How can I improve the sound of my guitar?

Lyn Carlberg · How can I improve the sound of my guitar?

I've played maybe a half dozen shows in SL so far, and I'm struggling to improve the sound quality of my performances, so I wondered what kinds of hardware and software do others use to play in SL? I'm conscious that my electro-acoustic guitar can sound very tinny compared to many performers. How can I acheive the full rich sound that I hear in so many shows? There are so many variables here. What are the key elements to produce such a rich sound in an acoustic guitar?

The guitar itself?
The pick-up and pre-amp?
Mixer
Amplifiers
Cables
Computer sound card
Software enhancements?
Streaming software

Which of these has the biggest impact on performance?

RayW · Re: How can I improve the sound of my guitar?

Silas Scarborough

I don't mean to be flip when I say this can be a very expensive game. The most basic installation is that of a vocal mike and acoustic electric guitar or a miked acoustic guitar going into a small mixer. Output from that mixer goes into the PC's sound card and then out through Shoutcast or whatever to the network. While this mechanism provides a sound path, it does virtually nothing for sound modification (e.g. compression, echo, reverb, etc.)

Prior to getting really ambitious, use good-quality basics. While I don't necessarily recommend a Shure SM-58 microphone, it has been a workhorse of the industry for many, many years and may serve your purposes. You can get one for $100 US or less.

For acoustic electric guitars, make absolutely sure you understand that your audience cannot hear anything but the pick-up sound from that guitar. Make sure you like that sound as it's extremely difficult to isolate it under normal listening conditions. One possible way is to record it and play it back. Note that you may pick up acoustic sounds from the guitar on your vocal mike or you may just use one mike. There are lots of different combinations and lots of experimenting to find what is just right for you.

Don't play a cheap instrument. It's ok to play an inexpensive one but a cheap one will break your heart. I won't tell you which one as it's your ears that have to seek it the right instrument for you. Guitar Center looks like a hell-hole but the people in there are surprisingly good and it doesn't bother them at all to answer questions.

OK, now to escalate:

You can hang some effects devices from a smart-enough mixer. This will allow you to re-process the sound to some extent. Voice can almost always benefit from a touch of echo and is almost always trashed by too much reverb. Depending on the capability of the mixer, you may have an effects out for one or more effects devices so you can manipulate vocal and guitar independently. Study carefully before buying as there is massive variation.

For an acoustic electric guitar, you can also use a floor pedal / stomp box between the guitar and the mixer. There are literally hundreds of different kinds of them that will give any kind of effect you could want.

For completely nuts, there are various types of voice synthesizers out there that will generate harmonies and other types of effects. These kinds of things can be fun but enormously annoying if over-used.

Note: The purist may say that no type of re-processing should be done because s/he wants music just as it actually sounded. I want the real thing, damn it. That's a fine goal but it's impossible when you're cutting out some vital pieces of the audio link. Quite apart from anything else, you're probably playing at unnaturally low volume and may be using propagation equipment you would not otherwise use. In other words, even though you try to make a pure sound, it will simply end up sounding drier than a used can of cat food. It is not 'cheating' to add a touch of echo as any room will in fact bounce a soft echo off the back of it. It is not 'cheating' to add a touch of reverb as, in moderation, will add just a touch of room ambience.

Most of all, listen to as many people as you can to find a sound that you like, not so much to copy it but rather to learn from them how they got that great clean sound. If you learn of some hardware / equipment you might need, check out some zero-pressure online resources to study these things. zZounds.com and MusiciansFriend.com are excellent, their prices are outstanding, and they deliver fast. Best of all, no-one bugs you and you only have to talk to someone about the purchase if you want to.

Lyn Carlberg · Re: How can I improve the sound of my guitar?

Thanks for the response Ray.

Lyn Carlberg

Hi Silas. Thanks for your lengthy reply.

RayW

Thanks for the compliment, Lyn Very Happy

Do I dare say here that I was not happy with the way the guitar came out (or didn't come out as the case may be).

I have to agree with Silas about expense. But, good choices are more important then just throwing money at it. I like Martin. It's a good choice.

Distilled1

I run a straight acoustic Gibson 12 with a martin acoustic pick up (I find elec/acoustics sound tiny) I run that into a alesis mixer you can get one of these for 100USD new with enough to run a good mic and plug guitar in a 4- channel. I run the FX version and use a small bit of reverb use the eq actually have it set High on the high/mid and at 0 on the bass. into a EM-u 1010 sound card (about 129 USD) and mics depends on the day.

I have played with the acoustic mic off (by accident) and everyone said it sounded great but thats with a good condenser mic, heard Chronic do a show a week or so ago like that as well and it was a great mix.

low cost if your on the treble side? go with a fat gage string, and or drop tune a half oe whole step, it will give a bit more bottom end.

