Why aren't there amps for acoustic and electric guitars?

[yamjam]

Hi,
I know this is a question that's been asked multiple times and I've tried to read most of those threads, so I know that outside of very expensive offerings, it appears that if you want to amplify an acoustic and an electric guitar, the common wisdom is to buy two separate amps. I'm neither an experienced guitarist nor an electrical\acoustic engineer so forgive my ignorance, but can someone explain to me why this is such a difficult thing to accomplish?

From what I've read, it appears that an electric guitar amp can be broken into 2 parts - the head and the speaker. The head is responsible for "shaping" the sound and amplifying. So this is where you can get that "clean strat" sound or something more distorted\overdriven for rock\metal. That signal is then sent to the speaker. I've also read read that an acoustic amp is basically a speaker cabinet with a wider range than an electric guitar amp (usually accomplished by adding a tweeter). If that's the case, then it seems like the preamp on an acoustic-electric guitar is basically your amp head.

So, why can't someone make an amp that is basically an electric guitar amp that has a by-pass input for acoustic-electric guitars? I guess you'd want to add a tweeter to the cabinet and then some electronics to enable\disable the tweeter depending on which input is used. Yeah, that would cost more since you're adding a tweeter and some electronics but it doesn't seem like it should be that much.

Again, I'm no expert, but just going on what I've read, it doesn't sound like this should be that hard to accomplish. Can someone with more knowledge tell me why there aren't products like this out there? Is it more cost-prohibitive than I thought? Is there some technical reason why its not possible? Is there simply no market for something like this? I play acoustic but would like to get into electric guitar and don't have a ton of space to store a lot of gear. I don't *need* to amplify the acoustic, but if I'm going to buy an amp for the electric, I guess I'd like the option of using it for double duty and I'd like something that could give me a good range of sounds, everything from the rock\metal sound, to a "cleaner" jazz sound and handle an acoustic. Would it be better to just get a PA and then run my guitar through 1 or more pedals?

Sorry for my lack of knowledge and anything I might have said above that makes zero sense

[DavidE]

There have been. I remember Laney had one some years ago.

[Bob Womack]

There is a philosophical difference in the two amp designs that makes their characteristics fundamentally different and incompatible.

An electric guitar amp is a sound generator. It is actually part of the whole mechanism that creates the electric guitar sound. It is designed to be interactive with an electric guitar and shape its sound and little effort is exerted to make it accurately reproduce the electric guitar's signal. Part of that involves shaping the frequency response of the signal from input to speaker, part of it involves shaping the dynamics, once again from input to speaker, and part of it involves intentionally overloading portions of the power amp, preamp, and speaker.

An acoustic guitar amp is a sound reproducer. Lots of energy is spent in the design stage attempting to make the reproduction as accurate as possible with as little distortion and fundamental coloration as possible through the whole chain including the preamp, power amp, and speaker.

Can you see how hard it would be to make the two live together?

Bob

[DavidE]

Originally Posted by Bob Womack

There is a philosophical difference in the two amp designs that makes their characteristics fundamentally different and incompatible.

An electric guitar amp is a sound generator. It is actually part of the whole mechanism that creates the electric guitar sound. It is designed to be interactive with an electric guitar and shape its sound and little effort is exerted to make it accurately reproduce the electric guitar's signal. Part of that involves shaping the frequency response of the signal from input to speaker, part of it involves shaping the dynamics, once again from input to speaker, and part of it involves intentionally overloading portions of the power amp, preamp, and speaker.

An acoustic guitar amp is a sound reproducer. Lots of energy is spent in the design stage attempting to make the reproduction as accurate as possible with as little distortion and fundamental coloration as possible through the whole chain including the preamp, power amp, and speaker.

Can you see how hard it would be to make the two live together?

Bob

It's certainly more doable today with guitar amp modeling technology.

[Steve DeRosa]

Originally Posted by DavidE

There have been. I remember Laney had one some years ago.

Here's another:



http://www.rivera.com/product/combos/sedona-55/

[jricc]

Originally Posted by DavidE

There have been. I remember Laney had one some years ago.

I had an early Laney amp for electric and acoustic with a on/off tweeter. It was loud, but tonally not very good...

[Bob Womack]

Originally Posted by DavidE

It's certainly more doable today with guitar amp modeling technology.

Oh, yeah. The Helix has multiple inputs so you can set up a show with electric guitar and acoustic guitar presets and change at need.

Bob

[stevo58]

Actually you can get a fine acoustic sound out of, say, a Fender Twin - if you change the speaker. Electric guitar speakers are anything but flat; they have pronounced non-linear curves.

Modeling amps would work, as they usually use very neutral speakers. The target speaker is part of the modeling. Of course, there has as to be an appropriate model.

But a flat-response speaker would sound pretty lame for the electric guitar, with the possible exception of some varieties of jazz.

Steven

[Paleolith54]

Originally Posted by yamjam

Hi,
I know this is a question that's been asked multiple times and I've tried to read most of those threads, so I know that outside of very expensive offerings, it appears that if you want to amplify an acoustic and an electric guitar, the common wisdom is to buy two separate amps. I'm neither an experienced guitarist nor an electrical\acoustic engineer so forgive my ignorance, but can someone explain to me why this is such a difficult thing to accomplish?

From what I've read, it appears that an electric guitar amp can be broken into 2 parts - the head and the speaker. The head is responsible for "shaping" the sound and amplifying. So this is where you can get that "clean strat" sound or something more distorted\overdriven for rock\metal. That signal is then sent to the speaker. I've also read read that an acoustic amp is basically a speaker cabinet with a wider range than an electric guitar amp (usually accomplished by adding a tweeter). If that's the case, then it seems like the preamp on an acoustic-electric guitar is basically your amp head.

So, why can't someone make an amp that is basically an electric guitar amp that has a by-pass input for acoustic-electric guitars? I guess you'd want to add a tweeter to the cabinet and then some electronics to enable\disable the tweeter depending on which input is used. Yeah, that would cost more since you're adding a tweeter and some electronics but it doesn't seem like it should be that much.

Again, I'm no expert, but just going on what I've read, it doesn't sound like this should be that hard to accomplish. Can someone with more knowledge tell me why there aren't products like this out there? Is it more cost-prohibitive than I thought? Is there some technical reason why its not possible? Is there simply no market for something like this? I play acoustic but would like to get into electric guitar and don't have a ton of space to store a lot of gear. I don't *need* to amplify the acoustic, but if I'm going to buy an amp for the electric, I guess I'd like the option of using it for double duty and I'd like something that could give me a good range of sounds, everything from the rock\metal sound, to a "cleaner" jazz sound and handle an acoustic. Would it be better to just get a PA and then run my guitar through 1 or more pedals?

Sorry for my lack of knowledge and anything I might have said above that makes zero sense

In addition to the good responses above the truth is that they'd be a curiosity without wide appeal. Mesa could put both Mark V and Rosette architecture in one head, could probably could come up with a cab to work with it, but selling them to enough people to make money? I doubt it.

[yamjam]

Originally Posted by Bob Womack

There is a philosophical difference in the two amp designs that makes their characteristics fundamentally different and incompatible.

An electric guitar amp is a sound generator. It is actually part of the whole mechanism that creates the electric guitar sound. It is designed to be interactive with an electric guitar and shape its sound and little effort is exerted to make it accurately reproduce the electric guitar's signal. Part of that involves shaping the frequency response of the signal from input to speaker, part of it involves shaping the dynamics, once again from input to speaker, and part of it involves intentionally overloading portions of the power amp, preamp, and speaker.

An acoustic guitar amp is a sound reproducer. Lots of energy is spent in the design stage attempting to make the reproduction as accurate as possible with as little distortion and fundamental coloration as possible through the whole chain including the preamp, power amp, and speaker.

Can you see how hard it would be to make the two live together?

Bob

Thanks for that explanation Bob! No, I can't see how hard it would be, but it seems like you do and you know what you're talking about so I'm going to take your word for it

[yamjam]

Originally Posted by Paleolith54

In addition to the good responses above the truth is that they'd be a curiosity without wide appeal. Mesa could put both Mark V and Rosette architecture in one head, could probably could come up with a cab to work with it, but selling them to enough people to make money? I doubt it.

Hi Paleolith, thanks for your response! Yeah, I was wondering if there just wasn't much of a market for something like that. It seems like there would be a lot of people with smaller living\storage spaces, especially in bigger cities, but maybe its still too niche.

[yamjam]

Thanks everyone for all the responses! I'll check out those links, but from the sounds of it (oh man, crappy pun alert!), I should just buy two different amps.

[yamjam]

Originally Posted by Bob Womack

Oh, yeah. The Helix has multiple inputs so you can set up a show with electric guitar and acoustic guitar presets and change at need.

Bob

Sounds interesting - is Helix the brand or the model? Got a link by any chance? Thanks!

[Humbuster]

I believe Gordon Lightfoot has plugged his acoustics into a Fender electric guitar amp (not sure which model) for many many years.

[rockabilly69]

My 1961 Ampeg amp has a JBL D123 in it and it sounds pretty good with my acoustics. And even my Princeton Reverb with it's Eminence speaker sounds pretty good in my live setup. I usually dial it's tone in before I listen to my acoustic tone from my Schertler JAM 400.