Live Acoustic Guitar Hacks

You can have a great sounding acoustic guitar that sounds like trash plugged in. So let me show you how I fix that.

00:00 Intro
01:06 Start at the source
01:56 IR Loader Pedal
02:59 Gear in the Test
03:24 Dry vs. IR Loader Example Strummed
03:53 Dry vs. IR Loader Example Fingerpicked
04:14 Short Reverb Trick
04:33 IR alone vs. Short Reverb Added Example Strummed
04:54 IR alone vs. Short Reverb Added Example Fingerpicked
05:18 Adding the Ambience at the Sound Board
06:45 Console Examples - Dry Guitar
06:58 Guitar through console reverb
07:24 EQ on Reverb Return
07:50 Dry Guitar - EQ Only
08:03 Reverb with Pre- and Post-EQ
08:16 Final Thoughts
09:01 Virtual Sound Check Challenge

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[EricduToit]

"Make your acoustic guitar sound better" - brings an electric guitar to the party. I understand why, but that was fun. thanks James.

[toddleach]

I run an open mic where acoustic guitars are brought by participants. I have dealt with everything from A to Z. The #1 tools I use are: my ears & parametric channel EQ. No matter how bad the actual instrument & pickup/mic are, I can EQ the bad out of it. The EQ filter cuts may be subtle or extremely aggressive. The curve may look like a bad roller coaster design. It doesn't matter what it looks like, only how it sounds.

Some key things I listen for: where is the boominess? Where is the boxiness? Where is the harshness? Does it have sufficient "airiness"? Those 4 key "frequency" areas are the pathway to success for me. Find them by boosting while sweeping left/right, then cut. Deep/narrow (specific frequencies) or wide shallow cuts (large tonal adjustments). The only thing I will boost is air (upper most frequencies), but still try to avoid that unless really needed.

[Henminlul]

The moment I find this channel, my mixing capabilities incredibly beautiful.

Thank you so much, big fan of you

[slimsantilli]

I've played many solo acoustic shows. The number one bit of advice. If you have a pre amp in your guitar. Put your guitars volume at 50%. Let the amp do the work.

[catking]

I use an acoustic guitar with both magnetic and piezo pickup, when mixed well, it makes the sound less thin and bright without sounding like an electric guitar. The reverb trick is really useful

[michaeltablet]

What makes my acoustic guitar sound better is when someone else plays it.

[johnmcvicker]

One trick I do is I sometimes don't want a mono guitar for our stream so I will duplicate the guitar on a 2nd channel and put a short channel delay (not effect) on it - been using 9.5ms lately. Pan orig channel left and new channel right and eq and reverb them differently. What happens is you get a mild chorus effect and guitar "sounds like" it is coming from the speakers and not centered or a wandering mono guitar signal in the stereo stage (it's wider than just guitar thru reverb). Our room is mono so I only put orig channel into the PA. I like it for the stereo broadcast feed - but I also like broccoli.

[markwinslow]

I know I'm pointing out the obvious but that's not an acoustic guitar

[gringoloco]

Good advice! I'd also compress the harshness out of it. And if it's in a large mix, I'd do a lot of subtractive EQ.

[migrantfamily]

In my experience there’s a trade off between sounding natural on one hand and convenience and feedback rejection on the other. My preferred solution is soundboard transducers, think K&K Pure (there are less pricey options). I typically play on a pretty quiet stage. My no.1 is a Norman and it has an unusual under-saddle pickup that uses a capacitive strip instead of a piezo. That doesn’t have the typical brittle tone that seems to be inherent in the design which puts the crystal under stress due to string tension. That pickup was in the guitar when I bought it. Unfortunately, I can’t find any information about it. When I plug in I always use some degree of compression. I have one layer of compression in my preamp pedal (Nu-X Stageman) and a dedicated compressor pedal (Ampeg optocomp) that I switch in and out more as an effect when I want the guitar to smack a little harder. Or I can dial the compression all the way back and use the output control to compensate for my guitars having very different output levels.

[brucepackard]

Many/most acoustic guitarists in the genres I mostly work with (folk, bluegrass) switch a lot between strumming, finger picking and flat picking. Thankfully most use mics rather than pick ups. But when dealing with pickups (particularly piezos) I often find that a setting that makes a piezo pickup "acceptable" for one of these playing styles does not work for the other playing style(s). I sometimes solve this by duplicating the guitar channel and switching between quite distinct settings as needed. Have you tried this?

[daverios]

If it was easy you wouldn't need us. Hysterical, love it!

[TheMaddoxfam]

The IR didn’t do anything for me but I was genuinely impressed by your wet reverb trick.

[deinyr]

Simple solution: A good acoustic guitar + LR Baggs Anthem pickup + Reverb.

[Nick_Sorenson]

IRs are great for amp sims but I find the acoustic IRs to be a little phasey sounding. When they first came into popularity, I was hoping to get a plugged in acoustic to sound like a mic'd acoustic. Still no such luck! And no way most live stage volumes will lend to using a small diaphragm condenser on acoustic. Maybe the best solution is using a track of prerecorded acoustic and playing along with the piezo volume low. Not the best solution, but it is what it is.

[Thewanderer_]

Ok. Each Taylor is different. The one we have at our church is interesting. I can't remember the model but the one that our number two player brings in is far different sounding because of the pick-ups. And he's a finger picker!. I don't have to use very much EQ at all. A Fishman pre-amp and a direct box.

[markwinslow]

I use a Fender Smolder acoustic overdrive on my taylor 12 string and a NUX Optima Air on my Washburn 6 string. Makes the guitar sound good over the PA.

[keithdarwin]

my bag-o-tricks just got bigger. Nice. In my church our issue is with mud. Piano, bass, toms - all merge to provide mud. I EQ the guitar to cut some lows turning it into a hi-hat with chords so that it has its own sonic space. Warm & rich sounding just doesn't cut it.

[StickMartin]

Big ups. This video instantly improved my tone.

You're videos have helped me quite a bit over all.

With a good mix, my 4-hour gigs fly by.

With a bad mix, they seem to take forever.

You mix tips I've made my whole life easier.

Thanks again

[jonathanarleys]

In the case here we are the same, guitarist looking for best accoustic tone on an electric guitar...

For me it all done by digital pedal, just using my Nux MG300. Not the best guitar digital multieffect but it sounds good enough for me in a live performance...

I'm not a fan about reverb and resonance thing on an accousstic guitar (and digital piano to, I just turn this function to Off), let my sound engineer do the reverb job there...