There’s absolutely nothing wrong with the metallic, distortion sound that comes out from your electric guitar. Of course, music from an electric guitar is anything but subtle.
The sheer joy that greets your ears when you strum a bare acoustic guitar comes with its level of serenity, calm, and altogether much more quiet music, which might just be what you are looking for.
You want to know if and how you can make your electric guitar sound like an acoustic. Well, you could go down to the nearest guitar shop and get one, or you could read on, and I’ll tell you how to quickly turn that electric guitar of yours into an acoustic.
You can make your electric guitar sound warm and acoustic by employing an acoustic simulator effect that may be used with any type of pedal, digital effect unit (DEU), or VST plugin.
We’ll explore three solutions to help you make an electric guitar sound bluesy in this piece. Let’s take a nosedive.
Differences Between Electric and Acoustic Guitar
There are a lot of differences that we could list that set both instruments apart, but the focus of this article is on the sound of these guitar variations so let’s see why they sound different.
The most significant difference between an electric and acoustic guitar has a lot to do with their tone and structural design on the way they receive sound signals and then amplify them.
Electric guitars create their sounds with electricity, while the acoustic guitars generate sonorous sounds from the vibration of the strings when they are hit, as sound waves reverberate through the guitar’s soundhole.
In comparison between the sounds of each instrument, the following are some of the most significant distinctions.
- Acoustic guitars produce a richer, more rounded tone.
- Acoustic guitars are louder than electric guitars in terms of volume and resonation; that is when they are unplugged.
For an electric guitar to sound acoustic, you need to produce a warmer and deeper sound. So, how exactly do you go about doing this?
Ways to Make Your Electric Guitar Sound Like an Acoustic Instrument
Below are three ways how you can make your electric guitar sound like an acoustic.
Using an Acoustic Simulator Pedal
Pedals are one of the greatest inventions for guitars. If you are an equipment whiz, you’ll probably want to blabber all day about the latest pedal on the market.
And that’s perfectly fine because these pedals that you know a lot about are an excellent tool that you can use to make your guitar sound like anything you want.
The easiest approach to emulate an acoustic guitar sound on your electric guitar is to use an acoustic simulator pedal.
If you’ve never used one before, the effects pedal connects to your guitar and amplifier and alters the sound. You may get a wide variety of pedals from a wide variety of renowned brands and styles.
How These Pedals Work
All the acoustic simulator pedal does is relatively straightforward.
It simply takes the sound from your electric guitar and turns it into the frequencies that a standard acoustic guitar resonates with just by making EQ adjustments to the highs, lows, and the mids.
These EQ settings are preset and come with dial buttons and controls that’ll help you fine-tune your tone.
If you need any recommendations, the Boss AC-3 Guitar Pedal is widely considered one of the best acoustic guitar pedals on the market. They are extremely easy to set up since they don’t require additional installations. They are super easy to use when in live performances.
Settings on Your Amplifier
If you get a good amp, you can do almost anything with it. This solution is one of the easiest and most efficient ways of turning your electric guitar into an acoustic instrument, and it is done simply by messing around with the settings on your amp.
You must know that using your amp to make these changes might not get you the high-end acoustic tone quality you desire, and the transition you seek depends on the type of amplifier you use.
Still, this presents an excellent option without using an acoustic simulator.
Amps for the Switch
If you decide to take this option and are using a cheap amp, it might take some practice, and a lot of fine-tuning to find the sweet spot can be a bottleneck.
Acoustic guitars sound best when played with amplifiers that focus on the clean tone. Fender amps, such as the Fender Hot Rod, excel in this regard. The easiest way to get an acoustic sound is to use an amp mainly intended to produce clean tones, and you might have to spend a little.
Adjust Guitar settings
Don’t have a pedal, no problem. Don’t have an amp? Well, how pray tell do you play your instrument then?
Well, if you don’t have a very good amp, no problem at all, as you can make do with adjusting the settings of your guitar on your guitar.
We have talked about pedals and amps and now let’s look into how you can adjust your electric guitar to sound acoustic.
Tone Modulation
When I play on my electric guitar, I usually prefer to use the tone control at full volume since it enhances the clarity of the music and produces a crisper sound.
You may get a similar effect to switching from the bridge to the neck pickup by rolling back your tone control just a tad.
Controlling the Volume
Turning your volume control back helps you get a more acoustic sound by reducing the amount of stiffness in your guitar’s sound and increasing the amount of smoothness.
Configure the Pickup
Generally speaking, if you want a more acoustic sound, you should use the neck pickup only or both pickups together.
The bridge pickup should only be used in conjunction with other pickups very infrequently.
Your guitar’s tone will be less dissonant and unnatural if you use the neck pickup.
Conclusion
We have carefully gone through three options that you can explore if you want to make your electric guitar sound acoustic.
Depending on your budget and what is available, you can get a pedal (acoustic simulator), tweak your amp settings or mess around with the knobs on your guitar to get that warm all-around lush sound from your electric guitar.
