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acoustic/electric guitars
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Miguel de Maria
Posts: 3532
Joined: Oct. 20 2003
From: Phoenix, AZ
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 RE: acoustic/electric guitars (in reply to Miguel de Maria)
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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.
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Date Oct. 21 2003 20:35:06
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Miguel de Maria
Posts: 3532
Joined: Oct. 20 2003
From: Phoenix, AZ
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RE: acoustic/electric guitars (in reply to Miguel de Maria)
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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.
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Date Oct. 22 2003 19:47:07
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Escribano
Posts: 6417
Joined: Jul. 6 2003
From: England, living in Italy
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RE: acoustic/electric guitars (in reply to Phil)
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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.
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Foro Flamenco founder and Admin
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Date Oct. 22 2003 20:19:37
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Jon Boyes
Posts: 1377
Joined: Jul. 10 2003
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RE: acoustic/electric guitars (in reply to Miguel de Maria)
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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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Date Oct. 23 2003 9:59:31
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