Acoustic Simulator Nylon Demo - quick iphone recording

  • I've seen some dudes rag on here about the acoustic simulator, and I've never understood why. IMO it does a very good job - even with nylon sounds.


    A dude on facebook asked if the simulatorwould work for a Rush - Farewell to Kings intro, and most guys said "nah". I did a quick iphone demo of that intro and I find it perfectly acceptable in a live situation to use the acoustic simulator instead of switching guitars. Take a quick listen to the recording in the drop box link, tell me if you agree or not.


    https://www.dropbox.com/s/wm4o…ell%20to%20Kings.m4a?dl=0

  • I have not been able to dial that sim in yet. I get great clean tones with it, but it does not sound anything close to a mic'd acoustic so far. I've heard MBritt get close. But most of my pups are medium to high outputs.

    Larry Mar @ Lonegun Studios. Neither one famous yet.

  • I have not been able to dial that sim in yet. I get great clean tones with it, but it does not sound anything close to a mic'd acoustic so far.

    Where are you using it in the signal chain?


    Do you have the Stack section bypassed?


    Are you using neck, bridge or two humbuckers together.


    Are you using other FX in the chain?

  • Where are you using it in the signal chain?


    Do you have the Stack section bypassed?


    Are you using neck, bridge or two humbuckers together.


    Are you using other FX in the chain?

    Yes to all. And I was using an MBritt profile but it did not translate to my ear as an acoustic. I've tried several other combinations and settings.

    Larry Mar @ Lonegun Studios. Neither one famous yet.

  • Are you saying that you tried both with the stack on and a MBritt profile loaded AND tried without any profile loaded? Enabling the stack section does some pretty weird things to the sound of the acoustic sim. I initially wanted to use it with some BM acoustic profiles (Fishurn Aura profiles and profiles of great mic pres etc) however, even adding these instead of an amp profile screwed up the AS effect.


    Another thing that seemed counter intuitive to me was the use of compression. I initially tried using it with a compressor and even asked ckemper if he could ad a compressor to the AS itself to save using up an FX block for a separate compressor. However, he pointed out that a compressor makes much less sense with the AS than an actual acoustic guitar because the electric guitar signal being transformed by the AS has a massively reduced dynamic range when compared to a piezo pickup on an acoustic. The more I played around with it the more I came round to his way of thinking. I also tested the theory in the opposite direction by feeding the AS with the piezo signal from my PRS P22. The dynamic range from this just totally killed the AS and created only farty noises (exactly as CK had explained they would ?)


    Another aspect worth considering is that if you are playing reasonably quietly you will still hear quite a bit of the acoustic sound from the electric guitar itself which will impact on the realism of the AS. Lso, we have an inbuilt psychological bias ver how we expect things to sound. We expect a guitar that looks like a Strat to sound like a Strat and even if t sounded exactly like a Les Paul we wouldn’t believe it. We expect an electric to sound like an electric so we often convince ourselves that an acoustic simulation doesn’t sound real because we know we are playing an electric. Recording the signal and coming back to it later to check after the physical attachment has receded might give a more balanced impression.


    after all of that. I was surprised how good the AS sounded. Would I use it? Probably not as I have two electrics with piezo pickups fitted and I think they still sound better than the AS but the difference isn’t huge. If I didn’t already have these guitars I would happily use the AS live when the odd bit of acoustic sound is needed.

  • I seem to remember getting annoyed with the compressor during the sim since you mention it. I consider the sim effect as sort of a novelty anyway. I've given up on it for now.

    Larry Mar @ Lonegun Studios. Neither one famous yet.

  • I’ve never been able to apply this successfully to any of my guitars. It just sounds like a weird electric guitar. To me it’s completely useless. And the iPhone recording isn’t convincing me either. I do admit that sometimes your guitar sounds like a contrabass. The stuff that doesn’t sound like that just sounds like a bad electric guitar. Not to be a killjoy. But I don’t see the point of this effect.

  • Well,

    I don‘ t subscribe to that point of view. Maybe it‘s just that my ears are not the kind of precision instruments needed here.

    I know for sure that some do hear all the sonic niceties in yt vids. I don‘t.
    That said, I took a close read of the manual, grabbed one of my Telecasters and it played allright. The guys in the band agreed that it was close enough. Of course I did not expect it to sound ok as a solo instrument in classical music.
    It‘s ok in a mix too.

    Greetings
    Joachim

  • Nice! What kind of guitar/which pickup?


    Can you share your Acou Sim settings?

    Signal chain here is: (G&L Strat with GFS "VEH" Bridge Pickup) -> Noise Gate 2:1 (optional) -> Compressor (intensity 2.7, attack 3.7, squash 1.7, mix 100, volume 2.0) -> Acoustic Simulator (Pickup 5.0, Body 1.6, Bronze -4.7, Sparkle 1.4) -> Amp (off!) -> Cabinet (off!) -> Legacy Reverb (optional)

    Maybe a big part of this is to play using your fingers? All I did was play using bridge pickup using fingers into my desktop speakers, and recorded with iphone. I've sinced tweaked with a studio EQ to increase some mids here and there but the above setting is what i used.