Thank you Billy Strings now I can throw all my electric guitars out of the window.

[ruedi]

That tone?!?! how does he do that?

 

[Doons]

10’s, hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands of hours playing his guitar… suspect a dab or so of natural talent may have helped…..

 

[ruedi]

That's right, he's good! And how to sound on an acoustic guitar like playing an electric? Here's the answer, from 6:15



I think that's pretty clever! and I have never seen it before, very innovative!

 

[rubytoon]

Beyond brilliant. Looks like slinky strings and boy can he bend them.

 

[walrus]

I used to plug my acoustic into an amp with distortion on it all the time in my younger days. Late '70's. Used a Dean Markley soundhole pickup. He's not doing anything new, but he is doing it very well!

walrus

 

[Default]

I hear talent and a lot of piezo quack, to be honest.

 

[dreadnut]

Billy is a local boy; he's doing a 3 night stand here in December, we're going to see him on the 30th, I can't wait! Saw him here 3-4 years ago.

And who did he steal that old Bluegrass voice from?

 

[dreadnut]

That banjo player ain't no slouch either. And he's got nice legs too

 

[JohnW63]

The intro, acoustic, part did sound like some piezo quack, then the electric sound was sort of fuzz face like. I suspect the piezo is the choice due to the loud distorted sections to not have feedback. But, I see a sound hole pickup installed. I always thought that a high impedance input on the first pedal would remove most of that "quack". I know if I plug my Ovations into my Randall amp it was better than my Carvin. I think the little Ultrasound acoustic amp is best for that.

Cool Mandolin solo in there too.

 

[crank]

Billy has a couple of different pups in there. I believe he is using one to the PA for his acoustic stuff and a different signal to his pedal board for the distorted/electric sounding stuff.

Banjo player, Billy Failing, is freaking great. I listened to a Billy Strings show today while painting the deck steps.

 

[Canard]

Very cool thread. Very impressive young player, Mr Strings! Very high tech pedal board!

@ruedi

If you are interested in this sort of thing, making an acoustic guitar into an electric but being able to get back and forth, another player (of a very different style) you might want to check out is the Aussie, John Butler.

He uses Maton acoustics, Seymour Duncan MagMic sound hole pups and a pedal board and switches effortlessly between acoustic and electric sounds. Although the MagMic can give excellent acoustic sound, he doesn't use it for that - electric sounds only. He uses the native acoustic pickups in his Maton guitars for acoustic sounds.

Breakdown of his gear (see Signal Chain):

Guitarists: The Tone of John Butler | guitar TONE OVERLOAD

At work, live: