Ask the Expert – pedals for acoustic worship guitar

Last week we ran a live online Ask the Expert Q&A session. The main topic was that of guitars, which of course extended to pedals, amps, PA, pick-ups, DI and more besides. We’ll drip out the questions and answers over the coming weeks but if you want to read them all together, please click through to the Facebook event page.

Pedals for acoustic guitars in worship

Bruce West asked a number of of related questions:

“One of the members of our worship team uses an electric guitar pedal for his very nice Taylor guitar. Does an electric guitar pedal really take advantage of all the acoustic sound put out by the Taylor. It wouldn’t seem that would be the best approach.”

Nick Samaniego:

Personally I’d say no, unless you’re talking about a pro quality delay or reverb (ie. rack quality). What effect is it?

Bruce West:

It’s a Digitec RP7

Nick Samaniego:

There’s your answer. It’s designed to digitally re-model the sound coming in, then shove it through a tube to brighten it up. Very little of the original tone will remain. If that’s the sound he wants, fine, but it will be very different to the tone of an unprocessed Taylor. Wish I could afford a decent Taylor…

Andy Chamberlain, Musicademy:

I’d say Bruce its best to use a pedal that’s specifically designed for acoustic guitar frequencies unless you’re going a ‘low res’ kinda sound for a particular song section or moment. Ive seen acoustic guitarists using all sorts of things – even a RAT distorion pedal but only for specific moments! Fishman do a few pedals to enhance acoustic tone but generally electric will mask the beautiful acoustic tone that you spent all your money on in the first place. If your guitarist feels he needs to buy pedals try a decent DI or volume pedal…

Tim Martin, Musicademy:

I’ve seen a lot of people use the L.R. Baggs Para DI (and a couple use the Venue DI which is a bit more fully featured). They work very well but at the end of the day it comes down to the sound coming out of the guitar. A good Taylor should be a lovely, dynamic sound which you can ‘tune’ a little with a good pre-amp/acoustic pedal but there’s often no need. I nearly always use my acoustic ‘straight in’ and it sounds great. I’ve once used my Pod X3 live when I wanted a specific acoustic effect.

Tim Horton, SFL:

Agree with Tim & Andy… It seems that every church I visit / talk to there is an acoustic guitarist who uses a pedal (usually chorus) to alter the sound.
On behalf of sound engineers the world-over, may I make an impassioned plea; don’t! It can muddy the sound of your beautifully detailed acoustic and just gets messy… Rant over…

Andy Chamberlain, Musicademy:

Isn’t there something in the bible about acoustic guitarists using chorus pedals being thrown into the lake of fire or something?

Bruce West:

What effects (particular pedals) can be tastefully applied to an acoustic/electric guitar (Taylor 614CE) to get the sweetest fingerpicking sound out of it? I hear so many good sounds in recordings that I haven’t been able to reproduce.

Tim Horton, SFL :
A compressor pedal can add a bit of pop & sparkle to a finger picking sound. Will also level out the peaks a bit. Can be useful if you’re switching between strumming and picking in a song.
Careful not to over do it though; you’ll destroy your tone if it’s over comp’d.

It’s also worth remembering that the finger picking stuff works best when there’s space in the mix to use it. If it’s a really upbeat arrangement then a delicate picking pattern will just get drowned out regardless of what you use…

Bruce West:

Should an effects pedal designed for an ELECTRIC guitar, be used on an Acoustic guitar? It doesn’t seem the circuitry would have been designed to take advantage of the nuances of an acoustic.

Tim Martin, Musicademy:

There are some pedals (e.g. a couple of the Line 6 ones) which cater for both to some degree but I’m pretty much of the opinion that we let an acoustic guitar be an acoustic guitar for the most part.

Other posts you may find helpful:

Pedals for acoustic guitars