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Old 07-12-2019, 06:27 PM
Tycobb73 Tycobb73 is offline
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Default Do you use a mic

Everytime i listen to guitars plugged in compared to mic'd it seems they're missing something. I thought about putting a pickup in my guitars but I'm a stickler about not making any nonreversable mods, including glue and end pins. Then i thought I've got a 314ce when I have to plug in, I'll be sitting down most of the time anyway. Screw it, I'll just mic it. How many others who play out and don't move mic instead of using a pickup?
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Old 07-12-2019, 07:20 PM
krisls krisls is offline
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Well.... yup, a mic'd guitar will almost always sound better/more natural/truer, than one with a pickup.

That said in the years I've been gigging I could probably count on ten fingers the number of times I've played where a mic would work well and be appreciated by the audience. Quiet settings or pure background like small coffee shops and similar. Maybe a wedding reception.

Mostly a pickup works better, is less hassle and will get you close enough to 'true' guitar to make it the more obvious choice. Then of course you see so many discussions here about getting that better 'pickup' sound, my guitar only louder or similar. A worthy goal perhaps that we have all played at times. But maybe not a realistic one for most of us.

Curious to see other, possibly alternate views.

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Old 07-12-2019, 07:45 PM
Tycobb73 Tycobb73 is offline
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If you're sitting mostly still why is a pickup easier?
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Old 07-12-2019, 08:07 PM
krisls krisls is offline
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Okay... ' mostly still'...

The instant you move even a small amount the benefit/sound quality of a mic will be degraded at least some. If you can stay dead on and the environment is good for clarity it can work. But background noise and yes movement will make a pickup a much better choice 90% of the time.

Any extra crispness or whatever a mic gives will be lost in background chatter and off mic movement most of the time. There are exceptions where it works as I said but most of us don't live there very often.

I run a Maton w' an AP5Pro one of the best in built pickup systems going I believe. This gets me 80% of the way to a decent mic without any of the drawbacks. We all make choices.. or compromises perhaps.

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Old 07-12-2019, 08:28 PM
The Bard Rocks The Bard Rocks is offline
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I use mikes nearly exclusively and have never had a problem with them. Note that I do not play at high sound pressure and I play seated. The mike works so much easier when I switch instruments, which I do regularly.
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Old 07-12-2019, 09:18 PM
lkingston lkingston is offline
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I use dual pickup mic systems on all my acoustic guitars. If it is quiet I'll blend in up to about 30% mic. If it's loud, less (because of feedback and boxy sound). I prefer that sound live to just a mic, and it's far less prone to feedback.

It gives you the definition and clarity of a pickup with the added resonance and "air" of a mic.

A really cool trick if you have a guitar without a dual system is to use two channels on a mixing console and use both a mic on a stand and the pickup at about a 70%/30% pickup to mic blend. It gives you the same type of sound as a blend system.

I saw Martin Taylor do this in concert with his Vanden floating mag pickup archtop. That's also how he gets the exquisite recorded guitar sound on his albums.
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Old 07-12-2019, 09:39 PM
PHJim PHJim is offline
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In a solo or duo situation or when everyone else is using a mic, I prefer a mic, but I was forced to install pickups in my guitars out of self defence when playing with others who use pickups.
Some pros like Gillian Welch, David Rawlings, Country Joe MacDonald, John Hammond and Tony Rice still get great sound using no pickups.
I've seen some other pros, like the late Doc Watson, Steve Earl, John Sebastian and Bruce Cockburn get terrible, quacky, twangy sounds from guitars that should sound great, when playing through pickups. (Not always - Sometimes their pickups sound just fine, but I've been really disappointed and annoyed by all of them at live shows and thought, "Why not use a mic?")
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Old 07-12-2019, 11:42 PM
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I recently got a guitar that has an LR Baggs LYRIC pick up installed. It is basically a mic attached to the bridge plate. It sounds awesome gong through my home system, and It really does sound like my guitar only louder. Have not used it live yet.
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Old 07-13-2019, 03:40 AM
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Yes, I use this clip-on micro-shotgun mic on my guitars when performing ...

https://www.sweetwater.com/store/det...-mounting-clip

It sounds exactly like each of my 8 acoustic guitars.
Not cheap at $619, but it takes only a few seconds to move it between guitars, and requires no installation or holes drilled into my precious guitars.
That considerably lowers the effective price.
It needs +48v phantom power.

