FUQ (eff -yu - cue) - FAQ's with an EDGE

Tagged As: Acoustic Amplifier

Question:
I was wondering if there are some guitar amps meant for both acoustic and electric guitars??? I mean I need to buy an amp but I'd like to use it with my nylon-string classical guitar to get the nice and sweet bossa sound but also with my electric guitar so I could play in a big band with the well-known jazzy sound. Also I don't have very much money and as this would be my first amp at all I'd spend on this as less as possible. Later on I'm buying separate amps for both instrument anyway. Of course the amp must be solid because I don't think I'd ever use distortion for justified reason. Maybe sometimes just for fun.. to rock around or sth... but I can use my friends' amps for that occasion. After all tube amps cost far more than solid amps so on the whole I think it's kinda pointless to buy one of these... Secondly the amp don't need to be very loud and powerful. Power is needed for just small stages. Quality is more important. Or what do you think? Any brand names or certain products???

Answer:
Well, on the issue of electric guitars, there is more than a metric ton of amplifiers to select from. For JAZZ, everything from the ever popular standard WORKHORSE Fender Twin Reverb, to the Studio STANDARD of the past Ampeg B-15-N's, are just sitting there for the Jazz player. But, when it comes to reproducing the sound of the acoustic guitar, what the industry has provided to date, has not been even close. The simple A-B comparison for the acoustic sound of the instrument to the sound of what actually leaves the speaker, is actually an insult to the acoustic instrument being used. With someone elseplaying the instrument, listen to what come out of the sound holes into the air, then compare THAT, to what comes out of the so-called acoustic amplifier. I have YET to hear a acoustic instrument's sound reproduced, by any so-called acoustic amplifiers, that in any way comes close to results, that are commonly found from an acoustic recording, produced by a professional studio recording. Note, that in the professional recording studio, you would NEVER use one of the so-called acoustic amplifiers, when TURE acoustic reproduction of the instrument, IS the GOAL, in the making of the recording. All I've ever heard from these so-called acoustic amplifiers is a shit pile of string attack, and a string that sounds as if it needed changing years ago, because of it lifeless sound coming out of that so-called acoustic amplifier. It's an insult to place a Stradivarius of arch top guitars, through one of those so-called acoustic amplifiers. All these so-called acoustic amplifiers are famous for, is making any instrument sound like,... rubber bands stretched across a pie tin!!!!