UST QUACK! - Okay, now I understand - UPDATED

[phil1]

I think shufflebeat is right - different things are being discussed here. Quack is generated by overdriven electronics, exacerbated by a heavy attack.

As mentioned by others, I also understand that quack comes from a poor quality preamp. I put SD Wavelengths in the guitars I build and I think their relatively quack-less sound is the result of a great preamp and much higher headroom. Beautiful sounding pickups, IMHO.

Just to add a few more thoughts to this thread, even before the Clapton Unplugged thing I was always surprised by how awesome guitars sounded on albums, then how crappy they'd sound when you heard the artist live. In the studio they'd sit in front of a $3000 mic with a $2000 Martin, route the signal through a $2000 compressor and a $2000 preamp and sound like a million bucks on the album. Then on stage they'd plug in a $1000 Takamine (pickup included in that price), run it through a cheap DI, and sound like a duck - as though they could care less about their tone. For anyone playing an electric guitar, if there was that big a discrepancy in their recorded and live sound, they'd think their rig was broken. But for some reason acoustic musicians have lived with it for years.

Thank goodness we've come a long ways on this. Somewhere back in the days of the Fishman pocket blender and the Highlander pickup we started to turn the corner on quack and have been moving in a better direction ever since.

[noledog]

Originally Posted by phil1

I think shufflebeat is right - different things are being discussed here. Quack is generated by overdriven electronics, exacerbated by a heavy attack.

As mentioned by others, I also understand that quack comes from a poor quality preamp. I put SD Wavelengths in the guitars I build and I think their relatively quack-less sound is the result of a great preamp and much higher headroom. Beautiful sounding pickups, IMHO.

Just to add a few more thoughts to this thread, even before the Clapton Unplugged thing I was always surprised by how awesome guitars sounded on albums, then how crappy they'd sound when you heard the artist live. In the studio they'd sit in front of a $3000 mic with a $2000 Martin, route the signal through a $2000 compressor and a $2000 preamp and sound like a million bucks on the album. Then on stage they'd plug in a $1000 Takamine (pickup included in that price), run it through a cheap DI, and sound like a duck - as though they could care less about their tone. For anyone playing an electric guitar, if there was that big a discrepancy in their recorded and live sound, they'd think their rig was broken. But for some reason acoustic musicians have lived with it for years.

Thank goodness we've come a long ways on this. Somewhere back in the days of the Fishman pocket blender and the Highlander pickup we started to turn the corner on quack and have been moving in a better direction ever since.

* Here’s a recent clip of me and one of my “$1000 Takamine pickup included” at one of my shows. No DI, just plugged straight into amp. Takamine’s Palathetic pickup and their high quality preamps sound wonderful in my opinion. The CT4DX uses 2 9v batteries for tons of headroom and zero quack. Here I’m using the CT4BII with one 9v battery and it has little to no quack. Btw I use medium gauge strings, 1.4 pick thickness and a heavy attack... recorded with my iPhone only.

https://youtu.be/Sn4opkCHjAU

* Here is the same “$1,000 Takamine” recorded the same way as at my show while doing an in-home show during the lockdown. This is an original instrumental called Thessalonia, no ducks present in the room.

https://youtu.be/VUpo0-uYYzg

* In the studio when I record sessions on other artists CD’s I use my “$2,000” Martin D-18 with a two tracks; one with a good condenser mic, the other from my mag pickup (M80 and currently Tone Boss)... however, I’ve recorded with my Takamine’s, especially on one of my CD’s that sounded wonderful. The Cooltube preamp records very well as several Nashville recording engineers have attested to from articles and interviews I’ve read/listened to because of the warm compression they produce.

* While I agree with your point, I disagree with some of your examples... I listen to Eric Church play his Gibson in the studio with a condenser mic that sounded great, but live he is using a the ust that comes on his model and that does sound quacky, so I get your point... MIJ Takamine’s though is far from that Phil.

[ruger9]

I can't explain the why's of it, but I seem to be able to reduce piezo quack by adding a little compression (which I get from my Zoom AC-3). It's still there, but more tolerable.

[EZYPIKINS]

Used the UST on stage forever. It never bothered me. Live.

One night I was trying to work out a song. With a warm up exercise.

Plugged into my desk direct. And recorded what eventually became one of my better instrumental pieces ever.

Problem was. After listening to the playback. Hearing the sound of the piezo was terrible.

Try as I might. I couldn't eq THAT sound out. Call it quack, or tinny or whatever. Sounded like crap.

Now I hear it live. when plugged in.

Don't play that guitar anymore.

I tried to go back and re-record my instrumental with a mic. But never could recapture the magic.

Song is track 1 on my album. The feeling ALMOST overpowers the quack.

