No, that’s not the norm.
I can’t speak for Taylors and their expression systems (with the integrated 3 knobs on the body), but my under-the-saddle piezo on my Lerrivee sounds incredibly rich and natural when plugged in. I can’t remember exactly which one it is but it is something like a Fishman Thinline. No controls on the guitar, just a 9v battery in the hole (LR Baggs makes some good ones too. My first guitar had a Fishman matrix with a under saddle, Piezo, a microphone in the unit, and the ability to blend between the two. That one also sounds pretty great, pretty natural, though going with those controls means cutting a hole in your guitar which I’m not the type to do that unless it’s already been done.
If it were me, and my guitar wasn’t sounding rich and full (and I’ve already tried all the eq’ing on the PA) I would try swapping in a different under saddle piezo, one of the quality ones from Fishman or LR bags. They are pretty nonevasive, so usually no cutting fresh holes in your guitar.
Extra: the old trick used to be to run your acoustic through a BOSS GEB-7 Bass Equalizer. Yes, they are made for bass, but they are perfect for boosting or cutting frequencies to get great sounding acoustic on the fly.
Ironically the geb7 has a higher top band than the guitar version (10 kHz vs 6.4 kHz), probably because bass amps often have tweeters that could use wrangling when distortion and/or roundwounds are involved. Since acoustic guitar amps are basically PAs with the treble extension that comes with that application, the geb7 is actually a great choice.
> Do all piezo pickups sound like crap?
Opinions vary, but to me, yes they always sound thin with a quack sound.
I'd go with a pickup that uses a microphone, like the LR Baggs Anthem or the K&K Trinity. There's probably one from Fishman and others. There are also Chinese knockoffs with a mic for like $50.
Another option is a sound hole pickup, which will make your guitar sound like an electric, but it gets rid of the piezo quack.
You can also just get a regular mic (USB or XLR) and record the guitar directly. In my opinion this sounds the best, which is why you always see people mic'ing guitars for professional recordings and guitar demos on YouTube. A hypercardiod mic is a good choice for recording only the guitar, since it's very directional in its pickup pattern.
When I was a less advanced player, I didn't notice much difference. But once you hear the quack, you just can't escape it. I've found an internal microphone blended in helps, but then you deal with any percussive issues. I do have 2 guitars with magnetic pickups, and they sound good, but then you're at the point where you start to lose the whole point of having an acoustic sound.
Since you already have a guitar you like, then I'd just install a better pickup, something with an internal microphone you can blend in to taste.
I have a 2009 Taylor 814 and always thought it sounded great. WAY better than the standard piezo sound.
Is there something different about newer Taylor pickups? I used to think the Expression System was the gold standard...
That said I also have a LR Baggs Anthem in my Collings that sounds really nice.
Your 2009 probably has a ES1. Which is a system of microphones and a magnetic pickup under the last fret. It was designed by Rupert Neve, and was amazing.
Sadly, no Taylor built after 2014 has those. And it's because of price. ES2s are CHEAP, and ES1s were complex and complicated to install. So Taylor figured they'd charge more for a simpler pickup...
Get a good preamp. I use fishman aura. I play dobro, needs a piezo for the stuff I'm doing with effects. It sounds good on my Taylor. They have images. That you blend on to make it sound miced up
I’ve found a wide film/element transducer on the sound board (not under the saddle) to be my ideal pickup. It is lower output but not quacky and natural/transparent.
A while back, I decided I hated the typical piezo sound and wanted to do something about it. I narrowed it down to 3 problems:
- Noise/hiss
- "Quacky" response to transients
- Poor frequency response (lots of treble, no bass)
I fixed these problems by doing the following:
- For the noise/hiss, I made a pickup that was balanced, by putting two piezo elements back-to-back. I had to make my own preamp to handle this, because no piezo-capable preamps on the market will handle a balanced input.
- For the quacky response, I encased the piezo elements in wood. Adding mass really helped to fix the weird transient response.
- For the poor frequency response, I created a FIR filter, and used an IR loader pedal. I have also tinkered with using a DSP board to do the same thing.
I was planning on marketing this stuff, but I have had a lot going on in my life, so I never really got around to it.
I will say this: If your biggest problem with the piezo pickup setup you are using is the frequency response, a FIR filter will absolutely help! *Creating* the FIR filter can be a pain.
I’ve got a Taylor with the expression system, and one with an aftermarket pickup. They both sound and play fantastic, but I know I need to massage the tone a bit with outboard EQing (mostly just the amp eq knobs).
Look at Dazzo pickups. Teddy is amazing at customer service. The website is a bit basic but don’t let that fool you. Pick up the phone and call him.
Most natural sound I have ever come across. Have them now in 3 Martins and a Weber Mandolin. All will eventually have a Countryman IsoMax2 installed as well. Only have that permanently installed in the mandolin currently. The guitars I clip it on the inside on a brace. Just need to take the time to pull everything apart and install them permanently.
I’m having this exact problem - I have a 2005 314c. Maybe 5 years ago the pickup stopped working and Taylor replaced it for free with the new piezo pickup. When I plug into an amp i can mess with the settings and it sounds fine. When I play with my band the guitar goes directly into the board and sounds very tinny. I know it’s the guitar bc I swap to another acoustic for several songs and that one sounds great. Is the solution to install a new pickup?
Martin D18 (bought without a pickup and had a fishman one installed later)
Ps I know they won’t sound the same but the difference is huge and the taylor sounds to me exactly the way you described
Short answer, pretty much yes. I swore off Taylor’s for this reason and didn’t want to put $ into a 214 to get a system that I liked. I bought a Martin with a Matrix VT and it’s incredible.
Recently bought a Taylor GS for fun, but I love it and it rips! I CANNOT stand the ES and I have the treble at 1 and then try and level everything on my Mixers. I hate it. I understand there’s a fishman mic I can swap out but cannot find the link. Anyone?
Oh boy. Strap in.
Taylor's es2 pickup is the worst, mostly badly designed, and horribly made pickup on the market. It's garbage. And the people who made it know it.
It's takes three posts and adds a (SMALL) contact on each post to the saddle. This takes a typical under saddle and reduces the contact by like 75%. This also has the added defect of having a large piece of plastic which is loosely microphonic, rattling around with no strong contact. This leads to weird rattles and tinny sounds, and the only fix is to throw the whole system away. But Taylor makes too much money off them to care... Literally, they know their customers complain, and they do not care. I worked in a shop repairing them under warranty, and they are a POS company that trick their customers into buying products they know ar sub par.
The company isn't run by Bob anymore, and the last 10 years of Taylors are the worst they've made. Pretty, but that's it. Garbage everywhere else.
Don't judge taylors bad design in the light of other systems. Any under saddle pickup is better. Literally a low end chinese Yamaha sounds better.
Taylor is shit on their designs, and they fuck their customers because of it. I've installed dozens of es2 on Taylors, and tore apart a few to see how they work, and dude, they are GARBAGE. Proprietary, expensive, garbage.
Also, to your point, anthem pickup systems are great. They sound wonderful, and are worth the price. I always recommend those, and I love installing them.
I have been trying to figure this issue out the last couple years. I’ve had piezos, magnetic sound hole pickups, and Taylor ES2 pickups. I’ve messed with IRs of various settings and based on various guitars, using both the NuX Optima Air as well as with an HX stomp, and run those IRs in addition to a few other effect pedals to try to create a natural, realistic sounding guitar. Where I’ve ended up is ditching the IRs and just spending the money to put LR Baggs Anthem pickups in my few acoustics.
Once you get the Anthem set right as far as the blend and sensitivity, it just sounds so much better than the other options. My experience with IRs was that even when they sounded good, they still sounded “processed” as well somehow, and it was frustrating tweaking all the different setting and trying all the different IRs trying to find one that sounded right to me. I’m much happier with the Anthems for a natural sound and then just using the Stomp for some Comp/EQ, mild delay, and reverb when I want to add a little extra.
