Best Guitar Sound Ever - Guild Semi

Well it's been a long time since I posted here last - forgive me if I have a happy ramble ...

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I've been having a nice time playing thru all the DIY units I built over the years ...
I posted descriptions  of some of them as I went along.

And they've all been mostly great - I have a much better grasp on preamps, eqs, compressors
and how they sound, work  et al

And so I should  after many years of study, practise AND thousands acquiring the skills

So I wanted to share - I've found the ultimate guitar sound 

8) 8)

The warmest, tubiest, growliest, rubberyest guitar sound ever.

And it's *just* a guitar - no electrics at all!  I bought a little tiny condensor mic stick-on thingo to capture the sound straight off the f- hole.

So, I'm to be trying to capture the sound off the f-holes off this guitar  - which sounds better than all the electronics I have thus far played with!  ;D ;D ;D ;D

If I can capture that sound, then I am done.

It's a modest cost american Guild semi 

It has a sound that kills stone cold dead every other guitar I have. Seems to have a huge harmonic distortion which just adds up in the midrange to almost a growl 

Exactly what I've been searching for all these years - started in the early 70s

I could have saved many years of time if I had have found a guitar like this when I was young.
And I am so pleased, I have gone out and found another Guild (a Westerly this time).

Time will tell if the first one, an x-150 is a freak  (a Corona)

Anyone else find this ?  I've got a fair set of the classics and god as they might be, none comes close to this. It's like a neumann and a neve and a fairchild ...  or what I imagined them to be like. 

On a good day

Here's the other - should be here soon. 

It;s a little thinner, (2" down from 3") and has 2 sets of pups. And it's about 10 years older.

The Guild sounds pretty real playing into my diy amp rig

A *CHamp* style 5Watter of course. 

Mine uses an ay7 and a 6v6 with an ancient oz rola transformer.
Speaker box is a 'bell and howell' projector extension speaker with a full range 12" rola

What's also good about it is you can open the back any wideness you like .. or closed 
Makes a big impact on the amp sound - as does 'pointing it in another direction'.

Sounds quite nice. And then with a distant mic - awesome recording which just sounds so real.

I also put in a tone stack bypass and some ode switching for truly zapped out tones.

Funnily enough, what I use is an Art 'dual compressor +DI +gates' box.
I stack one channel after another and then into the champ.

Wow!

Even more amusingly, the thing that sounds best thru that little rig is acoustic gtr with piezo.
Sounds pretty ordinary if thru a hifi preamp/transparent compression.
But pushed thru this little rig and with a mic on the box - instant 'best take ever'

.. and champ! ...

I always think this guy gets a great sound out of his tele..........

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ODh9_ab8pc

Vikki

Everyone loves a tele  8)

I did my 'parts caster' with a warmoth thinline body, original neck and rest parts.

It has been my goto up until .. recently.

The Guilds combination of the precision build and feel, as well as this crazy euphonic midrange growl has pretty much rendered all my other electrics seem like prima donnas.

AND the flatwound 10s I have on are just heavenly silk !

Soon I'll have my little stick-on mic+pre to try to capture this phenomenon.

It's a 'Myers Pickups' unit - mini condenser + battery preamp with 1/4"  jack out.

It should also be good for my classical, jumbo and dobro  guits  ;D


I plan to put that into some of my diy channels.

First up will be the combo of diy 'bassman white' tube pre and 'rca' tube limiter.

Life can be so sweet  sometimes :-X

Cheers!

If only the technology existed for us to actually this sound of which you speak!

I hear that there are those who can perform such wonderous things !

.

It's a bit cold here where I am for now so nix to using my music room ...  but soon.

If I can catch that sound, and I should be able to - it's pretty loud - like an f-hole acoustic, then I will post some mp3s.

Really, it's like an 'acoustic' distortion pedal. No electrics.

But unmistakably growling. Seriously classy sound with a growl when you 'dig in' on a chord and even on single strings in the mids.

I expected the thicker sound of this guit but not the distortion - some could easily consider it a flaw in it's acoustic sound.

Not me 

Only some of it comes thru the pickups - it is quite a deep magnetic pup sound. But not containing the same distortion.

So - I hope Mr Myer's gizmo does the trick!

Hi alexc! Please, upload some sound samples! I´d be pretty interested in the ultimate guitar sound 

If I´m understanding correctly it´s just a stick on cond. mike with the semiacoustic Guild captured with a clean channel?
Which mike? I have a good sounding old Vantage semiacoustic which would be nice trying.

I also like broken speaker mebrane distortion (really)!

Hi

Well I received the little Myers condenser mic with preamp and stick-on (suction cup).
I used a light weight but good quality 3m jack-jack shielded cable.

I have to say, it does work quite well.  ;D

I used it first on my classical - which is a modest but nice spanish Alhambra 4P. The mic element is on a flexi stalk 7- I had it sitting about 3cm above the strings, pointing to treble strings and at the front of the soundhole (nearest neck).

Here's a gratuitous long shot ..

So - it has quite a lot of proximity effect, plenty of bottom end and not at all too much treble.

I did need to EQ it as without, it tended to the bass end of things - too boomy.

With a bit of EQ - I had a HPF at around 200Hz, a 2K boost of maybe 3dB and a small 7K boost of 3dB, then a LPF rolling off at 10K.

This is using my Myers -> diy JLM fet DI box -> diy mod TNC1081 chineve knockoff stock traffos

Gain at preamp was about the same as a regular LD condenser - quite modest.



