Bob Dey

I buy most of my gear from Sweetwater. They're only about 120 miles from my town - although I've only been there once.

Back when I did an acoustic gig I just plugged in the the PA mixer. The combination of woofer and horn/tweeter in PA speakers works great with acoustic guitar frequencies, and PA amps are pure, clean power. Add some quality reverb for a nice sound IMO. I never cared for amps made for acoustic guitar.

Boss Katana has acoustic as one of their amp types. I bought the 100 watt model this year and it's really great for a solid state amp. Built in efx, any overdrive level you want from clean to full distortion. And the acoustic setting is for acoustic guitars in particular.

yeah Glen, I've been using background tracks for nearly 30 years now. It seemed back then that using a drum machine and bass pedals was common. I recorded tracks to a 4 track cassette that included a drum machine, bass guitar and a patch on my synth and there were some duos doing the same thing. Some people frowned on the use of BT (and some still do) because it seems like cheating!

When I went out to do my first few gigs I found that there were a lot of acoustic guitarist/singers around that were getting work. They had smaller speakers and less equipment to carry around but they were primarily really good singers.

So throughout the years I've done both kinds of gigs; those with background tracks and those without. Some clients preferred acoustic while others wanted full backing tracks.

And I've had some BT with lots of instrumentation or vocal harmony added (no machine, just me singing several tracks). At a certain point I wanted to make my guitar playing the main attraction so I made my BT with just bass, drums and maybe one keyboard part (mostly organ, piano, or strings). I also do a few songs with just guitar and vocal just to let the audience know that it isn't all memorex they're hearing.

I keep away from saxophone sounds because it's not possible to get a realistic sax sound from a synth. I like patches that emulate analog synthesizers too. Sample playback synths are pretty good at that.

From what I heard on your videos were some nice patches. So I commend you for keeping away from those that don't sound as good. Good luck and consider doing a few songs without tracks too.

I was considering getting an arranger keyboard long ago. There was a solo guy on the boards about 20 years ago that used a Yamaha Tyros and he was working regularly in nice restaurants.

Anyway, I ended up getting a Kurzweil K2VX and doing the work of recording or editing midi files to my liking.

No matter how good arranger keyboards sound, they still sound too automated to me. I would hope that an audience wants to see me really playing my instrument rather than controlling a machine that plays itself.

Some of the sounds are cheesy IMO but that's common with many synths.

I do Surfin' USA and California Girls. Both work without harmony, but Cal Girls has a high vocal part (which I sing an octave lower).

Man, I wish I could sing in that range. Nice vocal

Haven't updated the list, but hope the attachment works.