UST QUACK! - Okay, now I understand - UPDATED

[Stringmaster]

^^
On the other hand, too much “quack” can be annoying to “lay” audience members. I saw a show the other day and the performer’s sound was “double quacky”, as he was looping lead/rhythm. A non musician friend came up to me and said she couldn’t stand the guitar sound as it’s “screechy and obnoxious” and wanted to know about it—so I introduced her to the concept of quack lol. So a little bit could could likely go unnoticed, but not too much, especially if you’re going to double up on it!

[DavidE]

Quack isn't from poorly fretted notes, but a peak in the piezo crystal signal. I'm sure others have explained this better. There are lots of devices to tame quack sufficiently for me. A TC Electronic Body Rez is a small and simple device that does a decent job. Then there are the IR devices and a big long rabbit hole you can go down.

[DavidE]

Oh, personally I'm more bothered by magnetic sounding pickups than quacky pickups. YMMV

[DavidE]

Oh, personally I'm more bothered by magnetic sounding pickups than quacky pickups. YMMV

[lkingston]

Originally Posted by DavidE

Oh, personally I'm more bothered by magnetic sounding pickups than quacky pickups. YMMV

I am the other way around. A magnetic pickup sounds like a jazzbox, which I also like, and I would rather have that sound than the quack of a piezo.

One thing I will say is that the quack on a piezo seems to be worst at loud levels. Individual piezo elements (like on an LR Baggs LB6 seem to suffer less from this than one long piezo element shared across all six strings.

[MikeB1]

[QUOTE=fazool;Some people have "perfect pitch" and can naturally hear the notes. I have "perfect quack" - I can hear a quack whisper at a hundred yards -it's almost physically distressing to me. And I can't get beyond that......[/QUOTE]

Thanks Fazool, I needed a good laugh today.

The worst for me was when I had a nice guitar that I really loved. It was the right size and it played really easily, and the sound through the amp was great.

But I could hardly touch the strings without getting Quack. The staff at the GC were really nice about it. They gave me a preamp and suggested I try to see if I could dial it out.

I tried, but had to let it go.

I am psychologically scarred by it now as well.

[cdkrugjr]

Hillsong (forget whether “United”) did a “Live” a couple years back when they intentionally went for “Quacky ‘80s Acoustic” sound rather than “Tracked in Later with a LDC” they do nowadays.

Mick from TPS used a Baggs Align preamp to eliminate the quack in their room, which is admittedly a bit of a “Who Knows” when it comes to how they wind up mixing the live vs direct vs amp sounds in the room.

[noledog]

Originally Posted by lkingston

I am the other way around. A magnetic pickup sounds like a jazzbox, which I also like, and I would rather have that sound than the quack of a piezo.

One thing I will say is that the quack on a piezo seems to be worst at loud levels. Individual piezo elements (like on an LR Baggs LB6 seem to suffer less from this than one long piezo element shared across all six strings.

+1... I also enjoy the tone of a good mag like the M80 and especially now the DeArmond Tone Boss. There is a punchy fullness without compression quality along with great balance and harmonics when dialed in... records well too.
That said, as a full time musician, while I occasionally use my D18 with Tone Boss for certain venues and applications, I use Takamine for most shows. Their Palathetic design using six individual discs underneath a strip really reduces quack to almost none. Like Kingston said, louder levels increase quack along with heavier attack. Takamine pretty much eliminates it when using their CT4DX onboard preamp which uses two 9v batteries. This results in super clear sound with lots of headroom avoiding quackage. The CT4BII employs one 9v and still sounds wonderful but not like the DX.

[Methos1979]

As I continue to get to know my new RainSong Nashville OM and put it through its paces, I'm finding that my initial experiences with 'quack' were dead-on in that for me, at least, the worst cases of quack are when a note is fretted poorly or the the string is plucked or picked too aggressively causing buzz. When that happens, holy-moly quack city!

That said, and as I hypothesized, if I play more accurately and do not make those buzzing notes then the quack is all but eliminated. This has me paying much more attention to my technique and playing more accurately. So there's an upside to it for me. I also noticed that if I stand out front (wireless) the quack is much less noticeable out there then back behind the mics.

Regardless, the Nashville is proving itself a worthy gigging guitar. It's not quite up to the Cole Clark Angel 2 level of amplified tonal quality, but it's really very good and when you add the comfort of the short scale 12 fret OM body join plus the relative imperviousness to environmental concerns, it really shines as a top choice for live play. I think the first few gigs coming up will see it get the call.

[shufflebeat]

Originally Posted by varmonter

Magnetic like piezo have there own distinct sound.. I like mag pups for their live performance capabilities.
Feedback resistance at volumes that
will make piezos howl. Pickups on acoustics in any form are a compromise over a mic. They all impart a change in our acoustic tone.
Its only us musicians that climb down this rabbit hole.
The audience for the most part could care less..
Ask a question on this forum like
"What is the best wiz bang preamp box for my acoustic" And if 50 people
respond you'll likely have 50 different
answers. This tells you why "my guitar only louder" is a myth.

I agree with all of that except - my piezos don't howl, ever.

[shufflebeat]

Originally Posted by Methos1979

...the worst cases of quack are when a note is fretted poorly or the the string is plucked or picked too aggressively causing buzz. When that happens, holy-moly quack city!

I really think we're all talking about several different phenomena here, i.e., using the same word to describe different cause/effects.

[James May]

Originally Posted by Methos1979

...the worst cases of quack are when a note is fretted poorly or the the string is plucked or picked too aggressively causing buzz. When that happens, holy-moly quack city!

Agreeing with Soufflebeat on this.

In my world, we don't call this phenomenon quack. When we say quack, we are specifically referring to the sound of almost all UST pickups which I would describe as brittle, harsh, and a smidge boingy. This is because they are hearing mostly string sound.

What you are referring to here is fret buzz, which is a totally different thing, both in sound and in cause.

[shufflebeat]

Originally Posted by James May

...Soufflebeat...

That sounds like a dance genre involving eggs and a very hot oven.

[James May]

Originally Posted by shufflebeat

That sounds like a dance genre involving eggs and a very hot oven.

It's the change-just-one-letter game. Sorry, I just couldn't resist.

[shufflebeat]

Originally Posted by James May

It's the change-just-one-letter game. Sorry, I just couldn't resist.

Ooh, I'll have to give this one some though - James May.

I can see a flame war coming on (but probably not).

Sorry, as you were.