Hmm.. Guitar sounds like crud unplugged, WOW plugged...??

[BloodRose]

Yeah, its an electric and its made to play plugged in. but... I have guitars (my LP trad pro for example) that when I play unplugged, you can feel the body vibe as the notes ring, and hear the notes ringing out. quietly of course.. You get the idea. Other guitars do this too. But my LP Standard, sounds plinky and feeble unplugged. even tho it has tone pros bridge and all. So my impression of this guitar hasnt been great. But plug it in, and whoa!!!! Its like jekyll and hyde...
Anyhow, anyone else have an experience like this??

 

[darnright]

Re: Hmm.. Guitar sounds like crud unplugged, WOW plugged...??

Not exactly...most of the ones I owned that sounded dead unplugged also sounded weak plugged in. Something about that wood vibrating....

-dave

 

[uOpt]

Re: Hmm.. Guitar sounds like crud unplugged, WOW plugged...??

Yeah, its an electric and its made to play plugged in. but... I have guitars (my LP trad pro for example) that when I play unplugged, you can feel the body vibe as the notes ring, and hear the notes ringing out. quietly of course.. You get the idea. Other guitars do this too. But my LP Standard, sounds plinky and feeble unplugged. even tho it has tone pros bridge and all. So my impression of this guitar hasnt been great. But plug it in, and whoa!!!! Its like jekyll and hyde...
Anyhow, anyone else have an experience like this??

What you hear is the body vibrating.

What matters is the strings vibrating.

The only way to "test" an electric guitar without plugging it in is if it is in front of you in a stand and you plug the G string. Then you can hear that cheap/bad guitars have a sound that is a bit like a rattle or if it was made of sheet metal, tinny or whatever you want to call it. A "bleheehng" instead of a "bliiiiing". But you need to keep your ears and body away from the wood because that's simply misleading.

Furthermore there is the huge difference between long sustain being a good thing and it sounding good. Long sustain is quite a bit overrated.

 

[crusty philtrum]

Re: Hmm.. Guitar sounds like crud unplugged, WOW plugged...??

I've noticed it sometimes with some LPs in particular. They can be even, but dead all over acoustically. But plugged in, they do their thing superbly. Other electrics sound lively and resonant both unplugged and plugged. And of course some (many ?) guitars that are unresponsive acoustically are the same when amplified.

I have no idea about what causes this or why. I imagine trying to find out would be a scientific nightmare, so i just take each guitar as it comes. I do prefer guitars to resonate well acoustically as i play electric guitar unplugged for probably 75% of the time, and if they do resonate well, i want that to translate through the gear to the speakers. But yeah, some LPs in particular just 'plink' when unplugged. Maybe the body mass just isn't getting 'driven' enough by the strings on some of them, in which case, maybe it's the variances in wood between one guitar and the next. I don't know.

 

[blueman335]

Re: Hmm.. Guitar sounds like crud unplugged, WOW plugged...??

This is one reason why I don't subscribe to the 'play it unplugged' theory of choosing electric guitars to purchase. While there may be some that resonate well and sound equally good thru an amp, others don't have that correlation. You can get fooled, in good ways and in bad. All that matters with electrics is how they sound thru an amp. I've seen hundreds of live bands over the decades, and not a single guitarist ever played an electric unplugged.

 

[Vasshu the humanoid typhoon]

Re: Hmm.. Guitar sounds like crud unplugged, WOW plugged...??

All the guitars I keep have a good sound plugged in or unplugged.
Wood is important, after all it is the whole that gets amplified...not just the pickup picking up the string.

 

[Lewguitar]

Re: Hmm.. Guitar sounds like crud unplugged, WOW plugged...??

All the guitars I keep have a good sound plugged in or unplugged.
Wood is important, after all it is the whole that gets amplified...not just the pickup picking up the string.

Me too. I've never owned a great guitar that didn't have a certain mojo going for it even unplugged. But I have owned a guitar or two that I bought online that sounded dry as dirt and neither of them were fun to play plugged in or unplugged.

 

[AlexR]

Re: Hmm.. Guitar sounds like crud unplugged, WOW plugged...??