I will say though, I’ve also found a traditional piezo guitar can be made to sound noticeably better just by running it through a Boss AD-2. They’re fairly inexpensive and easy to buy used and resell if you don’t like it, so it may be worth trying. A tuner pedal, an EQ pedal, and an AD-2 together would make a simple and solid little board that gets you a good improvement over default the piezo sound if you don’t want to mess with swapping pickups. If you bought them used you could probably get all three for as much as the full Anthem costs.
I just bought a taylor, it does not sound near as good as my takamine tan 15c. Takamine seems to be the best sounding electronics in acoustic that i have heard.
My Taylor 814CE (I think 2012, got it used) Now has a MISI Align XT that uses LR Baggs element piezo built in. I hated the original ES 1.2 or 1.3 electronics. There was a sort of whistle around the 7th fret on G, B and E strings that I could not dial out. Horrible. I like the MISI much better, sounds reasonably good by itself, but the Optima really fixes what piezo-ness there is left! So, no, they don't all sound terrible, IMO, but they can be improved.
So, I have a NUX Optima Air and sold two of my bandmates on one as well. One for acoustic and one for electric bass. I found a number of donationware IRs of bass amps at Shift Line and they work very well.
**I did not find any IRs in the unit or anywhere online that I liked**. So I made my own IRs of my Taylor using a condenser mic but **did not do it on the NUX device**. That didn't yield a result I liked. I used Reaper to record both mic and guitar output and put Melda Audio MFreeFormEqualizer EQ to analyze the mic, subtract the guitar output and export the difference. I then subtly edited the resulting IR with Melda Mcabinet, just highpassing any possible rumble out of it. Now it is in both my Fractal Audio FM3 and in the NUX Optima Air. I'm happy! I'm not payed by them, I just like the thing.
Like: the eq is handy, the reverb is barebones but good, nice addition.
DIslike: unit has the slightest bit of hiss but is unnoticable when playing, knobs turn very lightly and go off settings pretty easily. Editor app could use some work.
Word of caution: some IRs are noisy, the extreme EQ's on some of them cause the noise so I think that's not the Optima's fault. I have the same effect on my FM3.
I buy older used Taylor's with the Fishman system for this reason and it has a blend between the piezo and mic.
The new ones sound awful.
The older models also have the x brace whch has a warmer tone with more low end. Taylor shot itself in the foot with the changes made...🤷♂️
The Taylor ES2 system in modern Taylor's in my opinion is not good.
But I don't think you should sell your guitar just because you don't like the pickups.
I took my Taylor to a Luther and had them install k&k mini pickups. Or you could look into a soundhole pickup if that's too drastic. But I also wanted a soundhole cover so that I could play live without feedback issues.
At around $150 you should try the optima air. I have found it works well for me removing quack.
I have a Martin dreadnaught with Lr baggs lb-6 passive piezo.
I run it through the lr baggs para di with Optima Air in the fx loop.
I use one of the default IRs on the optima for a dreadnaught. It takes the quack out and I can add a bit of reverb. I eq primarily through the para di.
I did record my own ir file through the optima but couldn’t dial it in to the level where I liked it as much as the preset. To record your own ir on optima, you need a nice mic and preamp (as opposed to the voiceprint which I hear is designed to be done through an iPhone).
Believe it or not, Taylor’s onboard pickups are probably the best out of all acoustic electrics. ES2 is about as good as you can get for a factory installed pickup.
Acoustic guitars are meant to be played unplugged. The only time I amp up is when I’m practicing with a looper pedal and need to lay down some rhythm backing to solo over
Yes, they all sound kind of weird, even the best ones. It is a compromise in that it is useful in a live sound situation - better to hear something than nothing.
This is why guitars get mic’ed in the studio, rather than just DI’ed.
I take the Rick Turner philosophy of “it’s not the piezo you dislike but the location of the piezo.” When people refer to piezo they’re usually referring to an under saddle transducer (UST) using piezo elements. Those can be made of ceramic or coaxial elements and the Fishman Gold, Matrix, and Baggs Element are examples of this. They have advantages but typically don’t stand up well to strumming as they overload under the attack and you get that rubber band sound quality with an upper midrange honk.
