acoustic/electric guitars (Full Version)

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Miguel de Maria -> acoustic/electric guitars (Oct. 21 2003 17:45:47)

Hi all, after a few years struggling with mics and outboard pickups I've decided to get something to plug in. I ordered CGX-171SCF, the Yamaha acoustic electric flamenco! Has anyone here gone to A/E or are we are still purists here? :)



Escribano -> RE: acoustic/electric guitars (Oct. 21 2003 18:33:52)

Only the Gypsy Kings[;)]



Miguel de Maria -> RE: acoustic/electric guitars (Oct. 21 2003 19:39:10)

Doh!



Ron.M -> RE: acoustic/electric guitars (Oct. 21 2003 20:01:52)

Hi Mike,
I've heard quite a lot of good players use "clip on" mics in Spain and it sounds OK.
Sometimes a bit compressed and distorted, depending on the mic/amp setup.
But if you play well, it tends to always come through somehow! LOL!
I mean you can hear a re-recording of a poor recording of PdL, converted to low bit rate mp3, and it still sounds brilliant!

Great audio reproduction (for amateurs) in my opinion, just makes all the duff notes and fluffs come through in a lot clearer quality!
In the old days of "high" fidelity reproduction, I think they used to say (about audio bandwidth), "The wider you open the window, the more flies you let in".

cheers

Ron



Miguel de Maria -> RE: acoustic/electric guitars (Oct. 21 2003 20:35:06)

Ron,
My live sound setup has been killing me. I'm so tired of feedback! Anyway, the stuff I play live is not that complex, mostly just strumming with an occasional lead line, so hopefully not too many missed notes! I don't know about you, but when I was in Spain those who amplified had the worst sound I had ever heard. I don't think those guys know anything about mic-ing up. I think when it comes down to it, you have acoustic guitars, which are good for rooms and maybe concert halls, and then you have acoustic/electric guitars, which make a decent sound for noisy live venues. The problem is that acoustic/electric guitars don't really sound that good, at least compared to acoustics. The Gypsy Kings use a/e's and don't sound very good. However, I saw Ottmar Liebert, a "nouveau flamenco" player, and his guitar sounded wonderful. He was using some kind of long condensor microphone.



Ron.M -> RE: acoustic/electric guitars (Oct. 22 2003 8:53:37)

Yeah Mike,
I remember being in this noisy bar in Spain and the guitarist had a clip on mic and a beat-up little amplifier about 12" x 12" x 9" in size.
Not only was he whipping the hell out of the guitar, but the little amp was turned up to max producing nothing but pure overdrive.
Closest thing yet I've heard to a Flamenco Jimi Hendrix.

cheers

Ron



Miguel de Maria -> RE: acoustic/electric guitars (Oct. 22 2003 15:24:16)

Even here in the states, at one of the top flamenco shows--Maria Benitez with Chuscales--the sound is a joke. I talked to Keith Vizcarra, who makes guitars in Santa Fe where the show is located, and he just shaked his head and laughed. "They don't know any better," he said, "and they don't care." Flamencos just want to play! Damn the microphones, we'll play without them!



Phil -> RE: acoustic/electric guitars (Oct. 22 2003 18:39:56)

Miquel,

I haven't seen the electric acoustics used by any flamencos here. I have, however, seen them used by Sevillanas groups like 'Ecos del Rocio' and Manuel Orta. They use them so the can get the volume up over the keyboard synthesizer (the volume is usually at rock concert levels). I can tell you that every single one I've heard sounded terrible. I really don't understand why, but they sound like a box with strings. I wonder if anyone here can explain why there's such a difference between a mic and a pickup.

Phil



Patrick -> RE: acoustic/electric guitars (Oct. 22 2003 19:03:52)

Phil,

I don’t think it’s an issue of a pickup versus a mic as much as it is in the way the electric flamenco’s are built. I recently played a Yamaha electric flamenco. It’s built with a very thin body. If you play it without amplification it has very low volume and mediocre tone. So from the way I see it, the tone of the electric flamencos is almost completely dependent on the quality and construction of the pickup and the type of amplifier used.

In other words, it’s like apples and oranges trying to compare an electric to a traditional flamenco with a mic. The pickup of an electric can only work with what is fed to it, which isn’t much!

Pat



Miguel de Maria -> RE: acoustic/electric guitars (Oct. 22 2003 19:47:07)

I think that a/e's have to be built thicker. A thin soundboard resonates well, which produces tone and volume, but also feeds back to the same degree. A thick soundboard is quiet and that quiet signal can be amplified to high volumes. From what I understand, this problem has never been solved. The two existing solutions are to mic a guitar normally and put up with feedback, or to plug into a thick, lacquered-up monstrosity that doesn't sound like a guitar. I am going with the second option. The first one doesn't work for me!

The only live sound that sounded great I've heard was Ottmar Liebert. For those of you who don't know who he is, he is a white guy (actually half german, half asian, like me!), who has limited chops and knowledge of flamenco, who has somehow passed himself off as a flamenco to the American audience and sold many more records here than Paco ever will. Most of his songs feature percussion, a guitar doing a rumba "abanico" type strum, and a lead line played with a clunky picado.

