Old guy transitioning to Strat from acoustic

[glaze3]

But isn't this where we all talk about $10,000.00 acoustics

I don't see why you want the best acoustic tone you can buy, but when it comes to Electrics it doesn't matter.

[GoPappy]

Originally Posted by glaze3

But isn't this where we all talk about $10,000.00 acoustics

I don't see why you want the best acoustic tone you can buy, but when it comes to Electrics it doesn't matter.

Some people are obsessed with tone. But some of us believe that it’s really about the performance (and the tone of the guitar is just one aspect of that), and that 99.99% of your audience can’t distinguish and/or don’t care about tiny incremental “improvements” in tone.

And keep in mind that the vast majority of us here don’t own $10,000 acoustics and never will. A lot of us have much more modest guitars and are happy with them. For example, my Martin CEO-7 is more guitar than I need and is certainly more than I ever thought I’d own. And I could spend a small fortune chasing better sound but, in the end, does a different guitar really sound better or does it just sound different?

For a bedroom player like me (and, probably, most of us here), if it sounds good enough TO ME, that’s all that matters. Chasing sound can be fun, but to a large extent it’s just “gilding a lily.”

[BoneDigger]

I recommend using all of those knobs and switches to your advantage. Both on the amp and on the guitar. I am not saying this in a sarcastic way at all. I mean, feel free to experiment. Just remember that when it's all said and done, you can turn everything back to the middle again and start over. I have found, that I get the best acoustic sounding tone by using the neck pickup and turning the tone knob to suit. But, the middle pickup can work quite nicely too. Add a bit of reverb, but not so much that it sounds to electric.

If you have the money, consider a BodyRez" pedal. Although you are working with an electric guitar, it can add a little body to the guitar and make it wound more acoustic in nature. A nice EQ pedal can also help.

Below is just one example, but there are others.

[Brent Hutto]

Let's say someone came to the forum and said, "I'm a long-time electric guitar player looking to change to acoustic but want to play some of the same music I was good at with electric, hopefully even get a somewhat similar sound".

Would anyone here seriously be trying to persuade that person to buy a $10,000 acoustic guitar? Or even a $5,000 one?

Maybe someone one, half in jest. But it wouldn't be serious "you'll never sound good without it" advice.

And I'm sorry if I sound like a broken record but most of the appeal of "nothing but a tube amp has THAT sound" comes from people who are imagining a cranked tube amp that's loud as heck. They might also talk about attenuators and master volume, etc. but that's just ways of making the loud as heck amp of their dreams actually usable in real world situations.

[GoPappy]

Originally Posted by Brent Hutto

Let's say someone came to the forum and said, "I'm a long-time electric guitar player looking to change to acoustic but want to play some of the same music I was good at with electric, hopefully even get a somewhat similar sound".

Would anyone here seriously be trying to persuade that person to buy a $10,000 acoustic guitar? Or even a $5,000 one?

Maybe someone one, half in jest. But it wouldn't be serious "you'll never sound good without it" advice.

And I'm sorry if I sound like a broken record but most of the appeal of "nothing but a tube amp has THAT sound" comes from people who are imagining a cranked tube amp that's loud as heck. They might also talk about attenuators and master volume, etc. but that's just ways of making the loud as heck amp of their dreams actually usable in real world situations.

What he said.

[Steve DeRosa]

Originally Posted by Brent Hutto

...I'm sorry if I sound like a broken record but most of the appeal of "nothing but a tube amp has THAT sound" comes from people who are imagining a cranked tube amp that's loud as heck. They might also talk about attenuators and master volume, etc. but that's just ways of making the loud as heck amp of their dreams actually usable in real world situations.

When Leo Fender and Everett Hull (Ampeg) developed some of the first high-power (40W+) guitar amps in the late-1950's, it was with the goal of achieving maximum clean headroom and frequency/dynamic range for the then-popular styles of music (jazz, country, pop) in larger performance venues, rather than the OSHA-hazard SPL's they would be associated with a decade later; in fact, during his tenure at the helm of Ampeg Hull adamantly refused to market any tube amp with more than 60W output (the rare and aptly-nicknamed B-12XT Portaflex "Twin killer" representing the apex of the blue-check food chain) - ironic for the company that would become legendary for the behemoth SVT within two years after his departure...

Having cut my musical teeth in the heyday of those blue-check Ampegs (effectively our hometown brand) and blonde/blackface Fenders I'm principally a "big clean" tone aficionado, and tend toward musical styles that favor that sound - '50s/60s R&R and R&B, country, surf, first-wave British Invasion, some lightweight jazz, etc. - and I regularly practice at home with amps in the 45-120W range, at reasonable levels as they were intended, and never drew so much as a single complaint from either my family or the neighbors in my old Brooklyn apartment (no mean feat in itself). BTW it seems I'm in good company: I saw Les Paul at a small NYC jazz club in the mid-90's, playing through a non-master volume silverface Twin at club levels - and I suspect he knew more about electric guitar tone than either of us will in three lifetimes...

