#1
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Yamaha Transacoustic vs Tonewood Amp
Does anyone have experience with both? I've had my finger on the trigger for a new Yamaha LL-TA and the only thing stopping me is that I already have a Yamaha LL16R (which is the ll-ta with a passive pickup rather than the actuator) and I just wonder if getting the tone wood amp would do just as well.. After listening to videos of them both they seem pretty similar but the tone wood seem to have more features like the ability to add extra effects with an idevice. The tone wood could be more versatile, as well. This type of effect would defiantly do well wth my play style. Any advice?
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Emerald X-20 Artisan (blue) (keeper) Emerald X-30 black Breedlove Cascade C25/cre Fender PM1 Deluxe Yamaha ll16R A.R.E. Martin Dread Jr E Sitka Eastman Cello |
#2
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I own a Tonewood amp and I played around with a Yamaha Transacoustic in a music store.
For now I prefer the sound of the Tonewood Amp, but I really like the idea of it being permanently built into the guitar like on the Transacoustic. The Tonewood Amp does a couple of simultaneous effects at once. My favorite is a bit of simultaneous reverb and delay. It sounds just wonderful. With the Transacoustic I can do reverb but not delay. It’s still cool, but not the same magic |
#3
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I have FG-TA Transacoustic and TWA. FG-TA is quite a bit less than the LL-TA. I don’t have a place nearby with LL-TA, but Guitar Center carries FG-TA and FS-TA, so I’d recommend trying one out, if you have one nearby. To compare... man, that’s really hard, they are comperable.
Transacoustic: Sounds fantastic, both hall and room reverb sounds natural, full and amazing. The chorus is pretty amazing, if you like chorus fx. With transacoustic, it’s built in, so no awkward box, cables, it’s easy to turn on and just play. ToneWood Amp: I have tried it on Journey OF660, GS-Mini Koa, Little Martin, Martin dreadnought jr. The biggest upside compared to transacoustic is that it’s one unit that you can put on all of your guitars. OF660 and GS-Mini sounded the best. I have a current video review post on the carbon fiber section on the OF660, if you want to hear what that sounds like. It does take a little time getting rid of the feedback. Even if you don’t get piercing feedback, you can get small amount of feedback which sounds like high airy fx, and doesn’t sound natural. So it takes a bit of tweaking to find the sweet spot for the notch filters. It’s not hard, it just take a bit of time and is finicky. And some guitar seems to sound better than others, or have better or worse feedback than others. My gs-mini has a curved back, which is a bit of a problem... I had to use some foam tape to get it to a good angle for contact. You have a lot of settings for each fx... gain, volume, decay, predelay, high cut etc. And each guitar needs it’s own settings for gain and notch filters. It’s just much more in depth than transacoustic. It also got fx that transacoustic doesn’t have, including overdrive, which is rather amusing to play on acoustic. TWA has chorus in beta, can’t wait to hear what that sounds like when released. In any case, it takes a little more time tweaking to dial in the TWA, whereas the Transacoustic is tuned perfectly for that guitar. Kinda feel like PC and Mac... TWA (PC) give you a million things to tweak with, flexible, works on countless guitars. Transacoustic (mac) gives you one guitar with two perfect knobs, and nothing more, because that’s all you need. I don’t think you can go wrong with either. They make me sound better, so it makes me want to play more, so that alone is worth the cost. Only downside is that it’s hard to play a guitar without fx now.... |
#4
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FYI I had it all hook up to work with idevice, but was a big let down.
You have to pay for some apps, which I did... and it takes a while to figure out how to use one app to use as input for midi from guitar, and another app to use as the midi instrument. The problem I had was you don’t need to cable to they sell to do it. It’s using the iPad’s mic as input, instead of TWA. I had posted in TWA forums, and someone else had chimed in as well, but TWA claims that is how it’s suppose to work, and the post now has disappeared from their forum. So that’s rather shady. In the end I just gave up, after paying for the cables and the apps, just wasn’t worth it. The result was some notes would often keep playing because sometimes the app thinks that there isn’t a note off command. I was hoping that if it used TWA output that it would be more accurate to when the note is off, but never got that resolved. |
#5
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What I love about my LLTA is a fantastic sounding and playing guitar switched on or off and believe me it sounds better than some of my more expensive ones . The effects are all you need and I’ve ABd them with my pedalboard . Used it live twice now and just amazing
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Martin OODB JT Gibson J45 Yamaha LLTA Yamaha SLG200S Yamaha NTX1200R Taylor GSMiniE Rosewood Joe Brown Uke AER Compact 60 Marshall AS50D Now 100% Acoustic and loving it ! No more GAS |
#6
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I’ve used my TWA live a couple of times through a PA where it was just acting like an external effect and not vibrating the back. It sounds as good as the best pedal effects.
