Tonewoodamp2

[paquetandy]

Has anyone used one of these effects devices on your Larrivee? Are they easy to attach? Do they cause any damage to the body with prolonged use? Do they provide an enjoyable experience with your playing? I have a D-60.

[jpmist]

Sorry, can't offer any notes as I'd never heard of it. I did a search and found a lot of praise-reviews as well as a description of what it does.

I have mixed feels here, because on one hand it's great that acoustic guitars are keeping up with the times as far as technology - providing quite a bit of improvement and options for the acoustic player. But like many of the old dudes here, this won't be well received as it kinda negates what we spend mucho dollars on select woods and expert craftsmanship to achieve the sound we want.

I was reminded of a Yamaha that had a similar idea of embedding tone enhancements into the guitar via a transducer to the body of the guitar. Reviews say it sounds great but all that circuitry will be out of date in a few years unless they found a way to upgrade the internal transducer gadget. Your gadget avoids that problem by being separate and I imagine the phone app will keep up with upgraded features over time.

Apologies for going long, but I'll add just one thing to consider before pulling the trigger. The fact that it only works with the pickup you already have on the guitar would be a drawback for me as I'm not fond of either the piezo tech or the magnetic pickup tech trying to provide a truly acoustic sound. Sure it comes close if you're not too picky or are doing live perforances with a band, but all that electronics and reverb/compression/echo/eq stuff isn't a solution for me.

[BlueBowman]

I had one briefly. Just wasn't for me. The amp can be installed fairly easily without damage to the guitar. It does add weight, and if you play the guitar on your right leg and close to your body, then you're gonna feel the amp against your belly. Those are negatives for me, but the sound wasn't natural at all to my ear. A dialed-in K&K mini through a good acoustic amp is miles better, IMO.

I also had the Hyvibe Essential. I think it's a better design, and it sounded better to my ear, but the installation is more involved. Still, just wasn't for me.

All of the above are compromises on some level. TWA is fairly easy to install, but sounded the worst to me. HyVibe Essential is more involved to install, but sounded better. You might love the either. Some players do.