I'm also a hardcore tube guy at heart - I've been in this game long enough to not only hear but feel the difference, and in spite of many modelers' claims to the contrary nothing else captures the full experience - but there have been analog SS and hybrid amps with real tone for the last 50 years or so: the original Leo Fender-designed Music Man and pre-1985 Randall "orange-stripe/grey-stripe" RG and RB combos (designed, interestingly enough, by a former associate of Mr. Fender) come quickly to mind - owned the former, still own (and use) the latter, and keep a "blackface Twin" style Fender Frontman 212R in the stable for when I need big, dependable, clean, relatively lightweight plug-&-play/grab-&-go power. Also have a first-run Line6 Flextone Plus 60W 1x12" with full pedalboard: never really did it for me, haven't played it in at least 15 years, but a few years ago I worked with a studio guy (who did road time with a major R&R HOF band from the '60s) who swore by his similar rackmount Pod - go figure...

BTW I'm not imagining a cranked tube amp that's loud as heck: I went completely acoustic shortly after Woodstock (when things got really out of hand volume-wise ) and, other than home practice and some occasional low-volume studio work, didn't touch electric for the next 15 years - probably saved my hearing as a result, and I can point to a number of former bandmates who weren't so fortunate...

Quite frankly I like the idea of a master volume, and when I owned a Music Man 410-65 I found a way to balance the channel and master controls to achieve a fuller tone at practice levels, without the loss of tone many owners of high-power rigs complain about; BTW all of my Bugeras are equipped with built-in attenuators - which I use either for clean late-night/I-can't-sleep or headphone practice or, in the case of the higher-powered V22 and T50, to open up additional tonal possibilities that don't necessarily involve overdriven gain stages...

Finally, good-quality tube tone doesn't need to cost an arm, leg, and/or a couple other highly-useful appendages either: for less than the $2100 replacement cost of my '65 Super RI I have four different all-tube amps (two heads, two combos) and two cabs (soon to be joined by a third that'll still keep the total cost below the threshold), which I can mix-&-match according to the demands of the gig, and that will get me all the sounds this guitar-cable-amp guy will ever need - and IME that's what it's all about...

[redir]

Originally Posted by jpmist

Playing my Strat is simply so much easier, particularly with a capo up the neck.

I have not made this type of switch but since I have been building and repairing guitars for 25 years now I have helped many who wanted to make the switch and convinced others to NOT make the switch. How? Through good set up work and light gauge strings. IT may not work for you but it may be worth a try too. So My questions would be what acoustic guitar are you making the switch from and when was the last time it was professionally set up? What gauge strings are you using? And so on.

I am in fact setting up a 60's Martin now for a gentleman about your age who has switched to playing electric guitars with 8 gauge strings. I'm setting those up for him as well. But he still wants to see if he can get the old Martin playable. It's a Dred which is probably not the best choice but I will refret it, resurface the fret plane perfectly. Recut the nut and set it up with super low action and ten gauge strings.

Again it may not work out for him. A Strat with 8 gauge strings is certainly going to be easier to play but if you really don't want to throw in the towel on acoustic guitars there is a chance you don't have to if you get good set up work done on it.

Otherwise rock on! Electric guitars are super fun

[SalFromChatham]

I sometimes play my electrics (Strat and Tele) through a Boss Katana MKII 50w, which has an acoustic setting that sounds great. A neck pickup on the Strat with some compression can be acousticy if you twist your head enough and squint.

Frankly though, I enjoy picking the electrics up, getting some delay and reverb on, and mixing it up.

[marciero]

Originally Posted by redir

I have not made this type of switch but since I have been building and repairing guitars for 25 years now I have helped many who wanted to make the switch and convinced others to NOT make the switch. How? Through good set up work and light gauge strings. IT may not work for you but it may be worth a try too. So My questions would be what acoustic guitar are you making the switch from and when was the last time it was professionally set up? What gauge strings are you using? And so on.

I am in fact setting up a 60's Martin now for a gentleman about your age who has switched to playing electric guitars with 8 gauge strings. I'm setting those up for him as well. But he still wants to see if he can get the old Martin playable. It's a Dred which is probably not the best choice but I will refret it, resurface the fret plane perfectly. Recut the nut and set it up with super low action and ten gauge strings.

Again it may not work out for him. A Strat with 8 gauge strings is certainly going to be easier to play but if you really don't want to throw in the towel on acoustic guitars there is a chance you don't have to if you get good set up work done on it.

