Hello forum, looking for tips or feedback on how to best use nano cortex with an acoustic guitar for live gigging. I’m struggling to eliminate the tinny / harsh noise and make it sound warm. I’m using Gibson J45 with built in LR piezo pick up.
any advice much appreciated.
Checkout acoustic IRs from “3 Sigma Audio” and “Worship Tutorials”. Load them onto the Nano Cortex, add some Reverb (& maybe some compression) and your good to go. “Worship Tutorials” even offer some free IRs to try out before you buy.
I´m trying some captures of the Grace Alix and Fishman Platinum (they are on the cloud, just search for them and try). They sound great on my K&K and JJB equiped acoustics. I´m not a fan of acoustic IRs. In my experience, after a couple years trying to make them work live, they didn´t. At home, mild volume, they sound fantastic. But when you raise the volume in a rehearsal with the band, or in live use, they are hollow, distant and thin.
Captures, on the other hand, are working as acoustic preamps do. You need to tame the honky mid frequencies of the piezo and tweak a little the eq and compression as you like. It´s working for me so far. I also tested captures of the TC Bodyrez (there are some of them on the cloud, with different blend settings), and it´s not bad at all.
@Anxel I agree with the statement that acoustic IRs aren’t all that when turned up loud. Can you eloborate a bit on what captures (and eq settings) you use on acoustic guitar? I would like to compare that to IRs. I already tried the TC Bodyrez captures and they do make a positive difference. Thanks
The one I like the most is called “Alix Lowden”. Look for it in the cloud… there are just a few grace alix captures, you’ll find out immediately.
The other one that I like is called “fishman pp eq - neutral”.
I use a post eq block, usually lowering a little around 800-1000 Hz. I maybe add some low end or presence (to taste), but taking care of possible feedback and always fine tuning for each guitar.
The result is never as a mic’d guitar (as an IR does), but a pickup with a good sound for live use… at least that’s what I look for. In my studio, at high volume, I can make it sound very similar to my analog fishman platinum.
However, I still hadn’t the chance to test it live, which would be the confirmation. And, it must be taken into account that you’ll not have the convenience of the anti feedback feature of preamplifier pedal. You can tweak an eq band, but I’m the heat of the moment, when you usually happen to need that feature, it’s not the same as just turning a knob. So I don’t know if I’ll ever be brave enough to try it live with the band.
I could capture my fishman, with the settings I like, and even make several presets, with the notch filter activated a deactivated. Also with the phase in both positions… that would more or less cover all situations… except for the notch frequency, that would be fixed in the setting captured.
I’m waiting for the V2 to make some captures.
Thanks for your detailed response. I will try this out tomorrow. Already my sound is much better just by including the TC Bodyrez @35% in the NC. Thanks again.