Do acoustic IRs work with magnetic pickups? Or better combinations?

thecolourbox

Hi all, I'm not very clued up on acoustic guitars so please forgive my ignorance.

I've just had my first singing (and guitar) wedding booking for August this year, it's something I want to add to my already established piano playing wedding side hustle so it's nice to actually get some interest. There's a couple of others in the works as well, woop woop.

Just playing a mixture of chilled acoustic style covers of well known songs while guests mill about, probably mix the sets up between using guitar and piano as my accompaniment for interest/variety purposes.

So, it's a good opportunity to look at my acoustic guitar setup and how to get the nicest sound from it. I have a Taylor Big Baby acoustic - bare bones, but sounds entirely adequate for my usual home needs and occasional open mic type scenarios where I add a magnetic pickup (one of these) into a DI into the sound system. I have an acoustic preamp pedal (one of these) which is atrocious and adds noises like hums and hisses etc so usually I do without it.

The Big Baby's smaller dimensions suit me as i'm not a big guy and enjoy small bodied guitars in general. I have an HX Effects which has various acoustic friendly features (compressors, reverb etc) as well as IR loading which I normally have only used with electric guitars as speaker sim.

I largely prefer the sound of the magnetic style pickups to the piezo plinky plonk sound, but I think I should buy a humbucking one really if that's the way to go. However I keep seeing talk of acoustic IRs and wondered whether that might be the way to go?

Google searching brings confusing (to me) info on it, but it appears that IRs are meant to be used with piezo pickups and not magnetic, is that correct? Can IRs be used with magnetic pickups?

Other options I've brainstormed:

• Selling my Big Baby to buy something with piezos. It's not in great aesthetic condition but works as it should, so wouldn't get much for it and equivalents with electronics seem a step up in budget. Could be worth it though if I get more bookings as an investment in that side of my business.
• Considering the above, it might be better value to keep the guitar I know, and add some kind of IR compatible pickup to it
• If lots of bookings start flooding in once I've done some example videos as promo (doubtful though, tbh), then I think I'd love one of the Mexican Fender Acoustasonics but that again is a couple of steps up on my current budget.

Any thoughts on the viability or IRs to make the guitar sound nicer, or other options suggestions or opinions (even if it's to say it doesn't matter lol) then please do shout up as this is an area I know nothing about so have very little preconceptions.

Thanks

TheMadMick

If you want to try one, I have a Fishman Humbucker sound hole pick up I bought for a guitar that never materialised. Happy to negotiate. Let me know how you feel?

PM for more details.

TTony

thecolourbox said:

Google searching brings confusing (to me) info on it, but it appears that IRs are meant to be used with piezo pickups and not magnetic, is that correct? Can IRs be used with magnetic pickups?

Yes, and no.

And, even more helpfully, it depends.


I read and read and watched multiple YT videos before I just jumped in, bought some IRs and started experimenting.  With hindsight, I really should have saved myself the time of reading and watching, and just bought and experimented.

Generally regarded as quality IRs, with plugins to re-create a number of different acoustic guitars, at $not-much;
https://www.3sigmaaudio.com/

When you buy an IR, it comes with a huge number of files.  There are different sets for many different sources - ie different pickup types in your source guitar, including a range of both acoustic and magnetic pickups.  Once you've defined the pickup type, there are then a load of varieties of IR to - allegedly - recreate different mics / placements / etc, at different sample rates.  To give you an idea, I bought the Guild F5 IR, and it unzips to 1,240 separate files.  You only need to load one!

If you PM me an email address, I'll send across the pdf manual for one of the IR sets that I bought, which will explain it clearly.

You load the IR file that you want, depending on the guitar that you're playing into your HX FX (which is how I use them), and can then add any other reverb/EQ/etc that you want to refine the sound further.