That worked pretty good. I recorded some noodling about with the headphones for monitoring and easily had a healthy level into Cubase via my Motu 2408MKII interface.

Definately captured a good deal of the classical guitar - I could easily say my best ever, because I have only recently began recording it.

BY way of comparison, I had previously recorded same classical using my LDC, a diy apex460 rebuild and a cheap MXL SDC.

It was as good as those and with the added benefit that moving around did not ruin the 'sweet spot'.

So - quite successful really. 

Considering I've generally used peizo for this and other acoustic stuff, I thought it was a huge improvement for a modest investment (135usd delivered ebay).

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Then I added my diy 1176d and really went to town! What a difference.

One might say 'it rocks' ! (which it did)

Now the classical is quite a loud source, and with plenty of bottom end.

Next up is the Guild - a much quieter sound off the maple-laminate pressed-arch top (maple laminate body)

With a bit of luck, I will capture this crazy growling mid-range off of it. 

I also have the other Guild arriving in the next couple of days, so I can see if it is a one-off freak.

As I may have said, I've played a few semi acoustics but none remotely as good a sound and feel as this one.  8)

I'll do some mp3s of it for you to perouse    ;D ;D

L´Andratté said:

Which mike?

Click to expand...

Embarrassing! You just mentioned two posts earlier...
Thanks for the explanation, so you play the Guild with stock pickups completly out of the picture!

I once had a way of getting a killer guitar sound, by recording classical guitar with one of those little handheld dictaphone mini-tape recorders, totally overdriven... You wouldn´t think, bandwith good for guitar, dynamic sweet distortion, no fuzz, beautiful.

Harsh judgement: I hate piezos on guitar, imo they´re unnatural sounding, only good for underwater recording. 

  I remember some of those mics - I too used them back in the day and thought myself lucky to have them!

Piezo has it's place but not alone. piezo+mags is interesting, for example.

Anyway, tomorrow if the weather is good I'll do the first Guild 

I did the 'Guild test'    - mounted the 'Myers condenser pickup' to my Guild to capture its ooutrageous midrange 'growl'  that I've been banging on about.

Happily, the Myers mic worked just right 

A crazy, almost to a fault, midrange growling, honky quality 

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Last time, I had to tame the huge bottom end of my classical guitar, with a little eq.

This time, on the jazz box, the bottom is fine, the mids are fine - just a little 3dB at 12K to finish the job.

Not bad at all.

I've never been a friend of mics - gnarly, sh*tty things they always were to me for the most part.
Single handedly killing any vibe I might make on the instruments and amps!

I avoided them for the longest time in guitar recordings, using them instead for vocals and drums.

But hey - I have been schooled of late.

Apart from an SM58, which has ALWAYS worked well, my world of condensers was always pretty unhappy. One sad crapper after another - the bane of 'cheaping out'

A (we had help) C12 clone rebuild Apex460 changed me forever.


Now, I have a 3rd great option - the Meyers' is one EASY mic for acoustic guitars of all sorts.

It 'takes eq' pretty good too. I have to do some sweep measurements, but whatever - it's werking.

I'll do some 'top and tail' operations on the wavs and get some mp3s to post.

The  growl is there! 

And I didn't even use a compressor this last recording.

Just the

  Guild -> Myers cpup -> JLM fet DI -> hot rodded chineve 1081 knock down -> Motu -> Cubase



Next, all that WITH a diy '175b limiter.

:-X Life can be so .. wonderful ...  :-X

So now I have the second Guild semi - it's a 16 3/4" body round and 2.5" deep

Almost identical to the other apart from depth that and the second set of pup+controls.
And it has a maple neck, compared to a mahogany neck on the 'growly one'

And Nope - it doesn't have that 'sound' - that distorty, woody grind

I took at look at the mic'd up f-hole of the first, and it has a strong resonance in the 115-165Hz range. Notching at 135 takes it away.  That's where the majority of the action is at.

Seems to be the body resonance is way down deep.

The thinner body is obviously less loud and additionally it's not 'resonating way down low'.
The mahogany neck is also making for a woodier tone than the 'spangly' maple necked one.

So far, the first one, an x-150 a bit of a freak. 

Now, another Guild later  ( .. 3 all up now    :-\)

The first one still remains the freak - a 3 1/2" thick full hollowbody. BUT tuned I think.
With a sound post internally. Or maybe not.

The second one, 2 1/2" thick is a full hollowbody, albeit of moderate thickness.
But it has a sound plinth internally. Not a post but a plinth on a pedestal !

I love american guitars.

So - bottom line, the first Guild with a full hollow body is a freak on harmonic reinforcement of the 'american' notes - like E and A and C and D and ...

The second Guild is less on the throaty roar, because it is slimmer and the 'throat note; is tuned differently (higher, prolly 250Hz rather than 150Hz) BUT is still there.

Add to that, the silky, wonderful build and sigh....  it's like living in a house you can't afford to buy. Pure heaven.

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NEXT week, into the studio and also to be knocking out a couple of cheap 'classics'


Music and diy go together like  (honey and heather)

Oh yes. The THIRD Guild that I crazily lashed out on  ... an acoustic D50 BS

Now *thats* a guitar. Pure acoustic, no electrons.

WOW. It needs a twerk or two, but that is the sound.

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That's nearly the end of this tale. But not quite.

Are there sound file links to hear?  I'm not seeing any.  Am I missing something here. Best sound ever?

No sound files. Just me blabbing about a bunch of guitars.

So no, you didn't miss anything.

bfn