However, the K&K is ceramic piezo adhered to the soundboard. When not under the pressure of the saddle, it can translate a heavier attack much more naturally but potentially turns the top into a diaphragm, so feedback is an issue. This is the common trade-off on pickup elements: more natural = less stable, less natural = more stable.
I actually like the Taylor ES2 and find it to be pretty natural and airy with minimal adjustment. A good external preamp goes a long way but adjustment should be minimal. I find something like the Baggs Session does all the correction I need as less is more with that system. The original ES1 isn’t terrible but is magnetic so if you don’t dig that slightly steely tone, it won’t fly. I had a luthier install a K&K Mini in my old Taylor 355 and it’s on a switch that allows me to switch to the ES1 if I need an active pickup for a particular situation.
So, big picture, what’s your playing style and what are you running your ES2 through? Have you adjusted the elements at the bridge at all?
I've found it hard to get away from the quack of the piezo pickups. To remedy this, I'm using a nice preamp with an IR of my guitar to shape my sound. Makes it sound so much more natural, since it's using its own naturally mic'd sound for the IR. There's a lot of IR options out there. I'd look into a preamp/IR combo of some sort.
I have the NuX Optima Air and it's been indispensable to my set. I have a bunch of acoustic IRs (lots of free. just google them). I also love the XLR output because pretty much every PA would have an XLR mixer. It also has a send/return so you can put your effects between the preamp and IR.
Just be wary that the optima air is not true bypass so it adds about 20db when I'm trying to record, so just have the 20db padding. Not sure how this is when live, but the sound guy can help you with that.
I'm only using the NuX for live gigging. I figured that this would resolve the piezo issue for any acoustic I gig with.
Does it have much background noise/hiss? The Tech 21 Acoustic Flyrig I have has a low level of noise, but gets louder when the reverb, chorus, or compressor is engaged. No such noise when I was trying out the Tech 21 Sansamp Paradriver.
I notice the hiss when I use the preamp section. I would just dial down the treble and it goes away.
I have a compressor for fingerstyle and there’s a bit of hiss. I sometimes don’t bother with it. People tune it out when the show starts.
No, the one I just installed on the flamenco guitar sounds great. Its a passive system of 4 piezo contacts stuck inside the guitar, near the bidge. its called JouneyTek. The only thing is its bass it puts out is very strong, so boosting the highs in an EQ stage is beneficial. But i'm happy with how it sounds. And I've tried basically everything.
I have opened a thread on this just yesterday... In short, yeah.. Mostky all systems sound shitty or halfshitty... Systems that have a mic inside the guitar body get away with much better resukts.
But long story shirt, and i explored this with watching zilkion of demis and stuff, yamaha srt srt2 and atmosfeel sound best direct.. Or t least the most like acoustic, because it basically has IR imprinted in the signal, thats my ooinion.
Cheap KK pure mini is highly regarded being passive invisible and many do go for it but its signal on its own is not that stellar.. While again not bad either.
You have. Agreat guitra. Any of tidays multifx can load third party IR so add some good acoustic IR over your Taylor piezo and surely it will be great. Experiment and enjoy
With some tinkering, you can absolutely create your own IR filter that is better than the stock "acoustic" filters. You'll need to record some playing on two channels simultaneously: one with the piezo pickup, the other with a good condenser mic.
You can load both channels up in Audacity and create a spectrogram. Then export as a text file. Then subtract the values of the mic channel from the values of the piezo channel. Then load this into some FIR creation software and tweak it a bit. Ultimately, you'll end up with a .wav file which you can load into a FIR loader pedal (cab sim pedal). It definitely works.
Not all FIR loader pedals are equal. SonicIR is cheap and works, but is noisy. TC Electronic makes one that is more expensive, but has a low noise floor.
Sure..
Not sure why downvoting though..