[Methos1979]

UPDATE: There was a lot of great feedback (pun intended) from various posters replying to this thread - thanks for that. Yes, the buzzing from poor technique is definitely a different animal than quack, strictly speaking. However, even when played with very good technique the quack was still very apparent at higher gain (as set on the Anthem StagePro preamp) when any sort of attack was used. This became very much apparent on the few songs that are played primarily fingerstyle but at some point (usually in a chorus) I would need to strum. Paul Simon's '50 Ways To Leave Your Lover' is a good example of this.

But wait, what I didn't factor into this was that I'm an idiot. (Hey, if it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck... pun intended again!) I discovered today (two months into playing the guitar in question) that I was not using the onboard Anthem StagePro piezo(UST)/mic blend slider correctly. What I assumed to be blending in the maximum amount of mic was in fact instead just the opposite - blending in nothing but UST piezo. In this position combined with bumped up trebles to enhance fingerstyle playing, I was in effect setting up the guitar to provide maximum quack with minimum attack! DOH!!

Hey, at least I caught it before I went live with this guitar in a couple weeks! Turns out there's little symbols right on the slider that clearly shows slider up as piezo (PZ) and slider down as mic (picture of a mic). At least I got a couple months of deliberate technique improvement motivation which actually has paid off! So while quack is definitely a real thing, and something I'm now more acutely aware of than ever before, at least I can now dial out almost completely and this RainSong Nashville OM continues to get better and better as a gigging guitar. I'm excited to use it in the coming weeks for our first post-pandemic live shows.

Note: Posting this in the top OP for those seeing it for the first time.

[shufflebeat]

Originally Posted by Methos1979

I'm an idiot

Welcome to idiots club.

Remember, whatever happens at idiots club - gets plastered all over the internet.

Just to tie a few bits of this together, I've been having a bit of an experiment and the part of the audio spectrum which is most hard on the head and is commonly referred to as "quack" is also the frequency band in which fret buzz stands out most.

I still recognise these as separate phenomena but they are closely correlated and in EQ terms are ameliorated by the same treatment. It's probably not a surprise that others have connected them in a way that I hadn't but I feel a bit more informed by my own exploration.

Ta guys.

[lkingston]

One thing I’ve noticed is that piezo elements tend to distort on hard strums. That distortion is the most offensive part of the quack. Some pickups (like the LR Baggs LB6) use separate piezo elements for each string, and these seem to be less susceptible to this distortion since each of these elements is only dealing with the dynamic range of a single string.

This is not to say that single element pickups are necessarily bad.

[Methos1979]

Thanks! I hear we're having jackets made?

RE - below bolded: Yes, this is why I like to 'get out front' on my idiocy. Takes the steam and bite out of the inevitable internet plastering!

Originally Posted by shufflebeat

Welcome to idiots club.

Remember, whatever happens at idiots club - gets plastered all over the internet.

Just to tie a few bits of this together, I've been having a bit of an experiment and the part of the audio spectrum which is most hard on the head and is commonly referred to as "quack" is also the frequency band in which fret buzz stands out most.

I still recognise these as separate phenomena but they are closely correlated and in EQ terms are ameliorated by the same treatment. It's probably not a surprise that others have connected them in a way that I hadn't but I feel a bit more informed by my own exploration.

Ta guys.

[Rudy4]

Originally Posted by Methos1979

UPDATE: There was a lot of great feedback (pun intended) from various posters replying to this thread - thanks for that. Yes, the buzzing from poor technique is definitely a different animal than quack, strictly speaking. However, even when played with very good technique the quack was still very apparent at higher gain (as set on the Anthem StagePro preamp) when any sort of attack was used. This became very much apparent on the few songs that are played primarily fingerstyle but at some point (usually in a chorus) I would need to strum. Paul Simon's '50 Ways To Leave Your Lover' is a good example of this.

But wait, what I didn't factor into this was that I'm an idiot. (Hey, if it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck... pun intended again!) I discovered today (two months into playing the guitar in question) that I was not using the onboard Anthem StagePro piezo(UST)/mic blend slider correctly. What I assumed to be blending in the maximum amount of mic was in fact instead just the opposite - blending in nothing but UST piezo. In this position combined with bumped up trebles to enhance fingerstyle playing, I was in effect setting up the guitar to provide maximum quack with minimum attack! DOH!!

Hey, at least I caught it before I went live with this guitar in a couple weeks! Turns out there's little symbols right on the slider that clearly shows slider up as piezo (PZ) and slider down as mic (picture of a mic). At least I got a couple months of deliberate technique improvement motivation which actually has paid off! So while quack is definitely a real thing, and something I'm now more acutely aware of than ever before, at least I can now dial out almost completely and this RainSong Nashville OM continues to get better and better as a gigging guitar. I'm excited to use it in the coming weeks for our first post-pandemic live shows.

Note: Posting this in the top OP for those seeing it for the first time.

Glad to hear you found an answer for your dilemma.

There's some truth to the rest of that old saying "When all else fails...".