Otherwise rock on! Electric guitars are super fun

Agree with this. Sure-play the strat for its own thing. But meanwhile, have your acoustics set up for ease of play- flat neck profile, lower action-including possibly cutting the nut slots lower, and lighter strings. Those 00s you have will be fine with .011 or even lighter, especially if you are willing to tolerate some fret buzz (which, I would be willing to bet, your strat has). Your tone will be affected but will still be an actual acoustic sound.

[CASD57]

Originally Posted by Steve DeRosa

When Leo Fender and Everett Hull (Ampeg) developed some of the first high-power (40W+) guitar amps in the late-1950's, it was with the goal of achieving maximum clean headroom and frequency/dynamic range for the then-popular styles of music (jazz, country, pop) in larger performance venues, rather than the OSHA-hazard SPL's they would be associated with a decade later; in fact, during his tenure at the helm of Ampeg Hull adamantly refused to market any tube amp with more than 60W output (the rare and aptly-nicknamed B-12XT Portaflex "Twin killer" representing the apex of the blue-check food chain) - ironic for the company that would become legendary for the behemoth SVT within two years after his departure...

Having cut my musical teeth in the heyday of those blue-check Ampegs (effectively our hometown brand) and blonde/blackface Fenders I'm principally a "big clean" tone aficionado, and tend toward musical styles that favor that sound - '50s/60s R&R and R&B, country, surf, first-wave British Invasion, some lightweight jazz, etc. - and I regularly practice at home with amps in the 45-120W range, at reasonable levels as they were intended, and never drew so much as a single complaint from either my family or the neighbors in my old Brooklyn apartment (no mean feat in itself). BTW it seems I'm in good company: I saw Les Paul at a small NYC jazz club in the mid-90's, playing through a non-master volume silverface Twin at club levels - and I suspect he knew more about electric guitar tone than either of us will in three lifetimes...

I'm also a hardcore tube guy at heart - I've been in this game long enough to not only hear but feel the difference, and in spite of many modelers' claims to the contrary nothing else captures the full experience - but there have been analog SS and hybrid amps with real tone for the last 50 years or so: the original Leo Fender-designed Music Man and pre-1985 Randall "orange-stripe/grey-stripe" RG and RB combos (designed, interestingly enough, by a former associate of Mr. Fender) come quickly to mind - owned the former, still own (and use) the latter, and keep a "blackface Twin" style Fender Frontman 212R in the stable for when I need big, dependable, clean, relatively lightweight plug-&-play/grab-&-go power. Also have a first-run Line6 Flextone Plus 60W 1x12" with full pedalboard: never really did it for me, haven't played it in at least 15 years, but a few years ago I worked with a studio guy (who did road time with a major R&R HOF band from the '60s) who swore by his similar rackmount Pod - go figure...

BTW I'm not imagining a cranked tube amp that's loud as heck: I went completely acoustic shortly after Woodstock (when things got really out of hand volume-wise ) and, other than home practice and some occasional low-volume studio work, didn't touch electric for the next 15 years - probably saved my hearing as a result, and I can point to a number of former bandmates who weren't so fortunate...

Quite frankly I like the idea of a master volume, and when I owned a Music Man 410-65 I found a way to balance the channel and master controls to achieve a fuller tone at practice levels, without the loss of tone many owners of high-power rigs complain about; BTW all of my Bugeras are equipped with built-in attenuators - which I use either for clean late-night/I-can't-sleep or headphone practice or, in the case of the higher-powered V22 and T50, to open up additional tonal possibilities that don't necessarily involve overdriven gain stages...

Finally, good-quality tube tone doesn't need to cost an arm, leg, and/or a couple other highly-useful appendages either: for less than the $2100 replacement cost of my '65 Super RI I have four different all-tube amps (two heads, two combos) and two cabs (soon to be joined by a third that'll still keep the total cost below the threshold), which I can mix-&-match according to the demands of the gig, and that will get me all the sounds this guitar-cable-amp guy will ever need - and IME that's what it's all about...

Lol we are from the same era.....
Do you remember the hybrid amps with a oak cabinet and a wheat/basket weave grill.... good awful sounding...
I had a 67/68 Super....sold it $1395
Dumbest thiing I traded my SF/BF's 73 Twin for a Rivera R30..Stupid..stupid...
Had a bunch of others... But back on topic/ current topic I think sound wise the Modelers are close but its the connection between the amp and our heads-fingers is what we feel..between the tubes and SS/modelers
I'll get back into tubes soon but I'm not a total tube snub anymore...
For me Acoustic guitars give me that connection...the depth of sound.. but I also want to play my Electric's so the journey continues...

[Steve DeRosa]

Originally Posted by SalFromChatham

I sometimes play my electrics (Strat and Tele) through a Boss Katana MKII 50w, which has an acoustic setting that sounds great. A neck pickup on the Strat with some compression can be acousticy if you twist your head enough and squint...

