respectable Acoustic Tone through a pedal?

[Stratman76]

Can it be done?

I know about RMC, Graphtech Ghost, LR Baggs and Fishman Piezo bridge pups but was wondering if a respectable acoustic guitar tone was achievable through a pedal/effect unit? Anyone? One poster on the guitar board said he liked the acoustic emulation of the Korg PX4D. Then I stumble on to this...

http://www.korg.com/gear/info.asp?a_prod_no=PX5D&category_id=6

The Korg PX5D.

The distortion sounds were generally awful but I found few potentially usable sounds listening to the list of mp3 samples) Plus it has a USB out to send an audio stream to a computer. The acoustic sample was decent. I've found the inherent problem with these multi-effects units is they usually offer little in usable tone and add a fair amount of noise to the signal. That said, this little Korg is going for $249 and sports a USB interface.

The Korg PX5D acoustic MP3 sounded OK. To me, it sounds a little too clean and compressed but I thought I could add a little grain/dirt to get it the same zip code as my 74' Gibson J40. Maybe I'm dreaming.

Has anyone had any experience with this Korg unit or do you have any other suggestions?

 

[jaywalker]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QoBNDmesECk

these are my efforts to date at cloning an acoustic piezo with an electric if that's what u mean.

 

[Stratman76]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QoBNDmesECk

these are my efforts to date at cloning an acoustic piezo with an electric if that's what u mean.

Cool! That's exactly what I mean. My take is one might even do better with an acoustic simulator/effect over piezo pups.

 

[fr8_trane]

I've got a roland cube amp that has a mode based on one of the boss acoustic simulator pedals. With the strat or tele neck pickup its fairly convincing. It wouldn't cut it in the studio but on stage it would be an acceptable alternative to switching to an acoustic guitar in the middle of a song.

 

[jaywalker]

I've got a BOSS AC2 as well as the 2 magicstomps on my main board. The AC2 is fed by a parralel output from a splitter at the beggining of my chain. If you put a dummy jack in the 'electric' output of the AC2/3, you can run it parallel with your electric sound to the PA/acoustic amp/FX return of your amp giving you 2 guitars at once.
I also run the AC2 into another magicstomp to get more sustain and reverb etc...

My MS patches sound a little better than the BOSS though IMHO

 

[Stratman76]

I researched this a bit...

It looks as though the Zoom A2 is a great value pick for acoustic enhancement/simulation. It's designed to work with a variety of pickup sources and while it's not perfect, it seems to do respectable job at $99.

On the more elaborate front, the DTAR Mama Bear Acoustic Pre looks solid at $349.

Either the Zoom or the DTAR units look like they could take a piezo equipped electric into better, certainly more resonant acoustic territory as well.

Fishman offers a series of Aura products but they must be finicky because the user reaction is all over the board.

 

[jaywalker]

I have the A2, but don't put it on my board as it takes up too much room for 1 effect only. The rest of the sounds are for kids.
I use magicstomps because they are far superior in quality for both electric-acoustic sims as well as for piezo equiped guitars or full bodied acoustics. Add the fact that you have SPX studio grade effects and the best reverbs and delays imaginable and it seems to make sense for less than 50 bucks second hand or 100 new if u can find one, and it fits on any pedalboard.
I'm still waiting for somebody to come along with something with better specs though as the MS is discontinued.(hence the price)

 

[Stratman76]

I have the A2, but don't put it on my board as it takes up too much room for 1 effect only. The rest of the sounds are for kids.
I use magicstomps because they are far superior in quality for both electric-acoustic sims as well as for piezo equiped guitars or full bodied acoustics. Add the fact that you have SPX studio grade effects and the best reverbs and delays imaginable and it seems to make sense for less than 50 bucks second hand or 100 new if u can find one, and it fits on any pedalboard.
I'm still waiting for somebody to come along with something with better specs though as the MS is discontinued.(hence the price)

Thanks for the info! That kind of discovery and disclosure is much appreciated. There was a Magicstomp II... is there any reason to consider that one if your primary intent is acoustic sim? I did read the Magic Stomp II added auto feedback reduction; does it work, is it worth it? I wonder why Yamaha discontinued the Magicstomp? I've got to believe the support overhead was high...(especially with underdeveloped editing software in tow!)

