Soundinmind
Hey guys,
Im trying really hard to get back into guitar again as its been a good 5 years since Ive played live or with anyone. My current setup is a Ibanez Hollow body but not the classic looking ones, more like a PRS styled one. Then for amping I have a ampkit (iPod amp link thing) with either Ampkit or Garageband on my iPhone.
Something is up, I can play country and riffy stuff on the guitar but no rock or anything close to it. When Im playing the notes arent defined enough for me and it bugs me so much I give up, however with jazzy. blues stuff its fine. This leads me to think its the distortion side of things but more the fact I only get bugged when I use more heavy distortion or something. Im curious now, is it the guitar cause its a hollow body or is it the Ampkit setup and the fact I need a real amp? I used to have a Ibanez RTG42BP and a Laney stack with pedals and it worked fine for me.
Any thoughts?
Gearhead
Hollow bodies can have a fantastic, barking kind of drive sound. They tend not to be used for high gain since any form of amplification will then feed back uncontrollably.
I think you'll find that the pickups on that guitar are not meant for the tone you're looking for. On the other hand, the guitar is probably not going to be useful live (ie to anyone else) with powerful pickups, so if you swap you'd better keep the stock ones. P90s in humbucker housing might be a good idea, to stop the combination of pickups and hollow body from becoming muddy.
Personally, I don't think the iPhone platform has got software yet for mimicking a great amp, but that's just my opinion.
Soundinmind
Thanks for the comments, I understand what you mean by the hollow body sound, its the reason I pick the guitar and then it was going for a crazy price. Im not too worried about the live side of things for now. Im busy looking at PRS SE guitars and wondering if that might be a good idea over my current guitar or maybe you right and I should change out the pickups.
RE the Amp, Im getting a real amp soon but i cant use it at home at all, so Ill still need to use the iPhone setup. Im getting a Palmer DREI ? and custom Eminence cabinet ? . I must say that the Garageband amps are a lot better than the Ampkit ones, ampkit just feeds for nothing the whole time.
sharonzaz
You need to make sure your iPhone's volume isn't all the way up, infact, about half or so.
that is the recommended setting for avoiding feedback.
Reinhard
Feedback tends to be worse on full hollows, semi-hollows you can manage, and the OD tone is fantastic. If you want to troubleshoot, take the guitar to a store and try some amps. If you need more definition for each string, you can raise the polepieces to follow the string radius. In this case I have a sneaking suspicion that your guitar will respond very differently through an amp, compared to an amp sim on a phone.
AlanRatcliffe
I think it's your "amplification". Take your guitar to a music shop and plug into a few amps to make sure.
Soundinmind
Thanks everyone for the feedback on this.
The feedback thing with the iPhone is simply Ampkit as it doesnt do it at all on garageband but thats another topic. Ill take my guitar into music connection and test it out and see what I can do. I like the sound of it a lot, can do with a mod here and there but Ill also look into getting a solid body
