acoustic grunge?

July 11, 2007 8:49 PM

Guitar Filter: Has anyone ever miked nylon strings (on an acoustic or solid body) and put it through a distortion box and/or an overdrive box? How does it sound? Pleasant or not? Does anyone know if any professional musician has experimented with that?
posted by jak68 to media & arts (19 comments total)

Too many variables to say for sure. If you have the pedals already just fire it up. I wouldn't buy them to test it out though.
posted by Ironmouth at 8:54 PM on July 11, 2007

Check out Agents of Good Roots, a band from Richmond, Va. Their guitar player, Andrew Winn, does just that, to generally cool ends. From what I can tell, their website is difficult to navigate, so click here to go directly to a page with some music on it.

On checking out the site, some of the lyrics are not so good, so YMMV. I saw them live a few years back, and I remember enjoying it, so maybe you should go to their archive.org page.
posted by griseus at 9:00 PM on July 11, 2007

What ironmouth said: Experiment!
(if you don't have the pedals yourself, go use the testers at your local guitar center / sam ash / etc.
posted by The Esteemed Doctor Bunsen Honeydew at 9:06 PM on July 11, 2007

oh, and I forgot to say that I have a friend who's done this on occasion (those folk punks.)
It sounds kinda cool.
posted by The Esteemed Doctor Bunsen Honeydew at 9:07 PM on July 11, 2007

Actually, I run an acoustic through a Sparkledrive overdrive pedal all the time. It allows you to put the clean channel back in. Pretty fucking good. Mine is steel stringed though.
posted by Ironmouth at 9:16 PM on July 11, 2007

griseus - I checked out that page. I tried the first song there, but it was straight acoustic. I tried "sultans of swing", and the guitars there definitely sound different, and are possibly a miked-and-distorted acoustic. Sounds interesting; possibly a little too "bright" perhaps, but definitely different.

I'd experiment myself, but wont be near my guitar for a few months. Was just wondering.
posted by jak68 at 9:18 PM on July 11, 2007

Ironmouth, any chance you can link to a sample? Would be interested to hear the tone and sound, if you have time. No biggie though, just pure curiosity.
posted by jak68 at 9:20 PM on July 11, 2007

Parker makes a nylon electric using a Fishman bridge pickup that would let you do what you want. The problem with using a mike and a distortion pedal is the acoustic feedback will get out of control faster than you want (unless you played into headphones). You can buy the Fishman bridges seperately, so you could make one yourself (the Parkers are very nice but pricey). You could also just record an acoustic and run it through amp modeling software, not quite as sexy or organic but probably more controllable.
posted by doctor_negative at 9:23 PM on July 11, 2007 [1 favorite]

If you're going to actually mike the guitar, then you'll need an extra piece of equipment, to do it well, something to convert the output from a mic preamp (line level) to guitar level (high impedance). I use a Radial X-amp for that kind of thing in general (converting line level to guitar level).

I'm sure you can find something that works for you from this. I have a guitar that I made my own piezo pickup for (VERY high impedance) and I run it through a regular tube amp all the time. The sound is somewhat harsher than a regular electric guitar but it's not bad.
posted by RustyBrooks at 9:25 PM on July 11, 2007

Sorry, don't have a sample ready!
posted by Ironmouth at 9:27 PM on July 11, 2007

thanks doctor negative.
This looks neat:
http://www.parkerguitars.com/code/models/models_select_nylon_intro.asp
posted by jak68 at 9:29 PM on July 11, 2007

Yeah, they are gorgeous but it's a $3700 guitar, and finding one used is probably going to take a while. Gear aquisition syndrome is a terrible thing :)
posted by doctor_negative at 10:22 PM on July 11, 2007

Here's here's a place that has several classical/flamenco pickups including the Fishmans. It's been several years since I looked into this, so I can't really recommend anything brand/product wise.
posted by doctor_negative at 10:31 PM on July 11, 2007

My experience is that a distorted acoustic guitar, regardless of type, will sound messy and bulging in the mids if you runf it through a pedal (lacking in distinction).

One of the best things about acoustic is being able to differentiate between the individual strings as you pluck them.

I have a friend who runs his steel string through an a dual input amp with a signal splitter, one signal goes straight into the amp with a touch of reverb and the other runs through a blues breaker pedal with a bit of crunch on it.

Sounds fantastic that way. An interesting tone but you retain the clean notes picked on the instrument. It may take a bit of experimentation to get the balance right between these two.
posted by moocheen at 12:51 AM on July 12, 2007

Adding too much distortion will indeed result in a very crappy sound (I've only tried it with a simple stick-on mic). However, with only a very small edge, you can create some cool sounds, as you can hear in this clip by Monte Montgomery. He's using a steel string, however. Awesome performance... Make sure to check out the part following the quiet middle part.
posted by swordfishtrombones at 5:16 AM on July 12, 2007

the main difference in the acoustic and electric is the resonance of the body. the resonance of the guitar gets distorted, and especially the low end of the resonance is going to sound muddy and be louder than you usually want after distortion.

If you're wanting to do this and get a cleaner sound, I'd look at some sortof eq or filter along with the distortion so its distorting more of the high end.

You're also gonna need to pay a lot of attention to the mic (and you'll want to try different flavors of dynamic and condenser mics), maybe even get a noise gate as well, because the distortion will basically add gain to EVERYTHING, even mistakes and finger noise.
posted by yeahyeahyeahwhoo at 7:48 AM on July 12, 2007

There was an African guitarist on the cover of Acoustic Guitar or GW Acoustic a few years back who did that. I remember looking him up and his stuff was great. I've also heard of some Japanese guitarists who do that sort of thing, but it's more experimenting with classical style than anything else. I'm hoping someone here will post the name of the African guy so I can look him up again.
posted by monkeymadness at 7:49 AM on July 12, 2007

I'd also recommend listening Agents of Good Roots, whose guitar player, Andrew Winn, used a nylon-strung electric-acoustic classical guitar (generally a Godin.) Here's a live video of them playing.
posted by andrewraff at 9:43 AM on July 12, 2007

swordfishtrombone -- thats definitely an interesting clip, the sound retains its "acoustic" quality (resonant and "pingy") but with amazing sustain. Its an intriguing sound.

Thanks for the tips everyone: I can see that miking and equalization would be part of the challenge. Maybe a fishman is the way to go.
posted by jak68 at 10:01 AM on July 12, 2007