DPA.jpeg

Last edited by Tico; 07-13-2019 at 03:46 AM.
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Old 07-13-2019, 04:49 AM
Murphy Slaw Murphy Slaw is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by PHJim View Post
Some pros like Gillian Welch, David Rawlings, Country Joe MacDonald, John Hammond and Tony Rice still get great sound using no pickups.
You can add those Milk Carton Kids and many, many more.

I've gone to mostly using mics with Bose rigs and won't go back.

It ain't rocket science.
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Old 07-13-2019, 06:17 AM
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I've been using an external mic since the late 80's when I performed - back then it was an SM57 before I knew better! I had Baggs LB6 in my guitar (about 40 percent of the signal) and the rest coming from the 57

Over the years I've morphed into all K&K's and various external condensors. The one that I've been the happiest with recently is a sE electronics SE5.

It's still about a 60/40 mix, but I've learned to skew the mix with the low end dominating the pickup system and the mic taking the mids and upper frequencies - creating the "air" that is missing from the pickup.
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Old 07-13-2019, 06:59 AM
Irish Pennant Irish Pennant is offline
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I don't use a mic. Where I play doesn't fit, my guitars are not good enough, most of my songs have been developed with a plugged in tone, I use a looper, my playing skills and style have not reached a point where I desire a mic'ed guitar, I'm pleased with my plugged in sound (at least, most of the time), the times when I experimented with mic'ing the results were not worth the effort, music is mostly a hobby for me and the price point of achieving an advanced acoustic sound isn't a reasonable or finically prudent pursuit. I have tinnitus and can't hear many of the tones that audiophiles and acoustic purest seek. Recorded music that I've listened to where I was impressed with the acoustic tone was recored in a studio, processed and enhanced through the studio mixer by an engineer, my exposure to live music has been limited to local musicians and shows, I have not heard a single system that comes even close to sounding as good as what I have and I don't have anything great, so I have no real life apples to apples comparison of mic -v- plugged in.
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Old 07-13-2019, 09:26 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Tycobb73 View Post
Everytime i listen to guitars plugged in compared to mic'd it seems they're missing something.
Hi T-c

Too many variables to make a blanket assessment about superiority or inferiority (or authentic vs less authentic) sound when amplifying.

Variables?
  • Quality of the pickup/microphone
  • Quality of the guitar
  • Quality of the player (and style)
  • Quality/Skill of the sound-tech
  • Quality of the gear (preamp, mixer, amps, and speakers)
  • Prominence of the guitar in the mix
  • Role of the guitar in the band

That's for starters…

When I hear guitars through mics on really good video recordings, they often sound pretty good (sometimes stellar, but seldom). But when I'm in a room, where they are playing live on stage, they sound like guitars through mics going into a PA.

Having been obsessed with amplifying guitars for the past 35 years, I've had about every type of pickup system in existence (except for a mounted mag pickup). So when I hear pickup systems I can often discern what they are by the tone coming through the PA. Often I can even identify the brand. Once I've done that, and mentally thought about what would make it better, I go back to listening to the music.

I find both pickups and mics by themselves leave things to be desired. It's why I switched to dual source rigs about 15 years back. My rigs don't sound exactly like my guitars, but they are close enough to make me happy, and I'm able to play loud enough to be heard. And making 'me' (the player) happy is what we are really discussing, right?

Mics by themselves are limited by the inability to be turned up to what I call 'working' levels - especially when I'm playing with bands. Pickups lack the presence of a mic…but mics themselves are as tonally colored as pickups are.

