Acoustic Guitar in a rock band mic/pa,pickup/amp,other?

[dahlungril]

We have 2-Yorkville yx15p 200W monitors we are using in our small rehearsal spot for a 4 piece alt/classic rock group.  Our singer plays acoustic guitar with a dean markley mag pickup.  Weve tried through di into the mixer and cant get his guitar levels up loud enough without introducing alot of feedback.

 

He's recently taken to plugging into a Fender HR Deluxe.  Which sounds terrible, but doesn't feedback.

 

In our situation would it make more sense to get an acoustic amp and have him play through that...or is there a less expensive way that would allow us to use our pa for his acoustic and eliminate feedback.

 

If acoustic amp is the preferred answer, what wattage would be necessary to keep up with an AC30, 400W bass rig, and drums.

 

Cheers!

[dbMontana]

I can't presently look up that pickup from my phone. Is it active (has onboard amp) or is it passive?

[mkfs9]

Are they loud enough through foh pa. Or just a monitor problem.

[vaughn4380]

If I remember right, that is a cheap aftermarket passive pickup that goes in the sound hole of the guitar. That is your problem most likely. We run a Taylor through our PA, it has the active pickup installed from the factory and we have no lack of volume from it before feedback.

 

I would think buying a louder acoustic amp will just result in more feedback at higher volumes. You need to address the cause of the problem, the poor quality pickup. Replace with a higher quality pickup, or replace the guitar with one that has one installed already.

 

 

[twostone]

  I mix a band with singer/guitarist that has cheap Takamine A/E guitar that uses Boss AD-8 pedal.  The guitar on it's own with a DI is pretty crappy sounding but with Boss acoustic pedal and some tweaking we were able dail up a decent sound which has gain knob to give a little extra signal boost which is plenty now for him to hear in the wedge.

 

 

[dahlungril]

Ok so far so good.  I have tested out my acoustic guitar equipped with LR Baggs M1A as well, and still have difficulty obtaining the volume without feeding back.

We don't have FOH speakers, this is in our rehearsal space and are just using the monitors to hear vocals and ideally acoustic guitar.

Thanks for the replies

[vaughn4380]

 

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dahlungril wrote:

 

 

Ok so far so good.  I have tested out my acoustic guitar equipped with LR Baggs M1A as well, and still have difficulty obtaining the volume without feeding back.

 

We don't have FOH speakers, this is in our rehearsal space and are just using the monitors to hear vocals and ideally acoustic guitar.

 

Thanks for the replies

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Hmmmm, are the vocals feeding back as well? Or just the acoustic guitar?

[Axisplayer]

Then the issue can be one of several things:

You are asking for too much SPL in the space

Your monitors are not flat (freq response)  and the freq response of the guitar and monitor together causes some freqs to hit the SPL ceiling well before the rest of the guitar sound so the basic sound never gets loud enough before the governing freqs take off on you

Your position for the monitors is not the best it could be

 

Play with EQ and monitor position to get the best result. It is a system when everything is put together and must be treated as such.