Recording Great Acoustic Guitar Sounds from a Piezo Pickup

If you have a recent acoustic guitar, chances are it is loaded with a pickup. It is then called electro-acoustic guitars because you can plug them in an amplifier or a PA to amplify the sound. The problem is the sound of those pickups is not usually very good if you use it without additional processing.

The inside of your acoustic guitar probably looks like the photo below. There is an under saddle pickup or sensors glued below the bridge. The output is wired via an onboard preamp or directly to the output jack.

In the video below the output guitar of the jack is plugged to the audio interface and processed by Axiom (product page) on a computer. This is where Re-Guitar (product page) comes into play. It will use the signal coming from your guitar and process it to make it sound more like a real acoustic guitar.

To help you find the right sound, Axiom is provided with several presets you can use right away or as starting points:

Re-Guitar demo with a Martin 000-15SM loaded with a K&K Pure Mini

For this video we use the included looper in Axiom to record a reference riff and play it over and over while we change the settings in Re-Guitar.

Gear used in the video:

  • Guitar: Martin 000-15SM
  • Pickup: K&K Pure Mini

Martin 00015-SM

The guitar used in the video is a solid Mahogany guitar by Martin model 00015-SM.

K&K Pure Mini pickup installed on the 00015-SM

In the photo below you can see the inside of the guitar through a mirror. We can see clearly the three sensors which are glued to the other side of the bridge inside the guitar.

Re-Guitar Archives

>Discuss in the forum

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *