TC BodyRez - worth the money?

Harborne_Blue

Thinking of picking one of these up to help counter the crappy amps in our rehearsal space. Reviews and vids look good but has anyone got any practical experience? I am using an old-but-good Takamine Pro with an active pickup and a new Taylor 110CE.

Also will it settle with a compressor? Looking at at Boss CS-2 to kick up the higher strings when noodling.

Branshen

It is likely that a shit PA will still sound shit, even after adding the bodyrez. As they say, you can't polish a turd. 

Why does it sound shit btw? Too piercing? Too middy? Breaks up? 

Harborne_Blue

We're using a big studio with dozens of rooms so you never know what amp or PA will be like until we plug in. The Taka can handle most things but the Taylor sounds tinny and feeds back like a mofo. Was hoping that the BodyRez could mitigate this and lift the tone.

benmurray85

The biggest favour you could ever do yourself is to stop plugging your acoustic into a guitar amp. I'm assuming your studio doesn't have dedicated acoustic amps. But standard (electric) guitar amps absolutely murder an acoustic. Btw I wouldn't waste money on the bodyrez. A compressor is a good shout though if you want to even out the balance between chords and finger picked stuff. In fact I have a boss one that I no longer use if you're interested

Harborne_Blue

Cheers for that. I've tried amps and PA - the amps are very hit and miss but I'm not able to lug all my gear there. I'll give the Rez and a compressor a go when I get to the toy shop this week.

kjdowd

I think you've answered your own q above. Never been massively impressed by Taylors full stop, but they always seem to be particularly difficult to get a good amplified sound from. I'd stick with the Taka...

ICBM

The modern Taylor pickup systems are designed to give professional-quality sound with professional-quality PA equipment - hence why you see so many pros using them.

The downside is that they sound worse through less good amplification. I'm not 100% sure about the new ES2 - I haven't tried one yet - but the original ES sounds tinny, noisy and quite electric-guitar-like if you're not careful, and works best when used in fully-balanced mode (TRS cable direct from the guitar to the stagebox/desk).

The Boss CS-2 will most likely cause serious feedback problems - it's an electric guitar 'effect' compressor. You need a dedicated acoustic compressor which is more like a studio one with a threshold setting as well as ratio, which the Boss doesn't have.

I haven't tried the TC, but there's a surprising one that works quite well if you're forced to use an electric guitar amp - a Boss AC-2 or AC-3 Acoustic Simulator. Although they don't sound great for making an electric guitar sound like an acoustic, they do actually make an electro-acoustic sound more acoustic through a guitar amp… I don't know why!

Richardj

I'm not so sure about the AC-3.  I personally think it works brilliantly or faux acoustic tones (OK, never going to sound like a vintage Martin, but not bad).  My one however really doesn't like the signal coming out from an electro acoustic or piezo equipped electric.  It just overloads the front end of the pedal and it is shrill and clips, fairly unpleasant.

You can get away with blending a tiny, and I mean tiny amount of the acoustic signal into the pedal for a little more 'air', but no more.

ICBM

That's interesting - I had an AC-2 which I used like that, and it was fine. I've only tried the AC-3 a couple of times to demo them to people and it seemed OK too, but maybe I wasn't driving it hard enough to notice a problem.

Warning appreciated...

Richardj

The AC-3 has the newer COSM engine and it feels a lot more sensitive to input signal than the older AC-2 (I've had both).

I think it has a far better simulated acoustic tone, but is more focused as a result.

Luminous

https://www.zoom.co.jp/products/acoustic/zoom-a3-pre-amp-effects-acoustic-guitar

This will definately fulfill your needs, I use both a Takamine and a Taylor through it and its great, has a footswitchable boost too