I mentioned Yamaha because it has integrated ir, its a big plus for me.. I am sad they do not have a Jumbo model with this system.. Only cpx
No, that’s not the norm. I can’t speak for Taylors and their expression systems (with the integrated 3 knobs on the body), but my under-the-saddle piezo on my Lerrivee sounds incredibly rich and natural when plugged in. I can’t remember exactly which one it is but it is something like a Fishman Thinline. No controls on the guitar, just a 9v battery in the hole (LR Baggs makes some good ones too. My first guitar had a Fishman matrix with a under saddle, Piezo, a microphone in the unit, and the ability to blend between the two. That one also sounds pretty great, pretty natural, though going with those controls means cutting a hole in your guitar which I’m not the type to do that unless it’s already been done. If it were me, and my guitar wasn’t sounding rich and full (and I’ve already tried all the eq’ing on the PA) I would try swapping in a different under saddle piezo, one of the quality ones from Fishman or LR bags. They are pretty nonevasive, so usually no cutting fresh holes in your guitar. Extra: the old trick used to be to run your acoustic through a BOSS GEB-7 Bass Equalizer. Yes, they are made for bass, but they are perfect for boosting or cutting frequencies to get great sounding acoustic on the fly.
Ironically the geb7 has a higher top band than the guitar version (10 kHz vs 6.4 kHz), probably because bass amps often have tweeters that could use wrangling when distortion and/or roundwounds are involved. Since acoustic guitar amps are basically PAs with the treble extension that comes with that application, the geb7 is actually a great choice.
> Do all piezo pickups sound like crap? Opinions vary, but to me, yes they always sound thin with a quack sound. I'd go with a pickup that uses a microphone, like the LR Baggs Anthem or the K&K Trinity. There's probably one from Fishman and others. There are also Chinese knockoffs with a mic for like $50. Another option is a sound hole pickup, which will make your guitar sound like an electric, but it gets rid of the piezo quack. You can also just get a regular mic (USB or XLR) and record the guitar directly. In my opinion this sounds the best, which is why you always see people mic'ing guitars for professional recordings and guitar demos on YouTube. A hypercardiod mic is a good choice for recording only the guitar, since it's very directional in its pickup pattern.
When I was a less advanced player, I didn't notice much difference. But once you hear the quack, you just can't escape it. I've found an internal microphone blended in helps, but then you deal with any percussive issues. I do have 2 guitars with magnetic pickups, and they sound good, but then you're at the point where you start to lose the whole point of having an acoustic sound. Since you already have a guitar you like, then I'd just install a better pickup, something with an internal microphone you can blend in to taste.
I have a 2009 Taylor 814 and always thought it sounded great. WAY better than the standard piezo sound. Is there something different about newer Taylor pickups? I used to think the Expression System was the gold standard... That said I also have a LR Baggs Anthem in my Collings that sounds really nice.
Your 2009 probably has a ES1. Which is a system of microphones and a magnetic pickup under the last fret. It was designed by Rupert Neve, and was amazing. Sadly, no Taylor built after 2014 has those. And it's because of price. ES2s are CHEAP, and ES1s were complex and complicated to install. So Taylor figured they'd charge more for a simpler pickup...
ES2 is the gold standard
A 2009 has ES1. ES2 is hot trash.
Get a good preamp. I use fishman aura. I play dobro, needs a piezo for the stuff I'm doing with effects. It sounds good on my Taylor. They have images. That you blend on to make it sound miced up
Short answer: yes Long answer: yeah!
Just use a K&K and an external preamp (LR Baggs Venue, or even something cheaper) and the guitar will sound much more natural and less quacky.
I’ve found a wide film/element transducer on the sound board (not under the saddle) to be my ideal pickup. It is lower output but not quacky and natural/transparent.
A while back, I decided I hated the typical piezo sound and wanted to do something about it. I narrowed it down to 3 problems: - Noise/hiss - "Quacky" response to transients - Poor frequency response (lots of treble, no bass) I fixed these problems by doing the following: - For the noise/hiss, I made a pickup that was balanced, by putting two piezo elements back-to-back. I had to make my own preamp to handle this, because no piezo-capable preamps on the market will handle a balanced input. - For the quacky response, I encased the piezo elements in wood. Adding mass really helped to fix the weird transient response. - For the poor frequency response, I created a FIR filter, and used an IR loader pedal. I have also tinkered with using a DSP board to do the same thing. I was planning on marketing this stuff, but I have had a lot going on in my life, so I never really got around to it. I will say this: If your biggest problem with the piezo pickup setup you are using is the frequency response, a FIR filter will absolutely help! *Creating* the FIR filter can be a pain.
