MarkB
Well-Known Member
I have the same set up on my Faith, I sounds much better than my Tak TBH. It has a lot more output and a fuller sound, the phase button is very useful too.
How does the pickup sound? If you have any experience with others that is
TBH if gofguitarkp has only tried it with a 'guitar' amp then hard to get a full view of the sound as there will be a loss of the middle and bass.
Yes it is a nice feature. My Tak doesnt have phase switch...I have the same set up on my Faith, I sounds much better than my Tak TBH. It has a lot more output and a fuller sound, the phase button is very useful too.
True! Im just comparing with my Tak both going through the same amp!
As for a more "absolute" opinion, I regularly play my friend Martin CPA4... Wich I consider a nice playing and sounding guitar. I still was convinced enough by the epi to buy it. Im not saying they are the same, and I would rather have the Martin, no doubt. Just saying the sound striked me as "good for the money" even knowing and playing superior instruments regularly, if you know what I mean.
My reference to the sound was more aimed at it being plugged in, even the Martin wouldn't sound as good as it should if plugged into a 'guitar' amp (Or straight to mixer), unplugged of course it's a different story.... although the last Martin I tried it wasn't very nice to me but it was one of the newer ones with the 'laminated' neck and felt too clincal, didn't like it at all.
Alty, how would you describe the benefits of a acoustic guitar amp over a "guitar" amp?
I've never played through one of those, always direct to PA...
Apart from microphones, the main reason that many Professional guitarists use acoustic amps or ‘black box’ preamps
is because they deliver the full spectrum of sound from top (treble) to bottom (bass).
To test this out, a simple experiment can be performed at your music shop, just:
a) Take an acoustic guitar and plug it into an Electric Guitar Amp with the EQ at the mid-point = level then play the guitar and listen to the sound. Next ………
b) unplug the guitar and now put it through an Acoustic Guitar Amp with the EQ at the mid-point level. Play the guitar again and listen to the difference.
What you will notice is that there is a loss of the middle and bass when playing through the Electric Guitar Amp.
This problem will also occur on a PA system – even if it goes through a mixing desk. I have had many people – for example people that play in churches – who only rely on a mixing desk for their sound. This is wrong, because no matter how much the mids and lows are pushed up & the treble lowered, it won’t compensate for using the proper equipment with an impedance match.
There are other factors, such as speaker doping, that give different ‘characters’ to the sound but the bottom line is the sound has to be matched!
Most Transducers want 1 meg Ohms impedance (that is 1000 times 1000) so is it any wonder that the body of the sound is lost when plugging into the wrong impedance!
For example:
i) Peavey Escort 2000 PA System Input Impedance: Mic: 2k ohms, Line: 12k ohms
ii) Peavey Bandit 112 Electric Guitar amp Input Impedance 470k ohms
The Answer:
Plugging into these will give a thin sound, which has no mid or low end, whereas the acoustic amp gives the full sound. The PA system is, as the name suggests, a Public Address system and the microphone is the instrument it was designed for. The most common mistake is for the guitar to be plugged straight into the mixing desk of the PA. The same result occurs with the guitar amp. The only way to resolve this is to put the sound either through an Acoustic Amp and use the ‘line out’ to the mixing desk or to use a Preamp like the LR Baggs/Fishman/Session to match the impedance and harness the full sound.
The advantage of an ‘acoustic amp is that it can be used as a ‘fold-back’ or ‘monitor’ on stage and the ‘line out’ at the back of the amp goes to the PA to faithfully reproduce the sound, depending on your soundman!
Finally – a note of warning!
Cheap magnetic and acoustic transducers will sound cheap and nasty. When manufacturers have spent lots of time and research to deliver a good system they have to recoup their costs on the product and this means they can be expensive.
On the other hand, just to make you cautious, not everything expensive is the best sounding – it’s for the customer to listen and hear what they like the best before choosing what to purchase.