See Post #3 above - I would have figured any old Jersey guy would know that trick...

Originally Posted by CASD57

Lol we are from the same era.....
Do you remember the hybrid amps with a oak cabinet and a wheat/basket weave grill.... god-awful sounding...
I think sound wise the Modelers are close but its the connection between the amp and our heads/fingers is what we feel...between the tubes and SS/modelers
I'll get back into tubes soon but I'm not a total tube snub anymore...

In order:

• I think you might be referring to the line of "gee-I-wish-I-could-afford-a-Mesa-Boogie" amps the original Acoustic company produced in the early-80's, just before they went out of business - here's one in vinyl livery (the wood versions are kinda rare these days), and I remember Sam Ash couldn't get rid of them for love or money :
  
  
  
• I always saw modelers as a great option for a studio owner/player (like the guy I mentioned above) or local cover-band guitarist who needs "that sound, right now" and either has the wherewithal to do the necessary fine-tuning like the former, or has an audience whose collective ears aren't critical enough to appreciate the difference; by the same token, to me it's like going on a dinner date at an upscale outdoor cafe with a Sofia Vergara mannequin - very impressive to the casual passers-by, but lacking the soul and fire of the genuine article - which leads me to:
• Although tubes are my preferred option (as they have been for the last 60 years) I'm far from a total tube snob - I've listened to enough uber-high-end solid-state audiophile equipment, I have no issues with a well-done analog SS or hybrid guitar/bass amp, and I've always had at least one in my gig-gear stable for the last 40 years: great when I need lotsa squeaky-clean power in a relatively lightweight and/or compact package (an increasingly important factor, as I'm not getting any younger), and if you've never played either a first-series Music Man or pre-1985 Randall RG/RB (both of which were voiced/priced to compete with the all-tube gear of the 1970's) you might be surprised at just how much high-quality tone (and volume) they can put out - in fact, I've often recommended the Randalls as a less-pricey/less-industrial-looking (and more toneful to my ears) alternative to the Roland JC Series, whether for a strictly-clean player or pedalboard jockey...

[CASD57]

Originally Posted by Steve DeRosa

See Post #3 above - I would have figured any old Jersey guy would know that trick...


In order:

• I think you might be referring to the line of "gee-I-wish-I-could-afford-a-Mesa-Boogie" amps the original Acoustic company produced in the early-80's, just before they went out of business - here's one in vinyl livery (the wood versions are kinda rare these days), and I remember Sam Ash couldn't get rid of them for love or money :
  
  
  
• I always saw modelers as a great option for a studio owner/player (like the guy I mentioned above) or local cover-band guitarist who needs "that sound, right now" and either has the wherewithal to do the necessary fine-tuning like the former, or has an audience whose collective ears aren't critical enough to appreciate the difference; by the same token, to me it's like going on a dinner date at an upscale outdoor cafe with a Sofia Vergara mannequin - very impressive to the casual passers-by, but lacking the soul and fire of the genuine article - which leads me to:
• Although tubes are my preferred option (as they have been for the last 60 years) I'm far from a total tube snob - I've listened to enough uber-high-end solid-state audiophile equipment, I have no issues with a well-done analog SS or hybrid guitar/bass amp, and I've always had at least one in my gig-gear stable for the last 40 years: great when I need lotsa squeaky-clean power in a relatively lightweight and/or compact package (an increasingly important factor, as I'm not getting any younger), and if you've never played either a first-series Music Man or pre-1985 Randall RG/RB (both of which were voiced/priced to compete with the all-tube gear of the 1970's) you might be surprised at just how much high-quality tone (and volume) they can put out - in fact, I've often recommended the Randalls as a less-pricey/less-industrial-looking (and more toneful to my ears) alternative to the Roland JC Series, whether for a strictly-clean player or pedalboard jockey...

Here is is...............

[Steve DeRosa]

Originally Posted by CASD57

Here is is...............

Oh yeah, the other "gee-I-wish-I-could-afford-a-Mesa-Boogie" amp; forgot all about this one - not hard to see why...

[T.Lime]

Catching up on posts... I am in mid 60's, gig regularly. Switched to electric from acoustic for live gigs. I run a modified Jet Js-300 as my main gigging tool.. a fantastic bit of kit... mine is modified with two Iron Gear pups and a Seymour Duncan Vintage pup at the neck.......
I stopped using amps over this winter and run a Cab/Amp sim pedal on my board. I generally run a Fender '67 Twin reverb sim with 6L6 tubes,, but have also downloaded the IR for AER Amp Three..... live it is nigh on impossible to tell that the Jet is not an acoustic.... note this does not work for recordings