My Choice for an Acoustic-Electric or Electric-Acoustic
Welcome all. Some recent conversations on the subject of electric acoustics, or acoustic electrics resulted in some folks asking me what guitar I would buy if I could buy only one. I am a fan of semi-hollow bodies and true hollow bodies but pretty much hated every acoustic pickup system installed in these guitars because they have all been piezo electric pickups for the acoustic tones, and regular channel members know that I have no love for piezos. However, some vendors do a lot of work to ensure that their piezo system doesn’t sound like horse plop. However since I can pick only one, which was very easy btw, I have made my choice and committed to it with my own money.
What Failed My Personal Tests
The first failure, any member would know already. It is the travesty of bad sound, computational audio, questionable construction, poor finish and extravagant price known as the Fender Acoustasonic. Whether made in America or in Mexico. it sounds and plays like crap for me. Goodness knows I have gone out of my way to find something about it worth buying. Judging by the number gathering dust on dealer hooks, very few other people found any redeeming qualities that could justify one quarter the price tag. In fairness, if I could get one with the wood veneer top instead of the wallpaper and it was under $500 CAD, I would buy it, just to see if I could make it into something decent over time.
The second failure was the Taylor T5z. It didn’t do any computational audio stupidity and the fit and finish were really good. But it was more electric than acoustic and that price was both stratospheric and delusional. It is, in my opinion, better than any Acoustasonic, but not at three or four grand. Again for about $800, sure, and I would be doing mods on it. At least the frets wouldn’t be carving up my hands.
I tried some others as well. The Godin A6 was pretty nice, and I know the line having a Multiac as my nylon string. While I like the Multiac for classical stuff, the A6 humbucker was not to my preference and the piezo was too piezo like. I only played it for a short time, but sometimes you know pretty quickly.
What Won? By a Landslide! Emerald Guitars Virtuo
I am a fan of Emerald Guitars made in Ireland. They use an all carbon fibre body and neck with the design drawn from very high end carbon fibre racing boats. This is not the cheap ass carbon fibre that you find on Amazon. They’ve also been designed for excellent sound projection and while not made of wood, sound amazing and in blind tests, no one could tell that they were not wood. I already owned two when I decided to try the Virtuo. I own a Synergy X20 Harp guitar and a Chimaera double neck from Emerald and they are fantastic. So based on that and a really great sale, I bought a Virtuo.
The Virtuo, like all Emerald Guitars, is made from carbon fibre. Body, neck, fingerboard, are all carbon fibre. The frets are stainless steel. There are a pair of humbuckers on the top, of this hollow guitar, being Fishman Fluences. I have Fluences on both my 7 and 8 string Strandbergs and they sound very good to me, although I prefer their vintage option over the modern option myself. The acoustic pickup is a Graph Tech Ghost Piezo system with an individual pickup for each string. There is also a connection to a guitar synth via a 13 pin MIDI connector, but as that is not my thing, I have never even tried it.
My guitar has a thin veneer on top of the carbon fibre body called Amara Ebony that is dyed Red. That’s a custom finish. The image to the right shows undyed Amara Ebony on a Virtuo. It is beautiful and very lightweight. There is a control for the humbucker volume, humbucker tone, piezo volume, synth volume, a three way selector for the humbuckers and a 3 way to select pickups, either only humbuckers, only piezo, or both humbuckers and piezo. The output jack will feed both with a mono TS cable, or split the humbucker and piezo signals if you use a TRS to two TS adapter so you can send the acoustic sound to an acoustic amp and the electric sound to an electric amp. I have to say that this sounds pretty glorious going into dedicated amps.
The tuners are 18:1 Gotoh 510s, so smooth with no binding. There are twenty two frets and the cutaway provides easy access to the highest frets. There is no fret sprout and the finish on the fret ends is superb. The guitar came with D’Addario strings and a Hiscox hard case.
Playing Setup
While the Virtuo is a true hollow body, acoustically without application it sounds a bit spare. The electric strings impact that sound as does the shallow body depth and the profusion of internal electronics. I have mounted a D’Addario tuner inside the sound hole, the process for which is described in this article. How to Install a Tuner in Your Acoustic Guitar
The output jack is a TRS type. If you use a standard TS guitar cable, the outputs from the humbuckers and the piezo are melded together and you control the mix via the independent volume controls for each system. You can also isolate the humbuckers or the piezo via the micro switch. However I use a TRS plug that splits into two TS jacks, one for the humbuckers and one for the piezo. I run the humbuckers into a Wet Dry rig that uses a pair of Fender Hot Rod Deluxe IV amplifiers with Celestion Creambacks in each. The dry side has an Effectrode LA-2A Compressor, an Effectrode Mercury Fuzz, a Browne Protein and a JHS Packrat. The wet side has a Strymon Lex, a UA Astra, a UA Starlight, and a UA Golden Reverberator. I am very pleased with this setup as it has evolved over time into what is currently in place. I send the piezo signal, which as I have mentioned, does not have the ripping, annoying, nasal tone of most piezos, direct into an AER Tommy Emmanuel Compact 60. This is my favourite acoustic amp that I run set neutral with a tiny bit of the built in reverb to add some width. This is the first piezo equipped guitar that does not need my usual piezo board of Empress Mark II Compressor, Source Audio EQ2 and TC Electronic BodyRez to sound decent. If one were to choose to install piezos, the Ghost Piezos are the only ones I would ever suggest. I set my maximum output volume on the amps, and then use the two volume controls on the guitar to adjust individual volume levels and balance.
The Fishman Fluence pickups can be set to a vintage or modern sound via push pull and each pickup can be coil split if you wish. The Fluences have grown on me over time and I like very much what I can do with them in the Virtuo. The graphic below shows how all the controls work.
As you folks know by now, I do not get paid a commission or other consideration for these articles. I have spent my own money on this (and all of my kit) and would not recommend something that I would not buy, or have not bought myself. The Emerald Guitars Virtuo is the best of this type of guitar that I have ever played.
Virtual Builder
As an Emerald owner, I really like their virtual guitar builder which is a 3D modelling function built right into the company website. This short screen video shows how the builder works making a Virtuo using a Royal Ebony top without dyed colour, a coloured back and neck, plus a change in hardware, inlay and the addition of a strap.
You can learn all about the Virtuo, including audio samples, here.
My Virtuo cost less landed in Canada than either of the last T5z or Acoustasonic that I was allowed to trial here. It is light years better than either in every way.
In fact, I was so pleased with this third Emerald that I have agreed to be a local ambassador for the line.
Thanks for reading and your support of the channel. Please submit a comment or send in a question, I read and respond to all. Until next time, peace.
