Electric Guitar/Acoustic Amp?

kdavid

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Hay! this evening my wife & i happened into a pawn shop in carbondale where she spotted a Yamaha Pacifica solidbody electric.
at $80.00 i couldent say no (even tho i dont know much about electrics anymore & am just learning about Yamaha guitars in general)
anyway after the test drive at the pawn shop, we took it home where wife cleaned it up best as she could (we'll do better after she changes strings in a couple weeks when we buy a set of electric guitar strings)
i wanted her to plug it in & learn the electronic controls but all i have are the 2 acoustic amps in my sig.
i was more comfortable using the Crate for that as i'll be using the Fishman a lot more now (in church )
it sounded pretty good but im wondering would it be sounding as good as it really is? how much different would an acoustic amp be vs an electric, provided they both be solid state?
i really dont think im hurting anything other than sound & power-wise.
does this make any sense?
am i using enough (of the) parenthesis?its a killer-looking guitar & sounds & feels great, other than the fretboard radius is quite flat.
im also a little worried that the 'other brands' in the house are catching up on the Guilds...3 Guilds, 2 Breedloves & now 2 Yamahas.
i seriously need to trade my Breedlove 12 string (which has a very flat radius) for a GAD 12--equal value, etc.
anyhow--about the amps
thank you :ambivalence:
 

fronobulax

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My limited experience based on plugging into whatever is available which means electric guitars into bass amps and visa versa and acoustic guitars into electric and bass amps.

If you just need to be louder you can get by with any amp.

If the instrument is a bass then the tone controls are going to be somewhat ineffective on any guitar amp and there will be features (reverb, I'm looking at you) on the amp that almost never get used.

Generally guitars sound ok through bass amps. If the amp was designed to be clean then an acoustic guitar through a bass amp sounds quite natural.

So to get to your question, I think it comes down to do you like how the guitar sounds through either of your existing amps? If it does then you're done. If it doesn't then you probably have a particular sound/tone in mind and you can embark on the search for an amp that gives you that sound with that guitar.

If your concern is about damaging equipment I think the chances of doing so are slim and they get slimmer if you keep things at a reasonable volume.

Remember that you are reading this on the internet so it must be true and my opinion is worth what you paid for it.
 

kdavid

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Thank you Frono, i figured as much
ive used bass amps for guitars but not crossed species in this fashion before :stung:
much appreaciate the info. :peaceful:
 

Westerly Wood

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I once played live with a Taylor 312ce thru a cheap practice electric guitar amp as my Dad didnt know what amp to buy, he just bought it online and shipped it to my house. LOL
It sounded fine and really cut thru mix.
 

Quantum Strummer

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I play keyboards through guitar amps just about every morning, part of my normal routine, and decades ago played electric guitar though an Ampeg B-15 bass amp. Sounds (and sounded) fab! A friend of one of my English nieces plays electric as well as acoustic guitar through an acoustic amp. Works great for a detailed clean sound.

-Dave-
 

Bonneville88

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kdavid - did you line up any gigs while you were in C'dale? :smile-new:

Congrats on scoring the Yammie!

Funny thing - played my JF30E through a small Behringer K450FX bass / keyboard amp last night... didn't mess around
with it a whole lot, but didn't like way it sounded - could get loud but it seemed kinda dead sounding - might have done better with more experimentation.
By comparison, I have a Crate Telluride CA125DG (dedicated acoustic guitar amp) at home that's good & crisp all the way around in most situations...
Apples & oranges really... Telluride also in a higher price category than the Behringer.
 
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GuildFS4612CE

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Assuming your Yamaha Pacifica has passive pickups...the old 12 string version with upgraded PUPS I had did...a preamp would help...I run a Strat with EMG's...I don't like being the ground...thru my first generation Baggs Para Acoustic DI box into a Roland AC33 acoustic amp...and it sounds great...let your ears be your judge.
 

griehund

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Once upon a time Fender made an amp they called Bassman. The rest is his story.
 
