Why buy an expensive acoustic amp?

lucky · February 26

I love my AER60 - small, lightweight, reliable, versatile and works well with my arch top too. It’s also a good back-up for vocalists if the PA packs in. It was expensive, but still cheaper than the guitar.

voutoreenie · February 26

AER's and other acoustic amps are never going to get that late-period Django overdrive sound, need tubes or a really good modeling amp for that. Even then, I still like the tone you can get from a Peche or Krivo into a Compact 60; yeah, it's not ideal for sounding like an acoustic guitar but the tone is still pretty nice imo. But as I've posted before, now I just use a Peche in conjunction with one of the lower bout contact mics from Jokko - really nice blended tone that gets you the best of both worlds with zero feedback issues

Buco · February 28

I get a total tonal bliss from this lowly Traynor, TS-10. Got it for free, but I've seen them for as low as $30. I replaced the capacitors, put in a new high wattage speaker, for more and cleaner headroom, and gave it a general facelift. With the Krivos it sounds fantastic. I don't go for Django's electric sound at all. The sound I get is just a beautifully warm, chimey and fat tone, more on the acoustic side of things than the electric. I use it with the reverb pedal and a tube preamp. The tube preamp does add warmth but it actually takes away the overtones you get more of without it. For smaller gigs it's plenty loud, I set everything at 4 and it does the job.

TheGarethJones · February 28

https://www.djangobooks.com/forum/discussion/comment/124544#Comment_124544

I feel similarly about the street cube ii. The Boss stuff really is such good bang for the buck. Tremendously underrated if you ask me.

TheGarethJones · February 28

Also, just as an aside; I have had tremendous success telling chatgpt what pickup and amp i’m using and what sound I want to get (acoustic rhythm, electric django, etc) and it’s given me great setting suggestions. I know I know I know, but it’s worth trying out 😉

bbwood_98 · March 1

@TheGarethJones really? that's intense and fascinating to me! @Buco - very cool, my university teach used them as well (though IRCC his was a rather big combo amp)

paulmcevoy75 · March 1

https://www.djangobooks.com/forum/discussion/comment/124587#Comment_124587

can it tell you what notes to play, kinda Cyrano Debarregerac kinda thing?

V-dub · March 3

You don't need the HX Stomp for Charlie Christian tones, lately I have been using my own NAM model of a Gibson EH-125, loaded into a Sonicake Pocket Master (a $65 amp sim box), into a clean amp or direct to the board. Works great. On Tone3000 (a library of amp sims). Article below where you can download the model, as well as links to EH-150 and EH-185 tones. Is it as fun as the real thing? No, but it sounds pretty close.

I have a feeling more of these NAM-capable devices are going to hit the market soon. Blackstar just announced one: the Beam Mini.

https://www.paniquejazz.com/2025/07/17/digitally-modeling-a-gibson-eh-125-amp/

frostymitten · March 3

Hard to beat something designed for its function. I definitely prefer my AER 60 for gigs, but have used just about everything, including cheap amps, battery-powered PAs, etc. So long as they saturate in some pleasant way, nearly anything can work.

Of course, if you're on a higher-profile GJ gig you want the transparency of a proper acoustic amp/mic. But for the average gig I don't think it's as crucial. Only skip for me is probably a tube amp due to the compression/lag that creates a 'rubbery' lack of dynamic response.