AMPLIFIERS for Ouds
Hi
I have recently been shopping for an acoustic guitar amps for amplifying my ouds (and acoustic guitars), thought I would share some of my findings and
seek some feedback from this oud community,
I Am really curious to know what amps people like when they need to plug the oud into something for amplification
I play a variety of guitars as well as godin multi-oud and a Turkish oud with a Najarian pick up stuck on it at the treble side of the bridge.
I have rented and compared side by side the following amps.
Traynor Acoustic standard
Fishman loudbox mini
Fishman loud box 100
SR Jam box 150
(at a rehearsal space I plugged the godin into a Fender delux tube amp which sounded AMAZING, but I want something much less heavy and with the back
panel features that most acoustic amps have.)
on a recent gig (do not side by side comparison with the above) I have also plugged the godin oud into and AER compact 60.
My impression so far is that all these amps sound fantastic with guitars, and they sound very similar with guitars pluged in, almost similar enough
that I would take other factors like size and price as primary considerations, sound is so similar that it almost becomes a non- issue (with guitars).
Oud is an other story, with ouds plugged in these amps take on very different characters. The Traynor has the most consistent sound for ouds. It
sounds really warm and natural. on the other amps (fishman and SR) I feel that to get a good natural sound I need to turn the mid eq knob down about
%20-%50 lower than the possible minimum. For oud these amps are just to bright and too much mid range. I think the Traynor works better because it
is a 4 band EQ (low mid & hi mid) while the others have three band.
Traynor is my fav for sound, but it is bigger and heavier than the others and the Fishman loud box has some additional useful features such as
muteswitch(footswitchable) headphone out, tuner out, Tweeter adjuster - I can get a better deal on the fishman 100 also so I really wanted to like it
best.
Now I have always known that with my acoustic oud. najarian pick up it only sounds good when as much mid as is possible is filtered out with EQ. The
Traynor is the only amp that will take out enough mid with out the assistance of an external device (I use a boss bass EQ pedal OR a tech 21 sans amp
DI box).
with the turkish oud I get a great natural oud going straight into the Traynor, while I can not really get a great sound from the fishman (to much
mid), though the Fishman has more power and sounds a little better with guitars plugged in.
The fishman mini sounds way better than I would have thought for such a tiny amp, it is way louder than I would have thought ( much louder than other
60 watt amps- must have a very efficient driver). For guitar it is perfect, for oud in a side by side comparison it is a bit bright and harsh
compared to the traynor. Though it is loud it does not have nearly as much headroom as the others. I got it to distort at about %75, the Loudbox 100
never distorted even when I maxed it out.
Plug an ipod into the aux jack just to enjoy listening and the mini - is astoundingly great for that. (so are the others but the mini really
excels)
anyway those are my initial thoughts on these amps for ouds.
I test the amps by playing into a Boomerang 3. I let the loops run and I move the out put cable around to the various amps. This means that when I
am listening to the amp I hear the exact same musical phrase through them all, and there is no acoustic sound (just plugged sound) to confuse the
ears.
What are the rest of you using when you need to amplify, what do you like/ dislike?
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