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You won't hurt anything plugging an electric guitar into an amp designed for acoustics. It just won't sound very good, but you can do it to check out all the electronics and stuff. And you can play it...it's just not going to have great electric guitar drive and sound. But it'll work OK.
I played my acoustic electric thru my Hot Rod amp...and it sounded fine on the clean channel. But when I tried to play my strat thru my Fishman amp...yuk!
JMHO.
 

dbirchett

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Most acoustic amps have a tweeter of sorts in them. If you play too loud and especially if you have a pedal to boost or overdrive the sound, you run the risk of burning out the tweeter.
 

kdavid

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Most acoustic amps have a tweeter of sorts in them. If you play too loud and especially if you have a pedal to boost or overdrive the sound, you run the risk of burning out the tweeter.
yah, thats kind of what i was afraid of.
so we went out & found a new Marshall, one of these new (very new) models with electronics i dont understand & effects she can download.
anyhow, we're in the process of moving again, so it'll be at least another month before we can get the music room straightened out to where we can find all our stuff.
thank you
 

GAD

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Good choice. The G600 Aspen I just got sounds much better with an electric guitar than the G300 Tamarack does, but I wouldn't dare put an overdrive in front of it for the reasons mentioned above, though on those it's easy enough to disconnect the tweeter.

She'll have way more fun with a modern electric guitar amp.

Was it a Marshall Code? Those are pretty cool. I played with one at GC for a while but didn't play with any of the downloading capabilities. That's where it's at these days, though. Even with my Axe-FX i rarely build my own patches - I find someone who already built what I want and download it. Gotta love the Internet!

As an old-school tube amp snob who's built his own amps and has also all but converted to digital with an Axe-FX (or two), I'm here to tell you that digital modeling has come a loooong way in the past 5-10 years. I bet she'll get a lot of mileage out of that amp.
 

kdavid

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Hi GAD! sorry about taking so long here--just plain bad luck with houses & moving--
yes its a marshall code we got for her to play around with when we finish fixing up her yammi pacificia she found in a carbondale pawn shop
was hoping to be all unpacked & settled until i landed back in the hospital for a while, then mold was found in the house so we never did get to unpack
& we're tying to find another place we can fit in
She's really looking foreward to playing around with that amp (& guitar)--shes quite a bit more tech savvy than i am. by a long shot :cower:
& im excited by her her excitement about it
 

Quantum Strummer

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I've recently played through a Roland Blues Cube, a Boss Katana and a little Yamaha THR10. All great sounding modeling amps. The Roland and Katana in particular have lovely clean sounds and handle pedals well. The Katana offers huge bang per buck with its array of built-in effects. All three are straightforward and easy to use gizmos, though the Katana and Yamaha allow some menu diving via computer link. No smartdevice access, though…a deal killer for me. The Yamaha has been around for awhile, but IMO there's no excuse in the Katana's case for not supporting phones and tablets. Hopefully with the next rev…

I can see myself in the not too distant future selling off my pile of tube amps, maybe just keeping a Champ or two, and replacing 'em with a modeler.

-Dave-
 

dreadnut

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I play my DeArmond Starfire Special thru my Crate Acoustic 125D and it works great, I just tweak it differently than when I plug in my acoustics.
 

GAD

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I have a Roland Micro Cube that I take with me when meeting people for guitar sales. Awesome little amp.

I played a solo thing with a Vox VT30 back in 2010 (with a Guild X170T!) and it freaking rocked so hard I wrote a review of it: http://www.gad.net/Blog/2010/07/20/vox-vt30-valvetronix-amp-review/

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There are a lot of REALLY good amp choices out there these days for not a lot of money.
 

AcornHouse

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I have a Roland Micro Cube that I take with me when meeting people for guitar sales. Awesome little amp.

I played a solo thing with a Vox VT30 back in 2010 (with a Guild X170T!) and it freaking rocked so hard I wrote a review of it: http://www.gad.net/Blog/2010/07/20/vox-vt30-valvetronix-amp-review/
I have an older Vox VT50 2x12 (not the more common 1x12) after starting with the VT30. It's one of the few non-all-tube amps in my arsenal. Incredibly versatile.
 

dreadnut

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I use my electric and acoustic thru my Crate CA-125 with the band, but it's a pretty big amp with lots of headroom. In fact my other guitar player has the exact same amp and we put them in tandem. If I'm gigging alone with amplification it's my D-25M with the Fishman Acoustic Loudbox 60, much lighter to tote around.
 
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