I can't get a decent live acoustic tone with a piezo pickup

boltrecords

boltrecords

Fractal Fanatic
I've been having very mixed results while trying to get a decent live acoustic tone. I'm using a lifeson les paul with a ghost system piezo and also another lp with the same ghost system. The sound is always either very unnatural sounding or very boxy. I tried tone matching, using the acoustic IRs I've found. I've also just tried to use tube pre and EQ, or just straight EQ and no tube pre.

It just never sounds like an acoustic to me. Part of the problem is that I've never been a big acoustic player so I never really have a good reference acoustic tone in my head. Some of the tone matches I've tried never came out well mainly because I think it was a youtube clip I was tone matching. I don't have any high quality acoustic clips to use.

Can anyone point me in the right direction or offer any tricks, tips or presets to try?

Thanks so much.

FYI, this is mainly used for rhythm strumming in a live band setting.


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Tone matching to a good mic'ed acoustic tone is the way to go I would think. It's what produced the best sound for me, tone matched on the neck pickup of my ES-339.
 
boltrecords said:
Part of the problem is that I've never been a big acoustic player so I never really have a good reference acoustic tone in my head.
Click to expand...

That's an interesting point - you're not happy with what you're getting, yet don't have much to compare to... perhaps you're expecting something which isn't there..?
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I guess the best way is to find a recording of an acoustic (isolated would be be even better) that you like - I suspect you'll find a couple and they'll both be different to one another - play it through the same system you use for your tones (whether that be FRFR or FOH PA) and tweak to match

Beyond that, I'll be willing to bet that the acoustic tones you already have will make 99.999% of your audience happy
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I've been getting some pretty good tone matching results. I found a few demos of a Taylor 814 and Martin d45 by a YouTube channel called Acousoc letter. They have portions of the clip where they just let the open chords ring out. Makes tone matching easier

I also tried saving some TM blocks as IRs and blending the Taylor and Martin IR. not bad results.

The only problem I'm having is that the TM block and exported IR don't really sound the same. After I export it, it sounds a little different.

Any help on this would be great


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There is an awesome patch by Cooper Carter (something like acoustic badger IIRC) - this one does it for me. Either with my LP's bridge HB or it's split Neck HB.
 
If you like the acoustic tones on this video contact Marc Cooper, forum member "coopdeville" He can give you some guidance as he plays live all the time and a lot of his music uses Piezo pickups in to his AxeFx.

 
i used a tone match from a vid on youtube and it turned out pretty well. i use it live all the time...


i just have comp > tube pre > tma > peq > reverb

i have the piezos going into input 1 right, round the back of the axe and then volume blocks at the start off all my patches to select which input i want to use in any particular patch (left or right - left is the mags in the front input)

i think tonematch is the way to go. i haven't got any better results with any other method
 
simeon said:
i used a tone match from a vid on youtube and it turned out pretty well. i use it live all the time...


i just have comp > tube pre > tma > peq > reverb

i have the piezos going into input 1 right, round the back of the axe and then volume blocks at the start off all my patches to select which input i want to use in any particular patch (left or right - left is the mags in the front input)

i think tonematch is the way to go. i haven't got any better results with any other method
Click to expand...

Any idea what vid you used?


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boltrecords said:
Any idea what vid you used?


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yes, i know exactly what vid i used, it was this one - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_8lOiX_c470 - i just played exactly what he played for a few bars (my clip even shows this)

i did it by selecting HD for the vid (very important) and running a mono cable from my audio interface headphone out to the front of the axe fx to grab the source audio and then played my guitar in to the rear input. i made sure output 1 was at zero, so i didn't get an audio loop. i think it's best to use a mono cable, so you don't risk getting any phasing issues by summing the L and R channels.

no need to do a live tonematch, because that only works if you're playing both sources simultaneously.
 
I was able to get a good acoustic sound by tonematching my taylor mic'd w/ a U87. I Just tried a quick test w/ my taylor tone match on one side and the tommy match one the other:

 
IMHO it does take a bit of work to get an acoustic simulation that works for you. I've tried several peoples' patches, and whilst they were all reasonable none of them had what I was looking for. This may be because there are lots of different acoustic sounds. Our set list has three songs with acoustic guitar, and I use a different sound for each. There's also Fletcher Munsen which can hit acoustic sounds even more than it hits electrics. Eventually I settled on mixing two different IRs, one for the zing of the strings, and one for the body resonance, and on top of that a little EQ. Maybe, if I had Simeon's ears, then life would have been easier.
 
well to be honest, my ears had very little to do with it. i used my eyes to make sure the reference audio was coming into the axe at the right level and then i just went through the process. the peq after the tma block is simply a high pass filter set to about 100hz to pull out the sub bass frequencies, so it doesn't get boomy when using it live. tonematches seem to work or not depending on the reference material that you use. i guess i just got lucky with this particular vid, because it was well recorded in the first place. i did try it with a few other sources...some tommy emmanuel stuff i found on spotify and even steven wilson's acoustic from the deadwing album, but i wasn't totally happy with those
 
it's never going to sound EXACTLY like an acoustic....differences in strings, etc make it obvious very quickly it's an electric with piezo's. the best tone like that I've ever heard still didn't sound like the real deal, just like a really good electric piezo tone. (in all honesty though, 99% don't care or can't tell a difference, so that's ok i guess, lol.)

I also think the way you play an acoustic is different....hard to attack an electric the same you would an acoustic.
 
simeon said:
i used a tone match from a vid on youtube and it turned out pretty well. i use it live all the time...


i just have comp > tube pre > tma > peq > reverb

i have the piezos going into input 1 right, round the back of the axe and then volume blocks at the start off all my patches to select which input i want to use in any particular patch (left or right - left is the mags in the front input)

i think tonematch is the way to go. i haven't got any better results with any other method
Click to expand...
You are the man!!!
Any hint on the comp, preamp and peq settings?
 
Also, in the latest iteration of this patch, I tonematched the right and left sides separately, exported them as user cabs and then loaded them into a stereo cab block, panned hard left and right
 
Did you hear any improvement doing so? I just tone matched directly from the youtube video and I must admit the result is superb :D (graphtech piezo + studio monitors)
 
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