Rig Advice

[Tone Jones]

First time poster here looking for some gear advice. I've been playing for about 40 years and while I've been mostly an electric player, I play acoustic gigs in both solo and duo formats.

My current setup is a Taylor 314CE into a Fishman ToneDEQ into a pair of Bose S1s. I find I really have to fight this setup. There is little to no sustain, bending is extremely tough, and playing legato is next to impossible because I constantly feel like I have to drag notes out of it.

I've tried lighter gauge strings as well as various compressor settings on the Fishman to no avail.

Any pointers on where to begin? Part of me wonders if something like an Anderson Crowdster would be the ticket but it's a spendy proposition without the certainty that it will address my concerns.

Thanks for your help!

[Robin, Wales]

Hi Tone Jones, welcome to the forum!

It's not unusual.... for this to be the case. Sorry it was an open goal.

A banjo is acoustically loud but has no sustain. An acoustic guitar is loud enough to accompany singing and has some sustain. A solid body electric is virtually silent but has lots of sustain (which comes out when you plug it in).

I don't think that it's your rig. I think that you may be asking an acoustic guitar to do something that an electric guitar just does better. You wouldn't be expecting wonderful long sustain from a banjo just because it had a p/u fitted. The physics are wrong. And it is sort of the same with the acoustic guitar compared to the solid body electric, but not as extreme.

Someone here may give you some ideas for some tweaks (although it sounds like you have tried the obvious already) but you are not going to overide the physics.

[BlueStarfish]

DUP, sorry ignore

[BlueStarfish]

Hi Tone Jones,

I’m just an intermediate hack, I haven’t played nearly as long as you. But I only play acoustic, don’t even own an electric. If you’re willing to consider some lessons-learned from a fellow player coming from that perspective … here goes. Feel free to ignore any of these points you learned decades before I even picked up a guitar, all are meant in a friendly spirit :-)

First observation is that set-up makes a big difference. Most acoustic guitars come stock from the factory with nut slots too high. Even Taylors, in my experience. If you hadn’t had your Taylor properly set up, get that done. Even a couple of hundredths of an inch at the nut can make a big difference.

Second observation is that great acoustic-centric players use a range of techniques that can be slightly different from electric players. Such as …

… don’t emphasize bends so much. Especially close to the neck. Instead, emphasize hammer-ons, pull-offs, and slides. Those techniques work really well on acoustic. Play to the instrument’s strengths, not its weaknesses.

… If you do bends, do them a little further up the neck. And counter-intuitively, try out doing them on the 6th string, not the 1st string. You’ll have to use a 6th string bend differently than a 1st string bend musically, it sounds more country or bluegrass than blues, but it can be a very cool effect.

Regarding sustain and legato, the key on acoustic is to keep multiple strings ringing at the same time. This is much easier to do when you are in cowboy chord territory and heavily using open strings. That’s one of the reasons that you see bluegrass flatpickers mostly playing out of G, C, and D positions, even if they have to use a capo … lots of ways to use open strings out of those positions. Same basic reason you’ll see acoustic players in some genres heavily favor Drop D and DADGAD … lots of open strings. Yes you can play up the neck without a capo like you would on an electric guitar, but it takes a lot more precision in fretting hand technique to make that sound good on acoustic.

Even more on legato and sustain. Practice the art of holding note X even after you’ve struck note Y on an adjacent string. You’re trying to hold the notes so that they overlap in ringing out. It will feel strange at first, go slow until it becomes second nature. Try doing this playing scales or fiddle tunes or whatever melodies you already know.

Another point on sustain. The whole electric technique of muting to deaden the strings you aren’t playing … don’t do that! Unless you specifically are looking for a palm muted tone, let your strings ring.

[Bluenose]

Is your use of an acoustic just for appearances sake only or are looking for an acoustic sound because I think it's much easier to get an electric to produce a quasi acoustic sound than vice versa and generally speaking electrics are far more versatile and easier to play than acoustics. I hate making broad statements like that because invariably someone will take issue but that's just part of the fun I guess.

[Charlie Bernstein]

Originally Posted by Tone Jones

First time poster here looking for some gear advice. I've been playing for about 40 years and while I've been mostly an electric player, I play acoustic gigs in both solo and duo formats.

My current setup is a Taylor 314CE into a Fishman ToneDEQ into a pair of Bose S1s. I find I really have to fight this setup. There is little to no sustain, bending is extremely tough, and playing legato is next to impossible because I constantly feel like I have to drag notes out of it.

Welcome, Tone Jones!

Sounds like you're expecting your folk guitar to play like an electric. As Garcia so emphatically said, electric and acoustic guitars are totally different instruments and want to be played differently.

First, acoustics are not about the long sustain electrics can dish up. With acoustic instruments, that sonic zone is usually achieved via dobro, fiddle, or tremolo on mandolin. Having said that, rosewood often has more sustain than mahogany. Gibson's, Guild's, Larrivee's, and Martin's are more sustainful than some other brands. (Sapele's sound is closer to mahogany's.)

Bending a half-step or step works fine once you're used to it, but you won't do any Albert King two-step bending. You'll have to rely on sliding to achieve that. For more bendability, tune down a step or get a short-scale guitar.

Legato really is electric guitar territory. It's possible (anything's possible), but finding other avenues of expression will probably be more fruitful.

Originally Posted by Tone Jones

I've tried lighter gauge strings as well as various compressor settings on the Fishman to no avail.

Real light strings (like elevens) will kill your tone. No point in that. Watch some Tommy Emanuel, Mark Knopfler, Richard Thompson, and Molly Tuttle to appreciate the folk guitar tone zone.

Some fine players swear by compressors, but I find they flatten the expression I work hard to put into my playing, which is mostly roots American styles. But if you're into emo or pop, compression is practically mandatory. You be the judge.

Originally Posted by Tone Jones

Any pointers on where to begin? Part of me wonders if something like an Anderson Crowdster would be the ticket but it's a spendy proposition without the certainty that it will address my concerns.

Thanks for your help!

Never heard of Crowdsters, so I watched a couple of promo videos. Dreadful. No surprise there. Those hybrid acoustic/electrics tend to be the mullets of the guitar world.

I love playing both electric and acoustic, but I don't try to play them the same way. So I'd get a folk guitar that suits my style and just appreciate it for what it is.

Let us know what you end up doing. Should be interesting.