Also, the DTAR Mama Bear unit looked pretty good although it's a little pricey. Fishman Aura looks avoidable right now and there doesn't seem to be much else out there. The market seems to be there especially with the increasing popularity of piezo pups installed on electrics. The piezo equipped Parkers I've auditioned always sounded thin and I'm now wondering if a thick, boost eq pedal with a little hair would add some wood, some resonance to that signal.

 

[jaywalker]

I use auto feedback red. all the time, I do a lot of stadiums and large venues. It's fast and effective.
There is no difference between version 1, II acoustic, electric or bass models. The new software converts any model into any of the others or all of them at once.
You can just have one or two patches for acoustic sims (or download mine from the yahoo group in my sig - they are not available as presets) and then use it to replace just about any pedal on your board when you don't use it for sims.
I believe it was discontinued because yamaha marketed it badly.
It should have been aimed at people like us who use pedalboards and need a mega-functional multi with individual sounds, as opposed to a standard multi-effect.

Yamaha have given up on it, but I'm continuing to develop new patches and uses as well as upgrades.

 

[dk_ace]

I love the MS as an acoustic pre. I've never used it as an acoustic sim though. The one thing you should know about the unit is that the bypass is pretty terrible. It leaves a digital edge on your bypassed tone that is really irritating. I couldn't use it inline with an amp for that reason. If you don't mind using a TB loop with it, it will be a good unit.

D

 

[Lt_Core]

I use my AC-2 through a Loopmaster pedal into a clean channel. Very passable for the 1 or 2 songs during a 3-set gig, IMHO. Beats setting up an acoustic.

 

[jaywalker]

I love the MS as an acoustic pre. I've never used it as an acoustic sim though. The one thing you should know about the unit is that the bypass is pretty terrible. It leaves a digital edge on your bypassed tone that is really irritating. I couldn't use it inline with an amp for that reason. If you don't mind using a TB loop with it, it will be a good unit.

D

I've heard that a few times before from folks, but never experienced it myself. I have 2 of them inline and when I use them with a looper there is no difference with my set up.
I use them to push my amp a bit too.....

 

[dk_ace]

I've heard that a few times before from folks, but never experienced it myself. I have 2 of them inline and when I use them with a looper there is no difference with my set up.
I use them to push my amp a bit too.....

Some can hear it, some can't. Consider yourself lucky, because if you can get around that one issue the unit is an absolute steal. I really would keep it with a looper except for that I don't really need it. I like the reverb (actually I love it), but I don't really need reverb for anything. The delays are awesome, but they don't have a tap. If I needed any of the effects, I would gladly go buy the looper. I'm just really happy with my rig as is. I did use it all the time in the loop of my Mesa when I was using that setup. I say they're definately worth a try as they can do almost anything. The only real downfall with it (except the lack of tap tempo) is the bypass, which is easily and cheaply fixed. I bought the unit before it went to $100, and I'm still convinced I got way more than my money's worth for it.

D

 

[Stratman76]

The only other products that look worthwhile are DI boxes with Parametric EQ. They look like they would make solid-body with piezos sound better.

L.R. Baggs Para Acoustic DI $159
Tech 21 Sans Amp Para Driver $209 claims to "eliminate the harsh, unnatural harmonics of piezo pickups" User data seems to support this.

 

[drbob1]

I've tried a lot of these things out, mostly to make my Piezo equipped Parker Nitefly sound like a real acoustic. I've never really found the EQ solutions to really tune out the piezo "quack" which I hate (I'm looking for studio acoustic sounds like old CSNY). I"ve owned the Morley and Fishman EQ type solutions, as well as DBX and Trace. I've owned the dedicated acoustic amps from Crate and someone else I can't remember. I've tried out the Mama Bear and it was good, but it's nearly unobtanium around here. Certainly no used ones on the market. The Aura actually works quite well depending on the guitar and models you choose (and it is critical to get the right match). With the Parker it's killer, recorded it's very hard to tell the difference between it and my 85 Taylor mic'd. With my Piezo equipped Fleishman semi-hollowbody I haven't yet found the right model. It's kind of funny that Fishman, that works with Ovation on preamps, doesn't have any Ovation models stock because it would liven up my Ovation 12 string nicely (already helps a lot but it's not quite right). All of this assumes you have a piezo pickup. I haven't found a model I like with a magnetic pickup on a solid-body guitar... BTW, I found my Aura used at GC for $249, at that price it was definitely worth it!