Best acoustic guitar plugin for desktop recording?

[Monsoon1]

I'm wanting to be able to liven up the sound of an acoustic guitar.
Not interested in samples.
Also, i'm not looking for the usual chorus effects. I want to be able to plug a dread in, and have a great dread sound during playback without spending a lot of time and money on room acoustics.

[rick-slo]

Originally Posted by Monsoon1

I'm wanting to be able to liven up the sound of an acoustic guitar.
Not interested in samples.
Also, i'm not looking for the usual chorus effects. I want to be able to plug a dread in, and have a great dread sound during playback without spending a lot of time and money on room acoustics.

Let me know if someone tells you about a way to do that.

[runamuck]

Originally Posted by rick-slo

Let me know if someone tells you about a way to do that.

.....Exactly

[Monsoon1]

The Zoom AC-3 does this, so it's not a big leap to assume that there is software that will do this.

[Monsoon1]

Figured i'd try google, and this popped up. It's a Waves plugin for acoustic guitar.
https://www.sweetwater.com/store/det...signer-plug-in

[jim1960]

If such a thing existed, I could sell most of my microphones, but it's not out there. There are plugins like the Waves one mentioned above and the Sound Machine Wood Works from UAD that can minimize the quackiness of a piezo pickup but they're not going to get to the place you can get in a good room with good gear.

I've got a bit of experience in the past few months using the UAD plugin. It's okay but it's not going to give you what you want all by itself. It has 16 presets that you can audition on your track. My experience is that 14 or 15 of them will be unusable. In other words, you'll get one okay choice and perhaps a second. That gets you part of the way there.

FYI - The UAD plugin does not like Taylor's expression system. For whatever reason, I've never been able to improve a track recorded with the Taylor ES using this plugin.

I put a demonstration of the plugin up on Soundcloud. I'll link it below. The first is a clip is from a mid-priced Yamaha with whatever piezo came with the guitar. It displays the usual quack. The middle clip is the same piece with the Sound Machine Wood Works plugin applied. For the last clip I added Sonible smarteq 2 set to Acoustic Guitar.

That's been the process I've been using on a project I've been working on for a friend. It doesn't leave me with a great acoustic sound but it's better than the piezo sound I was given.

I'm afraid you're going to have to keep working the mics like the rest of us.

[MikeBmusic]

Think about it - how could one plug-in make ANY a/e guitar plugged into it sound good? Every pickup system has different characteristics, as do the guitars themselves - and most pointedly, so do our own ears.
EQ, widener, reverb/delay, compression. I suspect the Waves plug-in has all these rolled into one package. Adjusting all the parameters to your liking is the hard part, but to my ears will never sound as good as miking the guitar first.

[runamuck]

Originally Posted by Monsoon1

Figured i'd try google, and this popped up. It's a Waves plugin for acoustic guitar.
https://www.sweetwater.com/store/det...signer-plug-in

I'm familiar with that plugin and it might add something to your liking to an already good recording. But you have to have a good recording to start.

There's just no substitute for that presently.

[Monsum]

Originally Posted by Monsoon1

I want to be able to plug a dread in, and have a great dread sound during playback without spending a lot of time and money on room acoustics.

As others mentioned, nothing substitutes for a mic'ed recording but there are a couple techniques I use on my direct recorded guitars.
You can use an EQ plugin which has a matching feature such as Logic Pro Match EQ (if you're on Mac), Ozone has one and also Voxengo, to name a few.
I got very good results using the Logic's Match EQ plugin, firstly I had to record my acoustic guitar with a microphone (but you need to do it only once)
to capture frequency characteristics of this particular guitar and then let the plugin do the magic on any direct recordings. Works pretty well.
Another option is to use IR files with a IR reader plugin such as a free NadIR.
Have a look at this video where 3SigmaAudio presents their own IR acoustic files on a piezo recorded guitar, they can sound great with a bit of luck and knowledge:

[Northward]

Like others here says, nope. Even big stars have really poor acoustic guitar sound on stage/TV. If such a thing was that easy available in plugins, imagine all the 'unplugged' shows that could’ve sounded so much better. (And they even have expensive hardware gear..)

If you’re lucky to live in a mild clima, have a garden or balcony, -try taking a good field recorder and go outside.. A little background bird song, city life / people / distant traffic can add some cool ambience to your recordings -even after some reverb /chorus). That’s just my opinion of course.

There’s also a little «magic» plugin called Brusfri by -Klevgrand. (Literally hiss free in Swedish). It’s really easy to apply to get rid of hiss / fan noise. Used sparingly you won’t shave your transients. But it won’t make your guitar sound any better.

I’d take some outside ambience over bad room sound or plugged with piezo pickups any day. There is just no way of saving such a dead acústic recording. Well, maybe there is, but I’ve never heard about it.

[GuitarLuva]

Originally Posted by Monsoon1

I'm wanting to be able to liven up the sound of an acoustic guitar.
Not interested in samples.
Also, i'm not looking for the usual chorus effects. I want to be able to plug a dread in, and have a great dread sound during playback without spending a lot of time and money on room acoustics.

There is a plugin that can help you called bodilizer. There's not much info on it but it existed for quite some time. You can try it for free as well. I've used it. It does take some fiddling around to figure it out but it works. You never mentioned what kind of pickup you have but that plugin can clean up a quacking UST just fine. Here's a link to it:

http://www.ijdata.com/products.html

[Gary in MO]

Not sure of your system but I have the iPad, a Steinberg UR22mkII and Cubasis......love it. I downloaded for $25 though it may be $50 now. Still worth it. I've mixed and mastered with it with pretty good results.

Cubasis comes with many stock effects.