running an acoustic through the V head

[5150vh]

hey guys,
i will be purchasing a mark v head in a couple of months & an acoustic (Taylor 714-CE Grand Auditorium Cutaway Acoustic-Electric Guitar). it's amp ready to plug in but my question is if anyone uses an acoustic through their mark V? the cab i'm currently using is the recto 4x12 cab with the overhang (straight frame with slant). thanks for reading. :mrgreen:

 

[phyrexia]

Acoustic guitars sound crappy through guitar speakers. They need full-range sound reinforcement. That said, sure you can do it.

 

[ixoye777]

Mine sounds fine for goofing off but as phyrexia said for anything serious there is a reason they make acoustic guitar amps/why you see acoustic concerts mic the guitar through the PA

 

[mejoshee]

Mine sounds fine for goofing off but as phyrexia said for anything serious there is a reason they make acoustic guitar amps/why you see acoustic concerts mic the guitar through the PA

+1000

it comes down to frequency response of the pickups. magnetic pickups are more midrange-focused, consequently, the tone shaping that's done in a typical guitar amp is done only in a pretty narrow range.
http://buildyourguitar.com/resources/lemme/

a piezoelectric transducer, or piezo pickup, is pretty different. the frequency response is pretty flat, so that's why it sounds better through a pa (ideally, a flat-response system). if you run the piezo into the clean channel then scoop it a lot and/or use a geq in front, you might get reasonable results, but it'll still lack the body. best case is through an acoustic preamp then a mixer into a pa this gets you much better results. i switch to piezo sometimes on my custom guitar, but mostly just for messing.

 

[phyrexia]

through any guitar speaker, even the mighty 12L, you'll still be missing everything above say 5500hz, and there is a lot of content in that range when you're playing an acoustic guitar.