IR for piezo

[billy]

Just wondering if those of you who are into amp modelers have any favorite IRs for making the piezo sound more “acoustic,” if you will.

The natural piezo imo doesn’t need much when it goes into an amp designed for acoustic guitars. But for my modeling endeavors (kind of funny to think about me as a model).

I’m starting to think a good IR might help the piezo (not my looks, but maybe some day).

I have a headrush mx5 and probably too many cabinet IR files. I would like to avoid that same type of collecting for my piezo explorations. (Probably moving over to the TONEX but not sure about that yet.)

Hopefully the opinions and experience of this esteemed group can offer some good starting points and maybe some ideas of how to get the best from this approach.

[Musikron]

Get a Fractal.
Worship tones had free acoustic IRs.

[Patzag]

I also have a few great acoustic IRs I can send you for Fractal.
And if you switch to Fractal guarantee you will never regret that.

[billy]

Thanks guys- I’m actually just looking for acoustic irs that work well with Parker’s.

I have a fractal axe fx 2 but it’s much more than I need.

I have not seen the newer fractal offerings but agree they are fantastic, I just end up tweaking the axe fx2 constantly. Fobo is real and life is short.

The headrush is very simple and I can generally get a great sound from scratch that sits in a mix inside of a few minutes. It has its issues for sure but hard to beat the size and convenience.

As for the cab irs, it gets crazy there too- 5 mics at 20 angles, you can spend days comparing them.

So I was hoping to avoid some of that with my question. Will check out the worship tones.

[vjmanzo]

Hey Billy—I very much like the Fishman Aura and have been using them live and on recordings for about five years now. When I play live, my Fly Concert piezo hits a Fishman Aura straight away, but it also sounds great and similar with the piezo on my other Flys (with nickel strings). Here’s a demo video of how it sounds with phosphor bronze strings on my Fly Concert (borrowed from this thread):



They are inexpensive these days and they run on a 9volt battery or a 1Spot…I own three (two in studios one in my live rig).

FWIW, I also have the Aura Preamp combo built into this non-Fly guitar:

In this photo, I’m only smiling because the otherwise quacky piezo of this mid-level Takamine sounds like a mic’d Martin

[jb63]

FWIW, I also have the Aura Preamp combo built into this non-Fly guitar:

wait, what?
You can DO that?

Tell me more. That is, I'd like to subscribe to your newsletter...

[vjmanzo]

FWIW, I also have the Aura Preamp combo built into this non-Fly guitar:

Tell me more. That is, I'd like to subscribe to your newsletter...

Yes, it’s a lesser-known product, I think, but it’s a replacement for the built-in preamp on acoustic guitars called the Fishman Aura Pro.

I’d been running that Takamine into an Aura Sixteen live and then replaced the preamp in it with this—it only fit upside down on my guitar but it works and it saves me the hassle of having to bring another piece of gear to gigs when I use that instrument; built-in tuner as well. I’ve had it in that guitar for about 4 years now and it’s great—the plugged in sound uses one of four images that you load onto the device through a USB connector in the preamp just as you would connect and load onto an Aura Sixteen. It’s a set it and forget it sorta thing, but when I plug the guitar in it sounds, to me, like a mic’d Martin.

[Mr Fingers]

These posts are very helpful. Like the OP, my interest is not really for maximizing the variety of acoustic tones driven by the piezo system; what I try to do is to get set with a small number of excellent tone profiles and then get back to playing and composing. For better or worse, my priorities as a musician do not place weeding through relatively subtle tone options high on the list. With my excellent guitars and good equipment, great sound is not elusive. My issues are almost entirely with managing a very limited number of different basic tones, and the Aura option looks like it's on the money for me. I know the Fractal system would be terrific, truly, but for me -- and I'm no dummy, by the way -- the operation of such a device pulls me too far out of a musical mindset, at which point it becomes an obstacle. It's like having a genius sound engineer running a complex, deep, ultra-powerful system for you -- but he needs a long, detail-filled and precise set of instructions before he will do anything.The Aura looks just my speed. Terrific tip. Thank you.

[Patzag]

I just sent you an awesome IR. Let me know how you like it!
Cheers,
Patrick

[mockchoi]

I have one I custom made for my mojo I can share if you like.

[Nefarius]

There's this website which might have something for you, if you're willing to try loads of IRs:
https://www.acousticir.ovh/

I'm a Quad Cortex user and luckily there are some legends on the Cortex Cloud that have turned IRs like that into captures or have captured Fishman Aura and Spectrum (plus other similar) pedals. One of them, a J45 Acoustic IR capture, works great for both my Parker's piezo output and split neck humbuckers or neck/middle pickups on my Strandberg guitars.

Greetings...
Nef

[billy]

Thanks so much everyone! Patzag sent me a file which sounds great over headphones, excited to try it thru a pa next. I have been recovering from the flu and have had a ton of stuff to catch up on.

Vj, the fishman clips sound amazing- I would be all over this except that I am working to keep my rig as simple as possible these days- one unit, direct to pa. The built in idea is interesting indeed though.

Mockchoi, would love to accept a file.

Nef- will check it out, thx!

Mr fingers, thanks for articulating this so eloquently. I mean, I love playing with these tools, but at the same time, there’s so much that it can be distracting and the sometimes very subtle differences are not enough to justify the time.

My general approach these days is to find a handful of patches that I find inspiring and then add a few variations, such as delay/reverb, etc. in general it’s a clean patch, a slightly dirty patch, a crunchy patch, and then a “sorry ma’am, it’s so screamy” patch. Lol
The acoustic ir is a welcome addition already…

That’s what I love about this forum is this kind of exchange and I really appreciate all the contributions.

[KenanJ]

Thanks so much everyone! Patzag sent me a file which sounds great over headphones, excited to try it thru a pa next. I have been recovering from the flu and have had a ton of stuff to catch up on.

Vj, the fishman clips sound amazing- I would be all over this except that I am working to keep my rig as simple as possible these days- one unit, direct to pa. The built in idea is interesting indeed though.

Mockchoi, would love to accept a file.

Nef- will check it out, thx!

Mr fingers, thanks for articulating this so eloquently. I mean, I love playing with these tools, but at the same time, there’s so much that it can be distracting and the sometimes very subtle differences are not enough to justify the time.

My general approach these days is to find a handful of patches that I find inspiring and then add a few variations, such as delay/reverb, etc. in general it’s a clean patch, a slightly dirty patch, a crunchy patch, and then a “sorry ma’am, it’s so screamy” patch. Lol
The acoustic ir is a welcome addition already…

That’s what I love about this forum is this kind of exchange and I really appreciate all the contributions.

I'll interested too if you could share this IR Billy!