Members rtparrott Posted April 4, 2012 Members Share Posted April 4, 2012 Would any sane person consider an acoustic amp with a guitar and mic input and then play electric and effects thru it? I like the idea of having those specified inputs and I kind of need it for when I'm jamming with friends, as I tend to be the only one who sings. Failing that I need a decent solid state amp with two inputs so I can play and sometimes sing through and that doesnt cost much over Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phil O'Keefe Posted April 4, 2012 Share Posted April 4, 2012 Acoustic guitars and vocals require full-range frequency response for optimal sound quality. Electric guitar amps are bandwidth restricted - they don't reproduce the lowest frequencies (below 80-100Hz) very well, nor do they reproduce the high frequencies very well either; most electric guitar speakers crap out above 7kHz or so. Acoustic amps (and PA systems) usually use two-way speaker setups, with a cone driver for the bass and mids, and a piezo tweeter or horn to handle the high frequencies. This allows them to more accurately cover the entire frequency range, without the bandpassed sound of electric guitar amps and speakers. You can use an acoustic amp to amplify your electric and pedals, but you'll probably find the tone to be way too bright. You can compensate somewhat by using a EQ pedal to kill all the highs above 6-7kHz, or by running a speaker simulator before the amp, but you still may not like the results as much as your favorite electric guitar amplifier. Of all the single-amp options I can think of off the top of my head, this is the one that is most likely to sound half-way decent for acoustic, vocals and electric guitar, although IMO at the expense of optimal electric guitar tone. Acoustic guitar and vocals running into an electric amp will usually sound dull and muffled. The acoustic will sound a lot more like an electric, and the vocals will usually be pretty lo-fi. Running a vocal mic into an electric guitar amp's 1/4" input brings up all sorts of level and impedance mismatch issues too. Unless you have a high impedance mic with a 1/4" output, I wouldn't recommend it without using an impedance matching transformer... and again, you'd be doing that only to have it coming out of a bandwidth-limited speaker system. It's not worth the effort IMO - in an emergency, sure... but it's not going to sound very good. If it's at all possible, you really should have two amps - one for electric guitar and one for acoustic. The acoustic amp can possibly double as a mini-PA for your vocals if it has the right mic inputs and controls. Alternatively, you could run a mini PA system (Fender Passport, JBL EON, Yamaha, etc.) for the vocals and acoustic, and run something like a Sans Amp or Line 6 amp sim into it for the electric guitar "amp." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members rtparrott Posted April 4, 2012 Author Members Share Posted April 4, 2012 Thanks Phil. I'll take that on board. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Drummer44 Posted April 4, 2012 Members Share Posted April 4, 2012 We've had semi-OK luck using a Roland keyboard-mixing amp; the KC 350 has 4 input channels and one of those also takes a mic via balanced XLR (and they have other models). Then the guitar bubba uses a foot thing (POD, Boss, whatever) for electric and whatever effects... and we've run vocals, keyboard, bass and single guitar simultaneously. Can't say it's optimum, but it was a quick way to get where we wanted to be at that particular time... -D44 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members mister natural Posted April 4, 2012 Members Share Posted April 4, 2012 Parrott - this takes both a mic input & electric guitar : albeit with pretty low output capability http://www.musiciansfriend.com/amplifiers-effects/roland-cube-street-battery-powered-stereo-guitar-combo-amp best of luck Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members MojoZilla Posted April 4, 2012 Members Share Posted April 4, 2012 I have an old Dean Markley KAC 60 which works quite well for this, and also makes a half decent practice amp. It's 60 watts, has 2 channels with 1/4" and XLR inputs on each, with phantom power available. It also has built in chorus, reverb and 5 band EQ, which work fine for an acoustic but if I'm using an electric with it I prefer my pedalboard. It also has an effects loop. All in all, a pretty decent amp. Works well for keyboards too. You can often find them on eBay, and used ones pop up all the time at GC and MF, usually in the $150 range. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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