Silas your playing thru a karaoke machine Laughing

I have done that

Komuso Tokugawa · Re: How can I improve the sound of my guitar?

ka-klick

I have to agree with Komuso here in general. You can get a lot of bang for your buck in the rig if most of your processing is soft-based. I currently use an Alesis iO26 which has 8 analog ins/outs, 2 independent headphone outs, ADAT interface, and optical 2ch. It's a firewire (IEEE1394) interface and best part for me, it has inserts on all the channels so I can use my 2 analog compressor/limiter boxes on 4 of those channels. Inserts allow you to get at the signal between the pre-amp and the main portion of a channel, so it's like adding that effect to that channels input - the main point here is to limit the sound input enough so you don't get input clipping - which is really nasty in digital, and to bring the lower level stuff up a bit so it's still above the noise floor.

Before I used the iO26 I had a Mackie 1202 that served as my mixer and I just brought the stereo mix into my Mac.

I love the flexibility of using the iO, though it does have some quirks and annoyances. Overall it's been a good move.

Guitar-wise I have a Washburn WD-40s that I had passive pickups installed into, but I also tend to run a mic to pick up the guitar's "room" tone as well and mix those 2.

Software rig for performance is a Garageband session piped into NiceCast for streaming. I have 1 channel w/ vox 2 for the acoustic guitar and several other channels for the electric - when i want to "go electric" I enable one of those tracks for "recording" and play.

SM58's for vox and 57's for instrument micing are good tried and true solutions, and if you buy a '58 you'll never regret having one around, they are just that reliable. Currently for my micing though, I use condensers - vox is a large diaphragm condenser (Behringer B2) and the guitar is a little electret condenser (oddly enough a Radio shack model) I do have a Shure mic though, back from my time actually playing in bands over 25 years ago, that's basically a '58 w/ a switch, it's still a great mic. I also just picked up a couple more 58's from GC when they had a good sale ($79 ea) There are some great budget condensers out there these days. Look around, go have some demo'ed for you - I got my B2 for about $250us and it's a great sounding versatile mic. It's slightly less flexible but still good "little brother" is the B1 which I believe sells for ~$100.

Lyn Carlberg

I'm very grateful to you all for your advice and suggestions. Seems you guys are big music techies as well as musicians and I'm not sure I want to go down this hi-tech route at the moment. For one thing I just don't understand much of it. Confused

I must say that little Presonus Firebox looks cute, and it would avoid some cables, but I don't have firewire on either of my PC's. At some stage I need to ditch the Karaoke machine and replace it with a decent mixer/amplifier. But then I'll lose the nice echo effect that I currently have on the Karaoke machine.

For now, there are a few tips I've picked up from your posts which I'm gonna try first.

First off, Komuso got me thinking about cabling. I must get a standard size shielded cable to replace the very skinny one that currently runs into my sound card line-in.

I'm gonna try Distilled1's suggestion and put a set of heavy-guage strings on the Martin

I'll also try Ka-klick's suggestion and mic up my guitar to try to recreate its "room tone". So I'll need to mix the guitar's mic with the input from the pickup, as well as my voice.

What about others who play electro-acoustic guitars in SL? I'd be very interested to hear about the kind of setup you use.

dakota7z7 · elec/acoustic set up path

hi lyn!..... i,ve searched for years for a good sound and its a challenge, heres my set up at this point in time:)

a ibenez performance series 6 string elc/aco with onboard active electronics-to a digitech rp350 into m-audio pro i/o box into garageband into a new imac, i have found this to be a good clean setup and i use good monster cords,{shielded path cords} the m-audio has good pre-amps built in and garage band will give the vocals a bit of a booost, my mics are sm-58,s and a ev vocal mic, check out the digitech rp series, its got a great sounding analog sound{very warm) and they are priced very reasonably around 150 for the rp 250 and 199 for the rp350. a good i/o box with preamps will give you a much better sound and you can sty clean and true to the guitars sound...the m-audio pro series is only around 150 and a good box[runs usb or firewire}.probably the easyist and cheapest solution for you, would be a i/o box, that would give you a better sound and you can add a multi-effects at some other time as well as a small mixer. berringer makes some nice little ones for under a 100 that would work fine, pre-amps are essential to a good sound....good luck... come hear me play some time and see what you think of my sound, its very clean and has a good bottom end:)....dak

How can I improve the sound of my guitar?

Re: How can I improve the sound of my guitar?

Re: How can I improve the sound of my guitar?

Re: How can I improve the sound of my guitar?

elec/acoustic set up path