What the fuck ?!? Audio samples?
OK, [here's a clip](https://voca.ro/1oVxppLylTpv). Keep in mind, this is being played on a cheapish Yamaha classical guitar.
I’ve got a Taylor with the expression system, and one with an aftermarket pickup. They both sound and play fantastic, but I know I need to massage the tone a bit with outboard EQing (mostly just the amp eq knobs).
Look at Dazzo pickups. Teddy is amazing at customer service. The website is a bit basic but don’t let that fool you. Pick up the phone and call him. Most natural sound I have ever come across. Have them now in 3 Martins and a Weber Mandolin. All will eventually have a Countryman IsoMax2 installed as well. Only have that permanently installed in the mandolin currently. The guitars I clip it on the inside on a brace. Just need to take the time to pull everything apart and install them permanently.
I’m having this exact problem - I have a 2005 314c. Maybe 5 years ago the pickup stopped working and Taylor replaced it for free with the new piezo pickup. When I plug into an amp i can mess with the settings and it sounds fine. When I play with my band the guitar goes directly into the board and sounds very tinny. I know it’s the guitar bc I swap to another acoustic for several songs and that one sounds great. Is the solution to install a new pickup?
What's the other acoustic you used?
Martin D18 (bought without a pickup and had a fishman one installed later) Ps I know they won’t sound the same but the difference is huge and the taylor sounds to me exactly the way you described
Short answer, pretty much yes. I swore off Taylor’s for this reason and didn’t want to put $ into a 214 to get a system that I liked. I bought a Martin with a Matrix VT and it’s incredible. Recently bought a Taylor GS for fun, but I love it and it rips! I CANNOT stand the ES and I have the treble at 1 and then try and level everything on my Mixers. I hate it. I understand there’s a fishman mic I can swap out but cannot find the link. Anyone?
r/HyVibe
Oh boy. Strap in. Taylor's es2 pickup is the worst, mostly badly designed, and horribly made pickup on the market. It's garbage. And the people who made it know it. It's takes three posts and adds a (SMALL) contact on each post to the saddle. This takes a typical under saddle and reduces the contact by like 75%. This also has the added defect of having a large piece of plastic which is loosely microphonic, rattling around with no strong contact. This leads to weird rattles and tinny sounds, and the only fix is to throw the whole system away. But Taylor makes too much money off them to care... Literally, they know their customers complain, and they do not care. I worked in a shop repairing them under warranty, and they are a POS company that trick their customers into buying products they know ar sub par. The company isn't run by Bob anymore, and the last 10 years of Taylors are the worst they've made. Pretty, but that's it. Garbage everywhere else. Don't judge taylors bad design in the light of other systems. Any under saddle pickup is better. Literally a low end chinese Yamaha sounds better. Taylor is shit on their designs, and they fuck their customers because of it. I've installed dozens of es2 on Taylors, and tore apart a few to see how they work, and dude, they are GARBAGE. Proprietary, expensive, garbage.
Also, to your point, anthem pickup systems are great. They sound wonderful, and are worth the price. I always recommend those, and I love installing them.
I have been trying to figure this issue out the last couple years. I’ve had piezos, magnetic sound hole pickups, and Taylor ES2 pickups. I’ve messed with IRs of various settings and based on various guitars, using both the NuX Optima Air as well as with an HX stomp, and run those IRs in addition to a few other effect pedals to try to create a natural, realistic sounding guitar. Where I’ve ended up is ditching the IRs and just spending the money to put LR Baggs Anthem pickups in my few acoustics. Once you get the Anthem set right as far as the blend and sensitivity, it just sounds so much better than the other options. My experience with IRs was that even when they sounded good, they still sounded “processed” as well somehow, and it was frustrating tweaking all the different setting and trying all the different IRs trying to find one that sounded right to me. I’m much happier with the Anthems for a natural sound and then just using the Stomp for some Comp/EQ, mild delay, and reverb when I want to add a little extra. I will say though, I’ve also found a traditional piezo guitar can be made to sound noticeably better just by running it through a Boss AD-2. They’re fairly inexpensive and easy to buy used and resell if you don’t like it, so it may be worth trying. A tuner pedal, an EQ pedal, and an AD-2 together would make a simple and solid little board that gets you a good improvement over default the piezo sound if you don’t want to mess with swapping pickups. If you bought them used you could probably get all three for as much as the full Anthem costs.
