GEAR REVIEW: Acoustic Guitar Amplification

Andrew Wasson of Creative Guitar Studio goes through his acoustic guitar rig in response to:

"I hope you can help me with my acoustic amplification. I have been playing amplified acoustic nylon string guitar at a few banquets and wedding ceremonies over this past summer. And, I have had poor results overall with amplifying my acoustic guitar. I play a Nylon String Yamaha CGX-171. It has a piezo pickup & a condensor mic with an built-in onboard pre-amp. I have tried playing it through a few rented Fender Acoustic amps; (the Fender Acoustasonic 30), which is a 30 watt amp with an 8 speaker. I also tried renting the Fender Acoustasonic Junior; which is a 40 watt amp with two 8 speakers and I even once rented the Fender Acoustasonic SFX II which is an 80 watt amp and has an 8 driver a tweeter and a 6 side-mount speaker.

While the Fender SFX-II sounded the best out of the bunch - overall the quality of my live sound (to me personally) still does not come across as very full and/or rich sounding. I was wondering if you could go over your acoustic guitar set-up and let me know what gear you use for doing your acoustic guitar gigs.

Thank you very much,
Donald Calgary, Alberta Canada

Andrew covers everything from passive transducers to his speakers, pre-amp and rack gear.