Acoustic amp with AC tone

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Acoustic amp with AC tone

Postby sixtiesman » Thu Aug 15, 2019 1:12 am

Hi everybody!

I have just become the proud owner of a roland ac33, an acoustic amp.

If I want to use this with an electric guitar I am thinking that the acoustic amp is a flat response unit like a PA.

I have read that the ac tone is an amp simulator and that several people use it through a PA to good effect.
So I am thinking that if I put my strat through the ac tone and then into the AC33 I should get a reasonable Hank tone?

Any comments/experience would be welcome.

crikeybob
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Re: Acoustic amp with AC tone

Postby petercreasey » Thu Aug 15, 2019 10:16 am

Hi Clive,
I am very pleased with the sounds that I get from the AC tone, I use it through a pa and have used it through an acoustic amp.I have also used in through the auxiliary input of a Katana and it works excellently
Depending on the amp and speaker set up you may need to tweak slightly but the AC tone in my very humble opinion is a great piece of kit
Hope this helps
Peter

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Re: Acoustic amp with AC tone

Postby Ian Miller » Thu Aug 15, 2019 11:35 am

I had a Carlsboro Sherwood acoustic guitar amp for many years, which I purchased purely for it’s tone using a Strat. It had a very active tone circuit which made it very versatile for clean sounds. If yours is anything like mine, you won’t need any enhancement whatsoever.

Ian
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Re: Acoustic amp with AC tone

Postby davec » Thu Aug 15, 2019 3:22 pm

I use an AC Tone amp simulator into a Marshall AS100D acoustic amp to create AC30 sounds. I'm surprised that more people don't do this -- it works brilliantly (it also works topboostly, if you'll forgive the pun :) ).

The AC Tone is a clone of the Sansamp Tech21 "Liverpool": the front layout has been changed and the "Character" knob has been re-labelled "Voice" but the internals are the same. The Speaker/Cab emulation (open-back 2x12 Alnico Blue) is built in.

Here's the setup instructions for the Liverpool:
http://www.tech21nyc.com/t21manuals/Cha ... ngs_LV.pdf

Moving the Character/Voice control from 7o'clock through to 5o'clock takes you through EF86, Normal, Brilliant, Top Boost and Brian May -- but you have to fine-tune each of these with the Drive control. Early HBM needs the Low (i.e. Bass) backed off fully.

Joe Walsh (Eagles) says that the Liverpool is his secret weapon. He uses it as an Overdrive/Boost rather than as an amp sim.

DaveC.
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Re: Acoustic amp with AC tone

Postby sixtiesman » Thu Aug 15, 2019 6:20 pm

Thank you to all the responses up to now!

Thanks to Peter who confirmed my thoughts. Great to hear from someone actualy using this configuration. Never thought of putting the AC tone into the aux of a Katana.

Thanks to Ian who was spot on. I took the amp to a front room rehearsal today armed with the AC tone. I found that as Ian said I didn't need any enhancement. There was enough EQ on the roland to get a good sound.

Thanks to Dave for the LIverpool stuff and the Joe Walsh tip. I need to try that with Rocky mountain way ASAP.

I am lucky enough to have a few small amps and I think I'm going to like the roland a lot.

sixtiesman
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Re: Acoustic amp with AC tone

Postby nivramarvin » Sat Aug 17, 2019 6:13 pm

The AC Tone by Harley Benton seems to be a cheaper copy of Tech21SansAmp pedal. Only with the difference that the character control is called "voice". I use the HB to boost my Amp a little bit for light crunch. Too high drive settings result in more noise. I like this pedal because of its many adjustment options. But I can not say if it really sounds like an AC30 (I sold mine 38 years ago).
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Re: Acoustic amp with AC tone

Postby davec » Sat Aug 17, 2019 7:06 pm

The Harley Benton is a re-badged Joyo AC Tone JF-13, which is, in turn, a re-cased copy of the Tech 21 Character Series "Liverpool" (the VOX amp simulator).

Also in the Character Series were:
"Blonde", which simulates Fender amps. Joyo call their version "American Sound JF-14",
"California", which simulates Mesa Boogie amps. Joyo call theirs "California Sound JF-15", and
"British", which simulates Marshall amps. Joyo call theirs "British Sound JF-16".

The Tech 21 California/Joyo JF-15 is possibly the least effective of the series. To me it sounds fizzy rather than producing the expected massive overdrive/sustain.

Joyo also make the "Vintage Overdrive JF-01", which is a good copy of the Ibanez TubeScreamer. Plugging it into a Joyo JF-14 and putting that into an acoustic amp or PA is an excellent idea. You can get sounds ranging through CCR, country-rock and on to SRV -- although you will need to add your own reverb.
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