Getting great sounding acoustic guitars on a budget can be challenging, as many budget-friendly options are lackluster and uninspiring. However, with POD GO, we can change that by adding an acoustic IR and applying some processing to our signal for professional sounds.
Disclaimer: This video/post have been created in collaboration with Line6/Yamaha. Besides making sure I got the technical details right, the company has no say in the things I mention in the video/post and they don’t get to see it before it goes live.
(Links for preset download below)
Why would you want to improve your acoustic guitar’s sound?
If you own a budget-friendly acoustic guitar like mine (Taylor 110e), the sound recorded from the guitar’s output is often different from how it sounds in the room. Many budget-friendly acoustic guitars come equipped with a piezo pickup system under the bridge, which, while affordable and easy to use, can sound nasal and uninspiring.
When my sister and I got hired for a corporate Christmas gig as a duo, I saw an opportunity to elevate our acoustic tones. Wanting to keep the setup simple, I opted for POD GO.
The Process To Get The Best Tones
To get the best and most reliable results, I recommend recording yourself when dialling in the sounds. We do this to avoid any surprises and know exactly how our guitar will sound when we send it to the front of house.
When dialling in the sounds, no matter whether your using headphones or in-ear monitors, cover your guitar’s sound hole or making your headphones louder, you’ll always get some bleed of the acoustic guitars sound into your ears. This will affect how you perceive the sound and the choices you make with EQ or impulse responses for example.
I realise it sounds like a lot of work. But if we do the process right the first time, we’ll have a preset we can use on every acoustic guitar gig we do. And we might make a front-of-house-engineer happy while doing that.
Create a reference track (optional step)
I wanted to go a bit crazy with my tone chase and decided to record a reference track using real microphones. For this I used Shure SM58 and Lewitt LCT-240Pro in a configuration that I demonstrate in depth in my acoustic guitar recording tutorial.
I made sure both recorded tracks were in phase, threw in the CLA Guitar plugin by Waves and added a bit on subtractive EQ. My reference track was ready. (you can hear it in the video above)
Ready. Set. (POD) Go.
I start with a clean preset in the POD GO editor and jump to the impulse response block first. The idea here was to create a preset anyone could download for free. So I went with the free acoustic guitar IR pack by Worship Tutorials. This means you can download both the preset I’m creating here and the acoustic guitar IR we’ll use for free. You’ll get the same patch that I have.
My guitar is a Taylor and the free acoustic IR pack contained Taylor IRs, so I went with those. There’s three different versions of those for a piezo pickup, so we won’t have too many options to choose from.
So to follow the process we talked about earlier, I’ll record my guitar using all these three IR options and compare those to the reference track I created earlier.
After listening back to all three recordings I decided to go with the IR number 2.
Adding substractive EQ to the IR
To get rid of unnecessary low-end information I did added a high pass filter in the IR block around 75hz and a low pass filter at 11khz.
Adding the acoustic IR makes a massive difference. Switching the acoustic IR on and off is a drastic change for the better and we’re not done here yet.
Next, I proceeded to add a parametric EQ to the signal chain and hunt for few more problematic frequencies. A good way to search is boosting the level of a frequency range and then ‘sweep’ the frequency (from high to low for example). See if something pops in an unpleasant way.Then back down the gain by -3db or so and compare the sound by turning the EQ on or off. You’ll quickly hear whether the changes you made have a positive impact on your sound.
If all of this sounds like ancient Latin to you, check the video above and you’ll get what I mean in no time.
Add a compressor
I wanted add something that would level out my overall sound a bit and also boost the volume. I’m a big fan of the LA Studio Comp in the POD GO, so I added that after the IR block. I also realised that I might not want to have it on for some of the songs, so I assign one of the footswitches to trigger it off or on.
Modulation and reverb/delay
As the last two blocks I went with delay and reverb. I like the Searchlight reverb a lot and place as the last thing in my signal chain after the Vintage delay block.
Is POD GO good with acoustic guitar?
I didn’t realise how versatile POD GO was until this project. Not only it can work as your full electric or bass guitar rig, but it’s also great with acoustic guitar. It offers more tweakability than most acoustic guitar players would ever need and the option to trigger elements of your rig on or off with a single footswitch allows for interesting and creative setups.
Using the POD GO also meant I don’t have to upgrade my acoustic guitar I’ve had for over a decade. Instead I can just refine the tones I’m getting from it with a modeler, which is great.
If you’re interested acquiring your own POD Go and support what I do, you can find affiliate links below. You can also download the exact preset and the acoustic IR by following the links below:
►►Get Your POD GO At Thomann: https://thmn.to/thoprod/483547?offid=1&affid=394
►►Get Your POD GO At Sweetwater: https://www.sweetwater.sjv.io/5ga6do
►►Download The Patch And The Jam Track: https://www.catpickstudios.com/pod-go-acoustic/
Leave a Reply