Gene, I have one tip for you, that I learned years back from a great guitarist.

The subject at the time was Telecasters, but that makes no difference.

I asked the fellow about his settings and all because we were both basically using the same guitar and amp setup at the time, his sounded smooth and mine, well, I was always fighting the thing.

He said this: "Just mess with everything until you get it where it feels like you are playing acoustic guitar."

I said, rather naively, "FEELS?"

Thinking that listening was more appropriate.

He said, "Yup, if you can make any amplified guitar respond in feel as if it were a good acoustic without an amp does, then it will sound good."

That bit of advice led me to be more concerned about the feel of the note sustains in the actual guitar than the sound coming out of the amp and with a bit of experiment and practice at it, really works well for me.

Along the way I also found out that an amp sitting on the floor doesn't allow me to get that feel as easily as an amp that is raised. First time, I put the amp on one of the club's chairs. Worked. So I picked up a folding amp stand.

The same applies to the amplified acoustic flattop, maybe moreso. Try to set the amp's gain and EQ such that the amplified guit FEELS like it does when unamplified in an intimate environment at home.

This one works like a charm in the studio, too. If I can get that feel thing happenin' then the tracking engineer has a very easy job of things. In the studio this also involves very careful tweaking of the monitoring (headphone feed typically) also.


--Mac

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