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#7
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I have the TWA, and I have played the TransAcoustic quite a lot in the music stores. The TransAcoustic is a nice guitar, but for me it's far too limited, and as far as I know it can't be updated with new firmware either.
TWA is really nice, I'm especially found on having delay while sitting in my couch playing... I wish it had a "tap delay" feature, maybe it will come in a future firmware. Talking about firmware, a gr8 thing about the TWA is the promise of firmware updates... but this (unfortunately) seems to be a slow process, we're still waiting for a public version with chorus enabled. I'm an early-early-bird crowd funder of the HyVibe guitar, and to me that one might bring the best of two worlds: having everything built-in to the guitar, while also being really flexible and firmware updatable. The Hyvibe will also bring a lot of more features, for example a looper. /Per |
#8
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Thanks for all of the excellent replies. I think I'll order the tonewood soon. I have a sentimental attachment to my ll16r and I don't think I could sell it even if I bough a ll-ta so I think I will put the tonewood on it first. I seen one for sale in the classifieds, but was a bit to slow. It seems it would be well worth the 250 to buy it new.
That hyvibe guitar looks very interesting! I wonder if they will sell the electronics separately in the future for installment on your favorite guitar... these extra effects look like they can really bring solo jamming to a whole new level. I hope the guitar itself is of a quality that will match the effects.
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Emerald X-20 Artisan (blue) (keeper) Emerald X-30 black Breedlove Cascade C25/cre Fender PM1 Deluxe Yamaha ll16R A.R.E. Martin Dread Jr E Sitka Eastman Cello |
#9
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When it comes to the HyVibe guitar, the future will tell if it lives up to it's promise. I have been told they are on target to deliver the first batch of guitars in June to us early-early bird adopters. Unfortunately HyVibe, I feel, have not really been able to put together any "mindblowing promotional videos", like some that you can find for the TonewoodAmp when played by out-of-this-world acoustic guitarists. Good luck with your TWA! /Per |
#10
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This is going to sound like an odd, maybe even silly question.....
Has the TWA been noticed to have any passive influence on vocals? In other words, does the voice benefit in any way by being caught in the same air eminating from the guitar? Also...I assume the TA has the system built inside the guitar whereas the TWA is applied inside (the bracket) and controller mounted outside on the back. Any significant weight differences or cumbersome aspects with the TWA?
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Tom '21 Martin D-18 Standard | '02 Taylor 814c | '18 Taylor 214ceDLX | '18 Taylor 150e-12 | '78 Ibanez Dread (First acoustic) | '08 CA Cargo | '02 Fender Strat American '57 RI My original songs |
#11
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I hope the HyVibe will be pretty low-weight, but this I know nothing about. |
#12
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I’ll try to better explain what I mean. I’m referring to playing without any other amplification or mic. Since a TWA equipped guitar produces reverb (and other effects as desired) that projects forward from the guitar, I’m wondering if the singing voice that also projects forward from the guitar, especially when the player is seated where the player’s mouth isn’t that far above the guitar, might pick up any, even if only just a bit of sympathetic reverb (or whatever other TWA effects are chosen) audible to listeners. Again, maybe a silly notion. It occurred to me, so just thought I’d ask. It might be cool if this happens, to add a little reverb to one’s voice without needing any amplification...kind of like a TWA for the voice.
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Tom '21 Martin D-18 Standard | '02 Taylor 814c | '18 Taylor 214ceDLX | '18 Taylor 150e-12 | '78 Ibanez Dread (First acoustic) | '08 CA Cargo | '02 Fender Strat American '57 RI My original songs |
#13
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One interesting test, though, would be to put a mixer before the TWA where you mix-in vocals with the signal from the guitar mic, adding the effect for both the vocals and the guitar. I might give it a try, although I don't expect good results. What I have done is putting a compressor pedal between the pickup and the TWA trying to avoid it to clip when I play songs where I change the dynamic a lot. But I got feedback problems, but it might be solvable with some tuning. The HyVibe guitar will support compression, and it also has some sort of insert jack letting you to add your pedals. /Per |
#14
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Emerald X-20 Artisan (blue) (keeper) Emerald X-30 black Breedlove Cascade C25/cre Fender PM1 Deluxe Yamaha ll16R A.R.E. Martin Dread Jr E Sitka Eastman Cello |