I had an SG that sounded great acoustically but flat plugged in....and a G&L too - no pickups were great for that thing.

But on the whole I agree.....look for a good balanced acoustic tone first and see how it responds plugged in.

 

[CTN]

Re: Hmm.. Guitar sounds like crud unplugged, WOW plugged...??

I generally believe that if a guitar sounds amazing both unplugged and plugged in, it's got magic in it. That's been my experience anyway.

i've been fortunate enough that all my guitars exhibit this particular quality, even my new Epi SG.

 

[Myaccount876]

Re: Hmm.. Guitar sounds like crud unplugged, WOW plugged...??

Pretty much the majority of electrics sound dull unplugged. Plugged in, all of mine sound like monsters. Unplugged, they all run through the range of sounding dull to decent.

 

[crusty philtrum]

Re: Hmm.. Guitar sounds like crud unplugged, WOW plugged...??

All that matters with electrics is how they sound thru an amp. I've seen hundreds of live bands over the decades, and not a single guitarist ever played an electric unplugged.

Oh har-de-har-harr. Obviously people playing an electric guitar at a gig are going to plug the thing into some kind of amplification.

However, many people play their electric guitars acoustically at home or in quiet environments. personally i feel a player will become much better acquainted with their instrument if they hear and understand the acoustic aspects of it. I know without a doubt that I have a much better understanding of my instruments, what they have to offer, and how to extract the best from them by playing mostly unplugged at home. In fact playing through an amp needs much less attention, as i know how things will behave once the guitar is plugged in.

Since the 1970s I have played unplugged a great deal when amplification hasn't been necessary, and pushed myself to 'make it sound more dirty ... make it sound clean ...make it growl ....make it squeal ... make it shimmer ... play the delays .... try to make it swirl .... etc. etc.' via any method i could find, just with the guitar and my hands, no amplification, no electronics. I have absolutely no doubt that that has made me a better player with a better sonic palette and a better touch.

Vocalists in most music genres need to use a microphone to sing with other instruments, and to perform at most venues they are likely to play. But do they use a mic at home to practise or sing along to the radio ? I bet they learn a lot more about their voice and how to use it when they sing 'unplugged'. I bet most singing teachers spend most of their time teaching without the use of microphones.
I certainly wouldn't want to work with a vocalist who had never sung without a mic.

 

[blueman335]

Re: Hmm.. Guitar sounds like crud unplugged, WOW plugged...??

Vocalists in most music genres need to use a microphone to sing with other instruments, and to perform at most venues they are likely to play. But do they use a mic at home to practise or sing along to the radio ? I bet they learn a lot more about their voice and how to use it when they sing 'unplugged'. I bet most singing teachers spend most of their time teaching without the use of microphones. I certainly wouldn't want to work with a vocalist who had never sung without a mic.

Not a good analogy. An amp really is part of an electric guitar, and changes it's tone. Most amps these days have 3 or 4 EQ knobs, plus reverb, some have effects, you get tube breakup as the volume increases. The sound is modified by all that, not to mentions what happens to the signal from the PU's, magnets, pots, caps, and cord. All kinds of variables changing the acoustic sound to the electric sound. With a human voice, you usually don't have nearly as much going on when it's thru a mic. When a person's singing, using a mic lets the people in back hear; with an electric guitar, if it's not amplified, the people in front can't hear. Apples and oranges.

I also practice unplugged a lot, but it's a whole new ballgame when I turn on an amp. To paraphrase you, 'I wouldn't want to work with' an electric guitarist who had never played thru an amp. He'd be lost on stage with the unfamiliar EQ's, sustain, and volume. Just like if you only play sitting down at home, you're going to have a big adjustment learning to play standing on stage. Again, what matters with an electric is when it's amplified, it's not a complete music system without an amp. Who shows up to band practice or gigs without an amp? (Answer: your buddy who just pawned his). You can practice an electric guitar any way you want at home, but the final product, gig or recording, is always thru an amp. If you have several guitars, as most guys do, you can practice mostly on the ones that resonate best if that helps you.

 

[crusty philtrum]

Re: Hmm.. Guitar sounds like crud unplugged, WOW plugged...??