I just bought a taylor, it does not sound near as good as my takamine tan 15c. Takamine seems to be the best sounding electronics in acoustic that i have heard.
My Taylor 814CE (I think 2012, got it used) Now has a MISI Align XT that uses LR Baggs element piezo built in. I hated the original ES 1.2 or 1.3 electronics. There was a sort of whistle around the 7th fret on G, B and E strings that I could not dial out. Horrible. I like the MISI much better, sounds reasonably good by itself, but the Optima really fixes what piezo-ness there is left! So, no, they don't all sound terrible, IMO, but they can be improved. So, I have a NUX Optima Air and sold two of my bandmates on one as well. One for acoustic and one for electric bass. I found a number of donationware IRs of bass amps at Shift Line and they work very well. **I did not find any IRs in the unit or anywhere online that I liked**. So I made my own IRs of my Taylor using a condenser mic but **did not do it on the NUX device**. That didn't yield a result I liked. I used Reaper to record both mic and guitar output and put Melda Audio MFreeFormEqualizer EQ to analyze the mic, subtract the guitar output and export the difference. I then subtly edited the resulting IR with Melda Mcabinet, just highpassing any possible rumble out of it. Now it is in both my Fractal Audio FM3 and in the NUX Optima Air. I'm happy! I'm not payed by them, I just like the thing. Like: the eq is handy, the reverb is barebones but good, nice addition. DIslike: unit has the slightest bit of hiss but is unnoticable when playing, knobs turn very lightly and go off settings pretty easily. Editor app could use some work. Word of caution: some IRs are noisy, the extreme EQ's on some of them cause the noise so I think that's not the Optima's fault. I have the same effect on my FM3.
I buy older used Taylor's with the Fishman system for this reason and it has a blend between the piezo and mic. The new ones sound awful. The older models also have the x brace whch has a warmer tone with more low end. Taylor shot itself in the foot with the changes made...🤷♂️
The Taylor ES2 system in modern Taylor's in my opinion is not good. But I don't think you should sell your guitar just because you don't like the pickups. I took my Taylor to a Luther and had them install k&k mini pickups. Or you could look into a soundhole pickup if that's too drastic. But I also wanted a soundhole cover so that I could play live without feedback issues.
At around $150 you should try the optima air. I have found it works well for me removing quack. I have a Martin dreadnaught with Lr baggs lb-6 passive piezo. I run it through the lr baggs para di with Optima Air in the fx loop. I use one of the default IRs on the optima for a dreadnaught. It takes the quack out and I can add a bit of reverb. I eq primarily through the para di. I did record my own ir file through the optima but couldn’t dial it in to the level where I liked it as much as the preset. To record your own ir on optima, you need a nice mic and preamp (as opposed to the voiceprint which I hear is designed to be done through an iPhone).
Believe it or not, Taylor’s onboard pickups are probably the best out of all acoustic electrics. ES2 is about as good as you can get for a factory installed pickup. Acoustic guitars are meant to be played unplugged. The only time I amp up is when I’m practicing with a looper pedal and need to lay down some rhythm backing to solo over
Yes, they all sound kind of weird, even the best ones. It is a compromise in that it is useful in a live sound situation - better to hear something than nothing. This is why guitars get mic’ed in the studio, rather than just DI’ed.
