What is an excelent hollowbody for the metal sound so i can have an acoustic ton!
Question: I want a hollow body that would give me enough top end for like flowy sounds during riff but when on bottom for the hard grundge of a dimebucker so to speak.
If you could place prices or any ideas on this setup.
email me if you need help with guitar setup. (im new to hollow bodies)
Answers: I want a hollow body that would give me enough top end for like flowy sounds during riff but when on bottom for the hard grundge of a dimebucker so to speak.
If you could place prices or any ideas on this setup.
email me if you need help with guitar setup. (im new to hollow bodies)
Just about any hollowbody and can be made to do this... I mean, you are talking about a semi-hollowbody, an electric guitar with a small cavity in it, not a big acoustic-electric, right? Cuz an acoustic electric is going to be a lot harder in terms of feedback than a hollow/semi-hollow-body.
I can think of at least two different ways to do this... using a neck pickup for the intro and the bridge for the rest of the song and/or using specific amp/effect settings to get this tone.
Using a moderately hot output pickup like Pearly Gates or a JB in the neck (or something similar) will give you a clean and firm-but-not-so-hot-as-to-break-up-your-... sound in the neck, while something a little hotter in the bridge (Dimebucker, perhaps) will give you that meatier sound for distortion. Price varies by pickup.
Adjusting the height of your pickups to balance your volumes is a really important piece of the puzzle. Try it with your stock pickups first - dial back the neck a bit and raise the bridge. Your neck will be quieter, but that = a less distorted tone. You might end up liking that more for your cleaner sounds. Price = free.
Why not install an onboard preamp or buffer circuit? This would give your stock pickups a hotter sound with a lower impedance, meaning that you won't lose tone through long cable runs or if you go into multiple pedals on your way to the amp. Tone sucking usually means loss of treble, and having good treble really helps in finding a good clean tone. 80-150$, depending on the circuit and how much the tech charges to install it.
Active pickups are another way to go - EMGs, for instance. They might be overkill for a hollowbody, though. Does the same thing as the option above, but they're more expensive... at least 125$ to start, each, if I remember correctly.
Finally, consider using a pedal like an Acoustic Simulator or specific amp settings to get "that tone". A bit of chorus goes a long way towards achieving a really nice clean tone, as can a splash of reverb.
If you have specific questions, feel free to contact me. I enjoy talking about guitar. I just put some finishing touches on my current guitar setup - I'm getting my clean tones by running straight into my Mesa TremOVerb, out the fx loop into a Behringer V-Amp pro (oh how I can't wait to buy something better!) which has a stereo out - one going back to the mesa's fx in and the other going to my Marshall Valvestate 1x12. The fx loop is set right now only to clean, and where VAmp doesn't work well with getting delicate tones back into the Mesa (the mesa is driving a 4x12 cab, so subtle effect highs get lost) it does very well driving that Marshall.
So it's something to think about - two amps - basically one for basic clean and distortion, and the other for the "effecty" clean sounds - the reverb, delays, etc that would've otherwise been lost.
A lot of blues guys will do something like this, blend two or more amps together to get a thick sound. Kerry King of Slayer does this as well - he'll blend the sound of two Marshall heads into three different 4x12 cabs to get what he wants.
Saul