Acoustic Guitar Tone Match - Source included

[Zwiebelchen]

I tried some tonematching again and these are the results (I always played AIC's classic Nutshell for better comparison between the sounds):

Trying to tonematch the soundcloud file from solo-act:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/xpluz192yhs8a7h/Tonematch1.mp3

Trying to tonematch a random piece out of one of Tommy Emmanuels Live performances:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/0l274cc5cqo9d1p/Tonematch2.mp3

This one is special: I tonematched both on my neck single coil (left channel) and my piezo (right channel), stored them to user cabs, then used a stereo cab to blend both sounds together:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/p2xwsbn30njyyhn/Tonematch3.mp3


In the end, none of these sound like an acoustic to me... it's simply missing some "body" in the sound. It's just highs...

 

[is9582]

Solo-act,

That is an awesome TM! I'd certainly have guessed the soundcloud file was a recording of an acoustic. Keep pushing the envelope!

Cheers,

Lee

 

[is9582]

Zwiebelchen,

Unfortunately, I agree, none of the three clips you posted sounded much like an acoustic to me either. Strange enough, I really expected your TM of the file solo-act posted was going to have a much fuller range of tone, as the original played on their Parker did. I agree there is usually something lacking that is a dead giveaway, but the one from solo-act was in the range of what I'd feel might cover most acoustic sounds well enough to off-set bringing an actual acoustic, if the acoustic sound wasn't a core aspect of my performing.

I hope we all continue to push each other's attempts constructively, as we may just hit on something unexpectedly good. I've never attempted a TM, but I may have to give it a try with a couple of my guitars this weekend.

Keep at it!

Cheers,

Lee

 

[Roland]

OK, I'm home, and have listened to the original wav and tone match for the first time. Like Zweibelchen, the original wav doesn't sound very much like an acoustic guitar to me. It's probably a very nice guitar, but not what I expected. Too much mid, and not enought zing for my personal taste. Having said that, the tone match is reasonably close to the orginal. Not having played for a week, and having very fresh ears, I also listened to my own IRs and thought they were also too mid heavy.

I wonder whether our problem is that tone match measures all the frequencies, but what we need are separate EQs/IRs for the attack and plateau phase on each note. Maybe we need an ADSR that blends two IRs, or drops mid-range EQ, after the initial plectrum attack.

I'm not particularly knowledgeable in this area. Anyone care to comment?

 

[Zwiebelchen]

Zwiebelchen,

Unfortunately, I agree, none of the three clips you posted sounded much like an acoustic to me either. Strange enough, I really expected your TM of the file solo-act posted was going to have a much fuller range of tone, as the original played on their Parker did. I agree there is usually something lacking that is a dead giveaway, but the one from solo-act was in the range of what I'd feel might cover most acoustic sounds well enough to off-set bringing an actual acoustic, if the acoustic sound wasn't a core aspect of my performing.

I hope we all continue to push each other's attempts constructively, as we may just hit on something unexpectedly good. I've never attempted a TM, but I may have to give it a try with a couple of my guitars this weekend.

Keep at it!

Cheers,

Lee

I think the real problem with tonematching an acoustic guitar is, that tonematching can only copycat the raw EQ based on FFT analysis. IRs shot by the tone match do not cover dynamics.
A signal taken from an electric guitar, no matter if the piezo picks the sound or the magnetic, usually has a much "smoother" dynamic response than an acoustic guitar, simply because the guitar body resonates different. Acoustic guitars have a very strong and percussive attack noise, then a high dropoff in level and a much shorter sustain. There is no way you can improve on that without adding compression/gate/expander.

What we would need in order to shoot a much better IR of an acoustic guitar is a tonematch block that also adds a multiband compresser/expander in addition to the EQ.
While I think it's hard to write an algorythm that detects this (maybe with having streamlined testing patterns like "strum an A-minor chord", "pick the E string open", etc.), it might be the first step to a real acoustic sound on piezo equipped guitars.

That being said, I know you don't want to hear it, but I think the reason why the parker piezo sounds so different to my piezo equipped guitar is simply because the mechanics and body types are so different:
- The parker is solid body, made out of carbon composite (much less mass than my semi-hollowbody Duesenberg TV)
- The parker has an active Piezo system (Ghost system), I used a passive
- I have a TOM bridge Piezo, the Parker has a strat-style bridge Piezo.

I noticed that the raw, unprocessed piezo sound I get from my guitar is awfully close to the natural acoustic sound I get when just playing the guitar "unplugged". This further proves that the body type makes A LOT MORE difference in sound for piezo pickups than it makes for magnetic pickups.


I might experiment a little bit more on getting an acoustic sound by adding a multiband EQ before the tonematch in the future. As soon as I can get a convincing result, I'll try to upload it.

 

[Roland]

I think the real problem with tonematching an acoustic guitar is, that tonematching can only copycat the raw EQ based on FFT analysis. IRs shot by the tone match do not cover dynamics.

i'm sure that's a big part of the problem. Yesterday I played around with the EQ, boosting above 16kHz, and putting dips into the mid range. It sounded 'silvery', but lacking attack. The next step is to let some mids through a side chain controlled by a gate or ADSR to try to simulate the attack. I remember that Simeon did something similar to maintain pick attack when detuning with a Pitch block.

 

[maxolla]

amazing. What was the electric guitar you used to play this?

I did an acoustic tone match the other day with a friend. I need to trim down the source file and post it, but I'm thinking of tonematching this tone match clip just to see how it turns out.

 

[WITELITE]

Seen Rush lately? Close your eyes and you would NEVER know that the "acoustic" was actually a piezos and an Axe-Fx.

Narzugon and others, keep it up... Artists always want more of this stuff and I am happy to point them to threads like this.

This is the hardest one for me to replicate and would love something close to the sound Lifeson gets live. Is there any way to make those available to us Piezo guys? I have every cab pack and would love a cab pack of tone matched acoustics for a piezo equipped electric guitar.

MM

 

[tonyi]

I did an acoustic tone match the other day with a friend. I need to trim down the source file and post it, but I'm thinking of tonematching this tone match clip just to see how it turns out.

This is dated 2013 so I assume it is too late to ask for the preset? I think it sounds great!