Boss AC3 Acoustic Simulator Pedal on bass?

[rockerc]

Anyone ever tried the Boss AC3 Acoustic Simulator pedal on bass? just curious and how did it sound? suck any low end out? and if it did i wonder if there is a mod to keep low end there. To simulate an acoustic bass. just curious

 

[Vosk]

I think it would even enhance low end - Acoustic guitar emulated by it is a more scooped polished sound to my ears at least.

That being said, I haven't tried it. And I can't see why I would, for bass.

 

[rockerc]

yeah lol same. just was curious.

 

[saxnbass]

I have an AC-2, which is great for guitar. I tried it on my bass, and it is interesting. It doesn't sound very "acoustic bass" like, but it does give it more treble. It does suck out low end too. Could be useful in some cases.

 

[bass-shy]

I'm not aware of anyone really using an AC-3 for bass, but it might totally knock your socks off. You never know until you try. If you can buy one from a store with a good return policy, you would know first hand and you could even post a review on TB! Everyone wins. Good luck.

 

[saxnbass]

Or just try it at a store with a bass through a bass amp. You can't hurt the effect.

 

[Terrorstorm]

I ordered the Behringer Acoustic Simolator, just because I was curious, how it would sound with bass.

It didn't do much, even though I tried out all possible settings.
Sucked low end, added mud and treble and high pinched noise, sold it on ebay for 30,50 Euros (I payed 20 Euros, new, haha)

 

[The Lurker]

I tried this a few years ago-- it sounded absolutely dreadful. I came to the conclusion that it does not like basses.

 

[Swimming Bird]

If only there was an acoustic bass simulator, eh? How can one simulate more wood?

Slightly related: anyone know what the basic eq curve for an upright bass looks like?

 

[saxnbass]

I belive you can't EQ an upright tone. Closest would be a lot of bass, quite a bit of mid at about 1.2-1.6 and a little bit of treble (no cutting at all).

Remember this is for my playing style with my bass and my amp.

 

[niftydog]

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[Swimming Bird]

I belive you can't EQ an upright tone. Closest would be a lot of bass, quite a bit of mid at about 1.2-1.6 and a little bit of treble (no cutting at all).

Yeah... this setup gives me great dub, but the closest I've come to an upright-ish tone is palm muting and playing with my thumb. Saddly this is impossible on an instrument that uses optical/piezo pickups

 

[saxnbass]

The Ashbory bass with that EQ I gave earlier does a great job. You know what does it even better though? My Ergo. Check out Ergo Instruments ( Invalid Link Removed ). Great prices and great instrument, and Jesse is a great guy. I have one and I love it.

 

[Garcey14]

I have just bought the Boss AC3 pedal for my fender strat & tele, I had to try it on my Jazz Bass (I've not tried it on my other bass guitars yet). My jazz bass is a Squier vintage modified fretless J-bass with flatwound strings on it. I hooked the AC3 up to it, played around with the settings & deffinitely managed to get a few different very authentic sounding upright bass sounds! I even manged to get the deep hollow body sound of an upright bass!! My bass sounded great when I played jazz & blues bass lines through the AC3, I do think that the flatwound strings helped to produce a more authentic sound along with the AC3...it worked for me! You need to experiment with the AC3 & try all of the different settings (probably need to turn the TOP down & the BODY up). It's worth borrowing an AC3 if you can find someone who owns one (NOT ME!) & if your bass can hack-it, go buy one (a little expensive though). I own the Beringer acoustic modeller, very noisey & not very good. I will definitely use the AC3 when we play our next gig, for pumping out some blues...double bass style!!

 

[SanDiegoHarry]

You know, I'll be darned if I know what these pedals do... I know what they are SUPPOSED to do... but what the do to the signal intrigues me...

 

[Bassmike62]

I have just bought the Boss AC3 pedal for my fender strat & tele, I had to try it on my Jazz Bass (I've not tried it on my other bass guitars yet). My jazz bass is a Squier vintage modified fretless J-bass with flatwound strings on it. I hooked the AC3 up to it, played around with the settings & deffinitely managed to get a few different very authentic sounding upright bass sounds! I even manged to get the deep hollow body sound of an upright bass!! My bass sounded great when I played jazz & blues bass lines through the AC3, I do think that the flatwound strings helped to produce a more authentic sound along with the AC3...it worked for me! You need to experiment with the AC3 & try all of the different settings (probably need to turn the TOP down & the BODY up). It's worth borrowing an AC3 if you can find someone who owns one (NOT ME!) & if your bass can hack-it, go buy one (a little expensive though). I own the Beringer acoustic modeller, very noisey & not very good. I will definitely use the AC3 when we play our next gig, for pumping out some blues...double bass style!!

great idea, thx !

 

[Matthijs]

Anyone try this on an EUB? If not, i think I will. I'm trying effects te see what theyll do to an EUB sound. So far only a reverb brought me some usable results and some amp models gave me a convincing ols skool ampeg baby bass sound. This acoustic simulator might do really well for spicing up a EUB.

 

[Matthijs]

I did try the ac-3 pedal on my EUB and it works quite well. It has a whole range of acoustic sounding sounds and combined with the EUB some of them even sound like a DB. I've used my upgraded NS WAV4 with actual DB strings and the amplification I use for my actual DB. It helped me get some usefull sounds and generally breathe a bit more life into the WAV4. It took some fiddling and experimenting to get closer to the DB sound I'd like though. I ended up with sending a split signal from my fishman pre: one through the ac-3 and one straight to the amp. The ac-3 could really use a blend function, the fully modelled sound is a bit much for bass, to my taste.

I dont really get what the ac-3 exactly does though. There's a reverb, that's easy enough. There's a 'body' function wich seems to add a lower mid resonance and a 'top' function that is supposed to add harmonics but mainly seems to add a sizzling fresh string like sound. To much of the top function also adds quite some hiss. I had the best results with body at 2 o'clock and top at 10.

Maybe I'll post some soundsclips in the EUB corner of TB tonight.

 

[chokeslam512]

Resurrection time!!

So I have been playing with my pitchfactor for a while now. I am using the harmony setting to try to achieve a piano sound for a couple of songs and I don't want to pay a keyboard player. The best harmony tones I can get with the PF sound really synthesized (go figure). Could the AC3 help bring up the highs and filter out some of the organ like tones and produce a more piano like output?

 

[Jaygetsreal]

I did try the ac-3 pedal on my EUB and it works quite well. It has a whole range of acoustic sounding sounds and combined with the EUB some of them even sound like a DB. I've used my upgraded NS WAV4 with actual DB strings and the amplification I use for my actual DB. It helped me get some usefull sounds and generally breathe a bit more life into the WAV4. It took some fiddling and experimenting to get closer to the DB sound I'd like though. I ended up with sending a split signal from my fishman pre: one through the ac-3 and one straight to the amp. The ac-3 could really use a blend function, the fully modelled sound is a bit much for bass, to my taste.

I dont really get what the ac-3 exactly does though. There's a reverb, that's easy enough. There's a 'body' function wich seems to add a lower mid resonance and a 'top' function that is supposed to add harmonics but mainly seems to add a sizzling fresh string like sound. To much of the top function also adds quite some hiss. I had the best results with body at 2 o'clock and top at 10.

Maybe I'll post some soundsclips in the EUB corner of TB tonight.

Hi Matthijs, did you get any further with this? I have been experimenting with compression and filters but still have not found the sweet spot. So am considering an AC3 or AC2 and would value your latest thoughts. My EUB is a custom with piezo + Fishman pre.