Helix: huge noise in acoustic sim block

[pipelineaudio]

I've never seen an IR intended to be used to make a solidbody sound like an acoustic. All I've seen are IRs that are meant to make an undersaddle acoustic/electric sound like a mic'ed acoustic.

There are and have been IRs meant to make solid body electrics sound like mic'd acoustics for decades

 

[Will Chen]

That "thing" is still necessarily going to involve large signal boosts. Might be a little less noisy by being more narrowly tailored. But you can't boost 25+db even narrowly without increasing noise floor quite a bit.

I guess it depends on the sounds one is going for. I don't think a natural acoustic sound has screaming high end content especially from the player's perspective. Here's something I did with the AX8 using an IR and the looper years ago, granted I was going for more of a nylon string tone. Doesn't sound perfect, nothing really well as an electric has a different attack and sustains in ways an acoustic does not, but thought it came out decent.

 

[pipelineaudio]

Its not that real acoustics have tons and tons of high end, its that the inverse curve to get a humbucker to sound like a regular acoustic thru a decently flat omni mic looks like the smiley face from hell

 

[Sascha Franck]

I agree with much of this, though I've never heard any attempt to make a solidbody guitar sound like an acoustic to be remotely realistic. Even taking a solidbody with piezos and applying one of those 3sigma IRs or similar doesn't ever sound that great.

Oh I absolutely agree. All these approaches are just crutches at best. The only thing I ever heard to sound more or less convincing was through Variaxes or GK-equipped guitars running through VGs or SYs. And even with those, there's a pretty different playing feel as they're all lacking that certain "thud". Having said that, IMO it's quite amazing how well the rather solidbody (or even body-less) approaches such as the Godin Multiacs or the Yamaha Silent Guitars are working.

I've never seen an IR intended to be used to make a solidbody sound like an acoustic. All I've seen are IRs that are meant to make an undersaddle acoustic/electric sound like a mic'ed acoustic.

I thought 3 Sigma Audio had some on offer once, but apparently I was wrong.

Thinking about it some more, it almost can't work, at least not when dealing with typical "cab length" IRs. The resonance (or whatever you may call it) of an acoustic guitar body should usually exceed the max. allowed IR length.

Fwiw, in case acoustics are not a very prominent part for whatever gig (in which case I would just bring one), I stopped fooling around with all sorts of simulations long time ago already. What I'm using instead is typically an even somewhat "hairy" electric sound, maybe with a tad of additional compression, usually using a combination of neck and bridge pickup. No, that doesn't sound like a clean acoustic guitar at all, but it pretty much fills the same role in a mix. Quite obviously and as said, this will only work as long as the guitar parts are used for a kind of "music bed" ("check" for many, many typical acoustic parts).

 

[Sascha Franck]

I guess it depends on the sounds one is going for. I don't think a natural acoustic sound has screaming high end content especially from the player's perspective. Here's something I did with the AX8 using an IR and the looper years ago, granted I was going for more of a nylon string tone. Doesn't sound perfect, nothing really well as an electric has a different attack and sustains in ways an acoustic does not, but thought it came out decent.

As a technical attempt, I can applaud to that. But when it comes to the musical result, I'd rather hear two clean electric guitars, maybe somewhat akin towards the jazzy territory.

 

[Sascha Franck]

Fwiw, I found this site:

Acoustic IR

They're not made to transform an electric solidbody into an acoustic but rather to help enhancing existing acoustic's piezo signals (at least from what I can tell), but with some tweaking, it might be interesting for electrics, too. Just fooling around with some of those (there's tons, all for free).

 

[Will Chen]

As a technical attempt, I can applaud to that. But when it comes to the musical result, I'd rather hear two clean electric guitars, maybe somewhat akin towards the jazzy territory.

It was a proof of concept for me. Typically if I want to record an acoustic where it is a featured instrument, I'm going to use an acoustic. I just don't have a nylon string and given how rarely I would use it not going to spend on one.

 

[pipelineaudio]

Ahh my example above is for a steel string acoustic sound. I bet there are some nylon ones around

 

[Sascha Franck]

Ahh my example above is for a steel string acoustic sound. I bet there are some nylon ones around

Getting a decent nylon sound out of a steel string guitar IMO is impossible without dedicated guitar modeling - and even with that, it's anything but easy, as it seems.

 

[pipelineaudio]

Getting a decent nylon sound out of a steel string guitar IMO is impossible without dedicated guitar modeling - and even with that, it's anything but easy, as it seems.

I’ll see if I can get one in the iso booth today. What do you think will make it so tough? The fast decay of the nylon strings?

 

[Sascha Franck]

What do you think will make it so tough?

IMO mainly the attack but also the fast decay. So in case this should work, there needed to be some dynamic processing in addition.

 

[ragingplatypi]

Fwiw, I found this site:

Acoustic IR

They're not made to transform an electric solidbody into an acoustic but rather to help enhancing existing acoustic's piezo signals (at least from what I can tell), but with some tweaking, it might be interesting for electrics, too. Just fooling around with some of those (there's tons, all for free).

I actually run one of these IRs after the Acoustic Simulator effect on my Stomp and it works pretty well.

The other thing with fake acoustic on an electric is that no matter what method you use it’s going to be finicky about where and how hard you strum. I’ve never been able to get around that issue.

 

[Sascha Franck]

The other thing with fake acoustic on an electric is that no matter what method you use it’s going to be finicky about where and how hard you strum. I’ve never been able to get around that issue.

Yeah, dynamics are always a thing, picking position and pickup choice, too. When I fooled around with some of these IRs earlier, I got the best results using my middle pickup (a Fender Noisless, I think 2nd generation) and running into a compressor as the first thing. Usually I would prefer a neck/bridge combination for acoustic style strumming, but that didn't seem to work too well with these IRs.