|
|
Joined:
June 2002
Posts: 6197
Location: Phoenix AZ | I never thought about this before. Always assumed body depth made no difference to plugged in sound. So when asked, I usually gave advice along the lines of deep bowl being best for acoustic and supershallow being best for plugged (due to comfort). But I saw in another post (Moody?) the idea that body depth does in fact effect the plugged in sound as well. In many ways this makes sense due to the amount of air moving inside the body effecting top vibration, etc. But I'd like to hear other inputs on this - both technical and emotional. Go at it boys, let's have some opinions .... Dave |
|
| |
|
Joined:
February 2002
Posts: 5750
Location: Scotland | The size of the body absolutely has an effect on the plugged-in sound. The sound of a guitar is the sum of it's parts, and every aspect of the design, materials & construction affect the sound, although changing a single design element may produce a difference which is very subtle. For example the difference in sound between a super-shallow and deep bowl is much greater than the difference between a cutaway and non-cut, or for that matter a multi-hole & centre-hole of the same depth. The Ovation pickup is pretty accurate and it is sensitive to both top & string vibration. The fundamental frequency of the guitar is directly related to, among other things, the size of the air cavity, and this has some bearing on how the top responds. A guitar which is bass-light acoustically will generally be bass-light plugged-in. Though the supershallows can usually tolerate a fairly extreme EQ bass-boost to compensate without wanting to feedback as early as a deeper guitar. I personally do not care for the sound of the majority of super-shallows I've experienced, either acoustically or amplified. The pay-off is that I have a harder time getting my guitars to the levels I play at without outboard gear.
Try a comparison for yourself. Grab a supershallow & a mid or deep bowl. Compare the unplugged sound, then plug them both in with the eq on the guitars and the amp set flat |
|
| |
|
Joined:
February 2002
Posts: 1817
Location: Minden, Nebraska | I use supershallows exclusively for live performance, and just tweak the onboard preamp and my AD-5 to compensate. It isn't quite as natural sounding a bass, but that doesn't matter as much because my guitar sound is in a mix and most people do not notice the nuance of difference. |
|
| |
|
Joined:
December 2003
Posts: 95
Location: Fort worth Texas | I tend to agree that you dont get the fullness and bass response with a super shallow bowl in plugged or unplugged situations,.. however plugged in I agree that you can tweak the pre-amp some but it works better for me if I just boost the low end tones of the guitar amp I am playing through to compensate,.. in fact I like the extra cut I get from it being a little more on the treble side with the e and a strings hitting the big bottom |
|
| |
Plugged In - Deep vs. Super Shallow