Not a good analogy. An amp really is part of an electric guitar, and changes it's tone. Most amps these days have 3 or 4 EQ knobs, plus reverb, some have effects, you get tube breakup as the volume increases. The sound is modified by all that, not to mentions what happens to the signal from the PU's, magnets, pots, caps, and cord. All kinds of variables changing the acoustic sound to the electric sound.

Err, yeah, I know, despite the fact that i've only been playing for over 40 years, build amps and worked this out before i ever set foot on a stage. I'm talking about in addition to the obvious. You could say that all electric guitars have pickups, so if they work, there's no need to change them. An electric guitar and an amplifier can still give up more with tweaks and better signal from the guitar itself caused by not only pickups and electronics, but also from the the quality of the instrument and the skills and touch of the player. Some of those skills may very well have been developed without the use of an amplifier and serve, in combination with knob-twiddling, to get better results than just one or two elements.

 

[crusty philtrum]

Re: Hmm.. Guitar sounds like crud unplugged, WOW plugged...??

I also practice unplugged a lot, but it's a whole new ballgame when I turn on an amp. To paraphrase you, 'I wouldn't want to work with' an electric guitarist who had never played thru an amp.

(sorry, I don't know how to do the multiple quote thing)

I would have thought 'I wouldn't want to work with an electric guitarist who had never played their guitar acoustically' would have been a more logical paraphrase.

Regardless, you speak often of your playing and your theories about it, but not once have i been able to hear it (unless I'm mistaken, in which case please point me towards the location of an example). It doesn't have to be an album-quality example, a rough recording from a gig or some aimless noodling at home would be enough. I'm sure I'm not the only one who would like to hear how your oft-mentioned playing and tone actually sounds like when it enters our ears rather than our eyes. Thanks in advance.

 

[Zerberus]

Re: Hmm.. Guitar sounds like crud unplugged, WOW plugged...??

All but one of my electrics rival hollowbodies in acoustic volume and my bass clearly overpowers them.

Take a wild guess where I stand on this issue...

 

[Vasshu the humanoid typhoon]

Re: Hmm.. Guitar sounds like crud unplugged, WOW plugged...??

You like concrete guitars??

 

[ItsaBass]

Re: Hmm.. Guitar sounds like crud unplugged, WOW plugged...??

Pauls have dead high end acoustically IME. They are thick and [mostly] solid sandwiches of mahogany and maple. It's hard to get all that wood a-movin' with the higher frequencies. It's why they have the mule kick of a tone they have through an amp, though because of this lack of cutting/audible treble, they sound [relatively] like ass unplugged...at least every one I've ever played. I play unplugged at least 75% of the time I practice at home. Rarely on a Paul, though. They just don't cut through like most other guitars do acoustically.

 

[Jeremiah]

Re: Hmm.. Guitar sounds like crud unplugged, WOW plugged...??

My keyboard sound great when it's plugged in, but acoustically it's rubbish; it just makes a kind of plasticky clicking sound. :boggled:

 

[chadd]

Re: Hmm.. Guitar sounds like crud unplugged, WOW plugged...??

The more gain you use, the less important acoustic tone and resonance will be.

 

[GuitarDoc]

Re: Hmm.. Guitar sounds like crud unplugged, WOW plugged...??

I have to say that everyone is right..............and everyone is wrong.

But everyone is right in their own minds. And that's OK. I actually do love to hear differing opinions. But they are based on their own experiences and mostly their own ears and minds.

I personally can't see enough consistency to be able to make a blanket statistical statement. I've got some guitars (even LPs) that sound full and rich and have monsterous tone unplugged and sound even more amazing when plugged in. I have some that sound kinda plinky unplugged that sound terrif when plugged in. I have one or two that sound plinky unplugged and plinky when plugged in. I have a Tele that sounds plinky unplugged and used to sound plinky when plugged in, but I put a 1/4 pounder in it and now it's a tone monster plugged in...still plinky unplugged.

So I have to say that an acoustic guitar's acoustic tone is absolutely important, but an electic guitar's tone is only an important consideration when plugged in. And thank goodness for aftermarket pups that can totally change an electric guitars personality!!!