Doug Young occasionally shares the concept that when recording, on it's worst day, a cheap condenser mic will still sound better than the best pickup on it's best day.

Audiences by and large do not care. They want to hear music. So whatever I'm doing to be 'authentic' is for my pleasure not the audiences. Audiences are so accepting, and to them guitars are stage decoration. They don't know about short scale/long scale/fanned fret. They don't think of 12 fret or 14 fret necks. They are not concerned about Custom Light, Light or Medium Gauge strings OR PICKS (even after we have carefully explained it to them numerous times).

But they do care about hearing it. If the stage is too quiet, or there is no entertainment to the music, they pull out their phones and open up FaceBook.



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Old 07-13-2019, 10:16 AM
lkingston lkingston is offline
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Default Do you use a mic

A couple more things:

One of the first things I do when I walk into a venue is to look up at the ceiling and see if there are any acoustic panels. When there is, I smile and relax a little because I know the sound will probably be good.

In a really live room, the sound gets really cluttered. Sound bounces off the walls, ceiling and floors and clarity gets lost. People talk really loud to get there voices over the band, and the band turns up to get over the crowd.

Amazingly, in spite of how overly reverberant it is, bands add even more reverb, and electric guitarists add even more reverb than the rest of the band.

In this very common scenario, I absolutely hate miked guitars. In addition to the guitar, they pick up even more of the room and add to the clutter. They have to be turned way up and get incredibly boxy sounding. If the guitarist is just strumming cowboy chords, you can kind of make out the tonality, but forget any intricate picking!

Here is another reason why I like dual source pickup/mic systems so much. In a loud live room I am mostly pickup with no reverb or delay. In a quiet acoustically treated room, I use a lot of mic and add a little tasteful artificial ambience (reverb and delay). In most places it is somewhere in between.

Another thing, I’ve been to bluegrass and old time music performances where everyone was crowded around one Ear Trumpet Labs mic and it sounded great. The vocals and guitar levels in that style of music are pretty loud though and it is a style of music that naturally projects.

I play jazzy fingerstyle though with no nails. I use a lot of soft guitar techniques like hammer-one, pull-offs and harmonics. You just can’t play that style with just a mic in anything but the quietest room.

See my other thread on purchasing a new Godin Doyle Dykes Signature Model to see my latest attempt to amplify this style of playing. The DD Sig is a chambered guitar with an LR Baggs LB6 bridge pickup and a Lyric mic in the larger chamber. The LB6 is used by James Taylor, Janis Ian and Phil Keaggy among others.
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Old 07-13-2019, 12:21 PM
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A mic is easily the best option when all the other variables are right. Good guitar, good sound system, good acoustics, good sound person, quiet audience, solo guitar, etc. When all the stars aren't aligned, a mic's not so viable. With a band, a noisy room, etc, a pickup allows you to be heard, a mic might not.

I recall a gig some years ago where a bunch of us played at a loud rock bar. It was all solo acoustic, mostly instrumental, but in a very loud room. No idea what we were doing there :-) One player in particular didn't want to plug in, and used a mic. I could see his fingers moving, but that was about it. I remember walking up and standing right in front of the monster PA speakers to see if I could hear him - no luck, basically the mic was picking up the sound of the crowd more than the guitar, so the louder the sound system was cranked, the less guitar you could hear. Hopeless.

I prefer playing in places where a mic works well, but these days, unless it's really perfect, I lean toward using a pickup. If you think pickups have to sound bad, you haven't tried the latest stuff. There are plenty of bad-sounding pickups, but there are also pickups that sound very good, and with things like ToneDexter, a pickup can rival a mic in a live setting, with the added benefit of being able to work in situations where a mic will fail. I've been happy enough with my current pickup setups that I have gladly used it even in cases where a mic would work.

In any case, it comes down to the right tool for the job. Usually a good idea to be prepared for both/either.
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