Musicwolf

I need an acoustic sound as part of a band, sometimes 100% acoustic but other times I need to switch between acoustic and electric within the same song.  The options that I've tried are;

Yamaha SLG200S 'Silent Guitar' into Helix, either on its own or with another acoustic IR applied - this gives the most authentic acoustic sound

PRS SE Hollowbody II (piezo) into Helix with IR block - next most convincing

Electric guitar (magnetic pickup) into Helix with either and acoustic simulation EQ (modelled on a Boss AC-3) or an acoustic IR or both (either in parallel or series).  I've tried this with single coils, humbucker and split humbuckers.

Whilst the SLG was the most convincing the Hollowbody / Piezo was good enough that not needing to change guitars mid set won out against authentic tone.  That said, I very recently set up a patch for use with my S2 Semi-hollow which goes

Neck Humbucker (not split) > Tilt EQ (making the tone brighter) > Acoustic Sim > Acoustic IR > Room Rev > Comp and, at home at least, it's good enough for me choose this over the Hollowbody Piezo as I prefer the S2 overall.

As I said, this is part of a band mix, so true acoustic authenticity maybe isn't so important.  It's also untested at volume through the PA (that will happen tonight).

Roland

Most acoustic guitars in a band mix are heavily EQd. I made my own IRs which match my Tele neck pickup to two different Martins. Sounds nice through headphones. With the band I have to EQ it, taking out some of the bass and adding mid range, to fit between bass, keys, voice, and cymbals. The result doesn’t sound so nice in isolation, but works well in the mix. It enables me to play both guitar sounds on songs like Take Your Mana Out without changing instruments. I no longer have to take a fragile acoustic to a gig, and deal with feedback.

thecolourbox

Thanks all for the info that's really great and nice to learn some new stuff - also nice to know there are pretty cheap options available for me to hopefully upgrade things from my current things to get a proper sound. MadMick and Ttony you will have a pm each shortly thanks

TTony said:

Generally regarded as quality IRs, with plugins to re-create a number of different acoustic guitars, at $not-much;
https://www.3sigmaaudio.com/

Great tip thanks, good to know that $15 and perhaps a humbucking pickup could be all I need. I'm not as picky with specifics of acoustic sounds as I might be with electric amps, so as they all sound pretty good I reckon any of those would be worth a punt to play with then. I think the Taylor 818 is looking good. Might even be tempted to add their acoustic presets for Helix as well as that's not much more and should give me a starting point as I'm not very knowledgeable about handling acoustics

Musicwolf said:

I need an acoustic sound as part of a band, sometimes 100% acoustic but other times I need to switch between acoustic and electric within the same song.  The options that I've tried are;

That's interesting, I'd forgotten about the silent acoustic guitars as I've always fancied a nylon one although I guess that would be less useful in this specific scenario than the steel style one.

Musicwolf said:

As I said, this is part of a band mix, so true acoustic authenticity maybe isn't so important.  

Roland said:

Most acoustic guitars in a band mix are heavily EQd.

It will just be me, my guitar and my voice, a sort of more cheerful male Eva Cassidy is what they've said they want, which I think I can manage (working on the cheerful part but song choice will obviously help). So I guess i need something different than somebody in a band mix as it really needs to sound nice in isolation and with my voice over the top, but there's nothing else for it to clash with.

Roland said:

I made my own IRs which match my Tele neck pickup to two different Martins. Sounds nice through headphones. 

That's interesting as I was thinking of relying on my thinline tele as a backup instrument in case anything goes wrong on the day, but I'd have just popped it through a clean amp sound, but could be worth trying something like that as it's a nice guitar to play, much nicer than acoustic for my hands and physique.

Roland said:

songs like Take Your Mana Out 

Great song that one

ESBlonde

If you have ultimate control of the sound (your PA and desk) then you can obtain a pretty decent sound from many acoustic guitars and then it becomes a case of can you comfortably play that guitar for a long set. That’s important because if it gets harder you’re playing deteriorates. I have a couple of nice acoustics but often end up with a 90s Epiphone fitted with a fishman blend. I can make it sound really good and its action is low and very playable and doesn’t restrict what I can do including some half decent bends. 

If I’m using someone else’s PA, I use a MESA Rosetta DI acoustic pedal for full aural control.