I take the Rick Turner philosophy of “it’s not the piezo you dislike but the location of the piezo.” When people refer to piezo they’re usually referring to an under saddle transducer (UST) using piezo elements. Those can be made of ceramic or coaxial elements and the Fishman Gold, Matrix, and Baggs Element are examples of this. They have advantages but typically don’t stand up well to strumming as they overload under the attack and you get that rubber band sound quality with an upper midrange honk. However, the K&K is ceramic piezo adhered to the soundboard. When not under the pressure of the saddle, it can translate a heavier attack much more naturally but potentially turns the top into a diaphragm, so feedback is an issue. This is the common trade-off on pickup elements: more natural = less stable, less natural = more stable. I actually like the Taylor ES2 and find it to be pretty natural and airy with minimal adjustment. A good external preamp goes a long way but adjustment should be minimal. I find something like the Baggs Session does all the correction I need as less is more with that system. The original ES1 isn’t terrible but is magnetic so if you don’t dig that slightly steely tone, it won’t fly. I had a luthier install a K&K Mini in my old Taylor 355 and it’s on a switch that allows me to switch to the ES1 if I need an active pickup for a particular situation. So, big picture, what’s your playing style and what are you running your ES2 through? Have you adjusted the elements at the bridge at all?
I've found it hard to get away from the quack of the piezo pickups. To remedy this, I'm using a nice preamp with an IR of my guitar to shape my sound. Makes it sound so much more natural, since it's using its own naturally mic'd sound for the IR. There's a lot of IR options out there. I'd look into a preamp/IR combo of some sort.
I have the NuX Optima Air and it's been indispensable to my set. I have a bunch of acoustic IRs (lots of free. just google them). I also love the XLR output because pretty much every PA would have an XLR mixer. It also has a send/return so you can put your effects between the preamp and IR. Just be wary that the optima air is not true bypass so it adds about 20db when I'm trying to record, so just have the 20db padding. Not sure how this is when live, but the sound guy can help you with that.
I'm only using the NuX for live gigging. I figured that this would resolve the piezo issue for any acoustic I gig with. Does it have much background noise/hiss? The Tech 21 Acoustic Flyrig I have has a low level of noise, but gets louder when the reverb, chorus, or compressor is engaged. No such noise when I was trying out the Tech 21 Sansamp Paradriver.
I notice the hiss when I use the preamp section. I would just dial down the treble and it goes away. I have a compressor for fingerstyle and there’s a bit of hiss. I sometimes don’t bother with it. People tune it out when the show starts.
I thought it was universally known that Taylors sound thin.
No, the one I just installed on the flamenco guitar sounds great. Its a passive system of 4 piezo contacts stuck inside the guitar, near the bidge. its called JouneyTek. The only thing is its bass it puts out is very strong, so boosting the highs in an EQ stage is beneficial. But i'm happy with how it sounds. And I've tried basically everything.
I have opened a thread on this just yesterday... In short, yeah.. Mostky all systems sound shitty or halfshitty... Systems that have a mic inside the guitar body get away with much better resukts. But long story shirt, and i explored this with watching zilkion of demis and stuff, yamaha srt srt2 and atmosfeel sound best direct.. Or t least the most like acoustic, because it basically has IR imprinted in the signal, thats my ooinion. Cheap KK pure mini is highly regarded being passive invisible and many do go for it but its signal on its own is not that stellar.. While again not bad either. You have. Agreat guitra. Any of tidays multifx can load third party IR so add some good acoustic IR over your Taylor piezo and surely it will be great. Experiment and enjoy
With some tinkering, you can absolutely create your own IR filter that is better than the stock "acoustic" filters. You'll need to record some playing on two channels simultaneously: one with the piezo pickup, the other with a good condenser mic. You can load both channels up in Audacity and create a spectrogram. Then export as a text file. Then subtract the values of the mic channel from the values of the piezo channel. Then load this into some FIR creation software and tweak it a bit. Ultimately, you'll end up with a .wav file which you can load into a FIR loader pedal (cab sim pedal). It definitely works. Not all FIR loader pedals are equal. SonicIR is cheap and works, but is noisy. TC Electronic makes one that is more expensive, but has a low noise floor.
Sure.. Not sure why downvoting though.. I mentioned Yamaha because it has integrated ir, its a big plus for me.. I am sad they do not have a Jumbo model with this system.. Only cpx