Acoustic tone match review

Xrocker

Xrocker

Fractal Fanatic
Had a truly mind blowing experience today.

I'm visiting Denver right now and I took my rig over to Solo Act's studio today to give some acoustic guitar tone matching a try. He and I are both very picky about our acoustic tones.

I use a Taylor 9something 12 string in my show but I have many songs that need a six string. I'm a bit nervous about taking my 45 year old D35 to clubs. It's worth more than both of my cars put together! Solo has a winning lottery ticket Collings that is one of the best sounding acoustics I've ever heard. Thought we'd give it a shot.

I was expecting to get a close approximation of a clean electric guitar sort of sounding like an acoustic. Holy shitballs!
My Parker Fly now can sound just like Solo's Collings under ideal conditions. At any volume! When I close my eyes I would never in a million years believe I was listening to an electric. We have preserved the DNA of his guitar! All I hear is a wood guitar captured with a fine studio mic. There is NOTHING electric going on there at all.

I really don't know how in the hell Cliff did this. It's like I have made a perfect sample of a Steinway piano at every string, every combination of stings and every dynamic by taking a snapshot of it with an iPhone.

Holy Shitballs!
 
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Piezo. Probably 3 or 4 generations old. A 96 Parker.

Would love to hear what a modern system could do. Guess its time for a new Parker!
 
My Parker is that age. All I've done to get a better piezo sound is swap the Fishman circuit for a Graphtech. For IRs I could only raise a Taylor 414. Are you able to share the IR from the Collings?
 
Xrocker said:
Patzag, I'd love to hear what it would sound like on one of your new Parker's!
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Me too. If I get the IR I'll post a sample here. I suppose you've heard my Tommy Emmanuel match? I posted the IR cab on Axechange. you can also try the preset I uploaded or just drop the IR in your preset for another flavor of acoustic.

 
I have a brand new Parker. Would love this IR!!!!

Patzags Tommy Preset is sublime. I love it!

You guys amaze me!!!!!
 
Tone matching is a great way to make a piezo-equipped guitar sound like a high-end acoustic. But sharing tone matches is hit-or-mmiss at best. Unless you're using the same guitar with the same pickups, you won't get the same results unless you tone-match your own guitar.
 
Rex said:
Tone matching is a great way to make a piezo-equipped guitar sound like a high-end acoustic. But sharing tone matches is hit-or-mmiss at best. Unless you're using the same guitar with the same pickups, you won't get the same results unless you tone-match your own guitar.
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True enough. I have two parkers equipped with Ghost saddles and preamps. One Alder and the other Swamp ash. They sound quite different acoustically and this translates the same way with the piezos and therefore, the tonematches. However, they both sound good with my preset. So the differences don't render the use of the IR invalid. It may just need a little re-EQing.
Nevertheless, the optimum way to do it is tonematch to one's own instrument.
But I'd rather have a non-optimum match of a Martin D45 or a Collings than an optimum match of a piece of a sub-par instrument, especially if the tonematch is done to a Parker! :)
 
Rex said:
Tone matching is a great way to make a piezo-equipped guitar sound like a high-end acoustic. But sharing tone matches is hit-or-mmiss at best. Unless you're using the same guitar with the same pickups, you won't get the same results unless you tone-match your own guitar.
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Good point. That's why Patzags sounds so good on mine. Our guitars are very similar. I would still love to mess with the Collings IR! :)
 
Is there any way of just sharing the reference part of the tone match? You could load Solos reference snapshot then play your own guitar for the local portion, hit match, and there ya go.
 
Xrocker said:
Is there any way of just sharing the reference part of the tone match? You could load Solos reference snapshot then play your own guitar for the local portion, hit match, and there ya go.
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The best way to do this is to share the original file. Ie: record the acoustic guitar using a pattern of chords and sounds easy to duplicate. For instance, if you recorded your Martin with a good mic and preamp into a Daw and played chords such as Cliff's Boogie or just some documented chords and voicings, and then posted an uncompressed copy of the file, anyone could use that to tonematch the guitar.

Otherwise, I'm not aware of an export function of the tone match block with no local audio recorded. That's maybe something that Cliff could add to the software.
 
+1 for sharing that preset/IR!
I am still looking for my personal "perfect" acoustic tone match. As I only got cheap acoustic guitars, I'd really love to try out yours!
 
Zwiebelchen said:
I am still looking for my personal "perfect" acoustic tone match. As I only got cheap acoustic guitars, I'd really love to try out yours!
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Scour the net got a stellar example of a miked acoustic tone. There's your reference tone.
 
I did this earlier and got a much more accurate IR with Ozone. You can go into small details with Ozone... try it out.
 
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