. (two 25 ft xlr together. Even if you have to put it in another room. You can test how your
acoustic will sound at a gig through your bass amp. If you dont play out
than moot point. If your happy with your sound at home than Great!!