On 9/13/05 2:06 PM, in article
, "Mike Rivers"
wrote:


Drily Lit Raga wrote:

I spent quite a bit of time on the Aura web site last night, and while
it IS a collaboration with Akai, well known mfr. of samplers, I did not
see anything that explicitly stated it was a sampler. In fact in the
little video of Larry Fishman, he "poo-poos" modeling.

I spent some time trying to talk to someone (unfortunately not Larry)
at the Fishman booth at NAMM last year when the Aura was new and
couldn't get any useful information out of him at all. It sounded like
an mic modeler (which could just be some fixed frequency response
shaping) to me. It probably does something that no other box does, but
I never thought the guitar plugged into it sounded like the decent
guitar that it was, with a good mic on it.

I guess it's OK, though, because it does give you some flexibility for
adjustment, some EQ, some feedback suppression, and it's not too
complicated to operate.

I have a friend who bought a VariAxe and I gotta say, it's a heckuva lot
easier to get 'decent' believable sounds out of than most acoustic guitar
pickup systems... And much as I feel like a Luddite, crossing my index
fingers and warding him off with cries of "BACK! BACK! That's just
WRONG!!!!" when he switches from MARTIN to RESO to BANJO to CORAL ELECTRIC
SITAR and back... It's really impressive.

In article , says...
i mean, I enjoyed what I watched of the Shelter From The Storm show for
what it was, but taken direct, even with the most expensive guitar
setup and signal path, makes the best guitarist sound like a weenie.
All night long. When will engineers at such events gather the courage
to stick any old mic in front of an acoustic guitar so it doesn't have
the soulless sound of 6 tight steel rubber bands? It kills the song,
for me at least.

"Any old mic" is a tad optimistic. Virtually every mic that's worth using
on acoustic guitar also has poor feedback rejection. I argee though, it's
an engineer's job to at least try to get better than the piezo sound, but
without the pick-up you've got to use a dynamic mic if it's going through
the monitors, and the result is just another variety of nasty.

Using both the pick-up and a condenser offers everything you should need to
get a good sound, but it can be a pain to configure, for example if you want
the lows from the pick-up and the highs from the mic in FOH, but
full-spectrum pick-up in the monitors, when doing monitors from FOH...

Are you talking about the pickup being the standard piezo
undersaddle pickup? If so, I agree. However, there are now
pickup systems that sound very nice, and some incorporate a
condensor mic in the instrument. When I heard Steve Howe
last, his acoustics sounded excellent onstage; very rich and
woody, very REAL. There are better options out there than
just a Fishman piezo.
--
---Mikhael...

SSJVCmag wrote:

I have a friend who bought a VariAxe and I gotta say, it's a heckuva lot
easier to get 'decent' believable sounds out of than most acoustic guitar
pickup systems... And much as I feel like a Luddite, crossing my index
fingers and warding him off with cries of "BACK! BACK! That's just
WRONG!!!!" when he switches from MARTIN to RESO to BANJO to CORAL ELECTRIC
SITAR and back... It's really impressive.

I tried out the Variax acoustic model and didn't like some of the
sounds, but as you say, it does things that regular guitars and FX
cannot, so if that's what you need, go for it.

I haven't been following this thread very well, but it has reminded me
of a couple of things.

The wife and I took a 5.5 week, 8500 mile motorcycle vacations this
summer. One Saturday afternoon we stopped at a road house for some
liquid refreshments and there was a band sound-checking for their show
that evening. They weren't the most experienced looking and sounding
group and, frankly, their level of native talent didn't seem to make
up for it. Worst, though, was an acoustic guitar with a pickup that,
in addition to being 10 dB louder than it needed to be, sounded like
the crap that is the topic of this thread.

While listening I thought of a way one of my clients somewhat politely
communicates his opinion of poor tone. He simply asks, with as straight
a face as possible, "Is that how you mean that to sound?"

I somehow resisted the urge to ask them that question.

--
================================================== ======================
Michael Kesti | "And like, one and one don't make
| two, one and one make one."
mrkesti at comcast dot net | - The Who, Bargain

On 9/13/05 2:43 PM, in article , "Zigakly"
wrote:

"Any old mic" is a tad optimistic. Virtually every mic that's worth using
on acoustic guitar also has poor feedback rejection.

You're not paying attention to your job then... That's Reality's Way of
telling you "it's too loud, man"

....crazy...

Paul Simon stood up there with just a guitar and mic, with one leg on a
chair. Bet that hurt after a while, too...


wrote:
i mean, I enjoyed what I watched of the Shelter From The Storm show for
what it was, but taken direct, even with the most expensive guitar
setup and signal path, makes the best guitarist sound like a weenie.
All night long. When will engineers at such events gather the courage
to stick any old mic in front of an acoustic guitar so it doesn't have
the soulless sound of 6 tight steel rubber bands? It kills the song,
for me at least.


So convenient, but at such a cost.