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Re: Smaller Speakers

At 05:59 PM 3/13/98 -0500, you wrote:
>kim:
>>I guess you're not a guitar player, right? An electric guitar
>>by itself is only half the instrument.
>Still, I don't consider the guitar direct
>"half the instrument".  Is an acoustic guitar
>only 1/3 of an instrument because it lacks a pickup
>and an amp?

Well, not quite.  An acoustic guitar has an amplifier, it's called the back
and sides.  Without them, the guitar is merely  a frame which holds the
strings at the right tension and allows the strings to vibrate at the
correct frequencies - just like an electric guitar.  As for the pickup, all
that does is translate the vibration into something the amplifier
understads - but in an acoustic, hell, they're speakin' the same language!

>I realize you didn't intend this as a combative
>statement, rather an explanation to a non-guitarist
>outsider about why amplifiers are important, so now
>perhaps my puzzlement is clearer.  I don't _feel_ like
>I'm missing anything.  I find it outrageous to imagine
>that getting an expensive amphead, a Marshall brake,
>2 4x12 (or whatever) cabinets, and a pair of really
>good microphones is going to make my music sound
>"better".  Different, sure.  But "better"? 

You're probably not missing anything; it's horses for courses.  The player
who needs that rig is chasing different tonal demons to you and hey, that's
OK.  Somedays I want to sound like Mike Oldfield, somedays like Dave
Gilmour.  Maybe someday I'll want to sound like me.  I'm not sure whether
that day will be a good one or a bad one.

>Much as I really can't imagine what magic I could hear
>if I touched my fingers to a Klein.  

Nor can any of us - and therein lies the root of Guitar Aquisition Syndrome
- "God, but I'd sound INCREDIBLE if only I could get ....."

>I could believe this, but then why do we need
>"speaker simulators"?  Why not just a simple
>low-pass filter on the output of your (possibly
>tube-based) distortion pedal?

Can I ask a philosophical question?  Can you record the sound of Link Wray
direct to tape by sticking pencils in your speaker simulator?

Michael