His guitar sounded wonderful. Although he wasn't playing real flamenco, I feel that it would have sounded just as good if he did. One thing I noticed is his percussionist used a lot of soft Indian (east) hand drums, no drum kit or even congas. I think maybe his setup would not have worked if he had needed to put his volume on par with even the acoustic sound of a drum kit, but that's just speculation.

After three years of gigging, putting up with feedback and a host of other technical problems, my idea of what a live sound is and how an amplified guitar must sound is changing.



Escribano -> RE: acoustic/electric guitars (Oct. 22 2003 20:19:37)

I'll have a go [;)]. An external mike picks up the real sound vibrations of the guitar moving through air, as near as it can. A contact mike works on a tiny amount of the vibration from the soundboard compared to the relatively hige vibration air from a miked guitar; hence a mike could produce more fidelity at lower signal levels. I guess that, in theory, the contact mike would also produce more feedback, as it needs more pre-amplication.

A luthier could build in something from off-the-shelf kits (like this and this ) but that's a lot of PP3 batteries.

Hollow body instruments are reknowned for pickup feedback which is why most electric guitars have solid bodies.

Feedback from a miked acoustic instrument is probably more to do with the positioning, type and amplication of the mikes, speakers and monitors than the instrument. If I were Miguel, I would stick with the right instrument and work on the latter issue.

Lastly, the silent guitar that Miguel may still own, produces no feedback at all it is doesn't have a body [;)]

My two cents, which are probably wrong.



Escribano -> RE: acoustic/electric guitars (Oct. 22 2003 20:30:11)

quote:

After three years of gigging, putting up with feedback and a host of other technical problems, my idea of what a live sound is and how an amplified guitar must sound is changing


To get what you really want, you need a sound engineer, not just for the set-up and sound check but the whole performance as the ambience constantly changes and different palos have different needs. You just going to have to make more money[:D]



Ron.M -> RE: acoustic/electric guitars (Oct. 22 2003 20:36:01)

quote:

and sold many more records here than Paco ever will.


But Mike, so has Simon & Garfunkel and the Beach Boys....
I thought we were talking about Flamenco as it is known in Andalucia?

Ron (puzzled)



Miguel de Maria -> RE: acoustic/electric guitars (Oct. 22 2003 20:47:41)

Ron,
I was just chatting about gear in this thread. I introduced Ottmar becuase perhaps many of you had not heard of him. He does happen to play a flamenco guitar, live, and sound damn good. The sound, not the playing is the good part. I believe that's pertinent both to gear and to flamencos.



Ron.M -> RE: acoustic/electric guitars (Oct. 22 2003 20:54:53)

OK Mike, I get it now.
I just couldn't catch the drift of your thinking at first.
Sorry!

Ron



Miguel de Maria -> RE: acoustic/electric guitars (Oct. 22 2003 20:58:23)

Ron, I have to agree with you that the Beach Boys have about as much to do with flamenco as Ottmar :)



Ron.M -> RE: acoustic/electric guitars (Oct. 22 2003 21:42:14)

"....I wish they all could be Jerezana Girls........


LOL!

Ron



Jon Boyes -> RE: acoustic/electric guitars (Oct. 23 2003 9:59:31)

Hi Mike (Miguel!)

I gig with an electro-acoustic (Takamine), always have done (..er except a few months back when the bar had a power cut and I had to do an acoustic set, but thats another story..). As well as my A/E Tak, I had a Fishman system fitted to my main classical guitar.

Anyhow, it is perfectly possible to get a great sound using an A/E. It will never sound like a miked up guitar, but still very good nonetheless. I have heard lots of crap sounds coming from A/E guitars, and equally I have heard lots of crap sounds from miked-up guitars. It always comes down to the same factors - quality of the gear, experience of the person doing the sound.

With A/Es quality of pickup is *very* important. Quality of PA you go through is *Very* important. How you EQ and mix your sound is *very* important.

Put a guitar with a great pickup through an inappropriate amp/pa, it will sound crap. Don't pay attention to EQ, chances are it will sound crap.

There are three diferent types of pick up, by the way, a contact transducer that attaches to the guitar's surface, a piezo pickup that sits under the saddle and an internal mini condenser mic. All generate an elctrical signal in different ways, all behave differently. Some systems combine and blend the signals from these eg a piezo + internal mic condenser.

My friend has that Yamaha you just ordered, it sound fine and has a good pick up system.

Feedback is another issue entirely and you have to take account of where you sit (and the guitar position) in relation to the speakers. At larger gigs, I go through a 400w pa. I sit right in fron of the apeakers, and it is loud, yet I rarely get feedback problems. On the one occassion I did, I used a notch filter on my Tak's preamp to locate the frequency and cut it out anyway.

Anyway, as you can see I have a lot to say on this subject. I think you are doing the right thing, and as I said it is possible to get a very good sound, as you experience with Ottmar proves this. It just takes nice gear, and practice with mixing.

Jon

PS there are other things that help to eg. I use a little Fx box that has 'Mic emulation' in it. This does a great job of giving an 'airy' quality to the sound and taking away the harsh presence of a pick up.

..another thing: you have to play slightly differently through a pick up. The response is different, and your technique has to adjust.



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