Playin' thru an acoustic amp!

Richard Shelley · Post by **Richard Shelley** » 6 Aug 2003 4:42 am

Bought a new Fender SFX Acoustasonic amp last week for my Gibson J100XT. Loved the sounds available thru it. But, out of the blue, I decided yesterday to hook my BMI D10 up to it & was astonishingly impressed with the beauty & variety of sound available. Anyone else tried playin' steel thru an acoustic amp?

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Joe Babb · Post by **Joe Babb** » 6 Aug 2003 6:58 am

I have not tried that but I am extremely curious about your experience and whether you can describe in words the difference between a typical steel guitar amp and the acoustic amp. I know that acoustic amps sometimes have better high frequency response partly because they often have mid-range speakers also. We are looking for an amp for our Sho-Bud LDG 12 string, so I'm curious.
Joe

Jeff Lampert · Post by **Jeff Lampert** » 6 Aug 2003 7:21 am

Crate makes a line of very good-sounding acoustic guitar amps. I played my steel through one, and while acceptable, was no where near as good as playing through one of the standard Peavey amps for steel (Nashvilles, Sessions, etc.)

Pete Burak · Post by **Pete Burak** » 6 Aug 2003 8:04 am

It's probably the built in Horn that makes us like this style of amps.
I really like the way they sound too.
I had a Marshall acoustic amp for a while that I used to solo with. It was great for small gigs!... Steel and Vocals plug into one small amp, and both sound good.
Peavey makes a full size (2-12 + Horn), full power (210W), acoustic amp (Austin 400). http://www.peavey.com/media/pdf/manuals/80370411.pdf

Here's a 210W with a 15" speaker and a horn (Peavey Reno 400). http://www.peavey.com/media/pdf/manuals/80370405.pdf [This message was edited by Pete Burak on 06 August 2003 at 09:22 AM.]

Jeff Lampert · Post by **Jeff Lampert** » 6 Aug 2003 9:20 am

I don't think I'm on board with what you mean by acoustic amp. I was referring to these Crate amps that are pretty small and made for playing acoustic guitars with built in preamps. I don't think this is what you were talking about So you can probably ignore my comments.

seldomfed · Post by **seldomfed** » 6 Aug 2003 1:01 pm

I use an AER Compact 60 acoustic amp.
It's actually great for my Stringmaster and all I ever use for that guitar now.
However, lately I've been using it for my D-10 pedal (carter). The cool thing is the XLR out. I run it to the board and into the PA and monitors. Board level stays constant and I can vary the onstage vol. for my taste. So for most gigs it works well. I augment the tone with a graphic EQ Boss pedal sometimes.
Plus: light (13lbs), clean sound, nice digital reverbs, quiet, excellent for our 4 piece quartet (hawaiian / country swing).
Minus: lows not excellent, ok but not excellent, and limited tone control (no parametric mid), does not reproduce distortion effects well at all, works ok with our big country band with drums, but not like a Peavey will.

This is the best acoustic guitar amp I've ever used - and due to it's weight is becoming a fav. for steel

IF you have a good main PA to line out to, the bass bins recover the lows quite well. This is for concert gigs where the PA has been provided and there's a sound guy out front.

Alt use: If we have to provide our own PA - We run all 4 vocal mics into a small Mackie 1202 mixer and pan them center, then line out to my AER and my buddy's Marshall acoustic amp. I put steel in the other channel of the AER, he uses his other channel for ukulele. Sound is amazing, no PA to haul! We've done this 3 times now this summer with excellent results.

Roland has a new acoustic amp out that looks like and AER, hmmmmmm. The new Peavey steel amp is interesting to me as well! Since this XLR trick works so well with a big PA - if that little Nashville 112 has a good EQ and steel sound - I'm going for it for the big gigs. Keeping stage vol. down is important for me.

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Chris Kennison
Ft. Collins, Colorado
"There is no spoon"
www.book-em-danno.com

Dave Burr · Post by **Dave Burr** » 6 Aug 2003 2:39 pm

I have an SWR Strawberry Blonde that sounds great. Not as good as my Nashville 400, but great none the less.

Here is a link to the Strawberry Blonde. http://www.swrsound.com/products/acousticseries/strawberryblonde.html

This is a powerful amp (80 watts). It's not light by any stretch of the imagination (about 40lbs). I bought this to play my Martin HD28 through and just tried it with my steel out of curiousity. The tone controls seem much more responsive than my Nashville 400 (ie. you move it a little it changes the sound alot). It's got one knob labeled Aural Enhancer that REALLY effects the tone. Reverb is great. And it's a great looking amp. I've actually seen one steeler (Kim Deschamps) gigging with this particular model about 1 1/2 years ago (not sure if he still is). He's Charlie Robison's steeler.

Respectfully,
Dave Burr[This message was edited by Dave Burr on 06 August 2003 at 03:41 PM.]

Dave Burr · Post by **Dave Burr** » 7 Aug 2003 7:13 am

SWR Stawberry Blonde reprise:

I went home last night after posting the above message and played through my 400 and the blonde together... NICE!

Respectfully,
Dave Burr

b0b · Post by **b0b** » 7 Aug 2003 11:18 am

Moved to 'Electronics' section.

Richard Shelley · Post by **Richard Shelley** » 7 Aug 2003 11:54 am

Hey, Joe Babb! I see you're from Knoxville; I'm from Johnson City, but have been gone over 30 years.
As for your inquiry about acoustic amps: I'm not really very technical, but I have found that it's impossible to get a decent sound out of a flat-top acoustic electric without using an acoustic amp. In the case of the aforementioned amp, it's got 32 separate stereo digital effects to choose from, in addition to an almost infinite variety of choices of tones, coming from any given mixture of the following adjustments: treble, mid, bass, string dynamics, DSP(digital signal processing)send, DSP return, Stereo Field Expansion, etc. It's touted as having one 8" special design speaker, one 10" special design speaker & one single piezo horn. You could probably get more general & specific info from Fender's web-site. Once you've tried one, I'd love to hear your response.

Charlie Vaughn · Post by **Charlie Vaughn** » 13 Aug 2003 5:43 pm

I have a Nashville 400 and a Peavy Reno. The Reno was designed for acoustic guitar but it works great as a steel amp. I love the tone and the reverb. Sometimes I use them together but in small clubs I will use the Reno alone. Sounds great. Maybe it is the horn that makes the difference.