Bruce Cockburn has that live acoustic guitar sound that every player would kill for.
It covers such a complete tonality and range that it’s quite unnerving to just think about how he achieves this, live on stage. Lots of money and equipment manufacturer’s falling all over you, wanting to give you their wares for free, just for the bragging rights to say that you use them, must come in very handy!
This will be the beginning of a quick series of posts talking about the equipment that he uses in the studio/live that allows him to bring us his extraordinary guitar sound.
First lets talk about his guitar preamp. Bruce Cockburn uses a side mounted Fishman Prefix preamp. A pre-amp works like a P.A. system (Public Address) inside your guitar. Your mic’s pick up the sound and the amplifier, the thing with all the knobs, puts all the sounds together and then forwards that signal to the speakers.
Some acoustic guitar pre-amps just pickup the sound (signal) from inside the guitar (1 or 2 inside the guitar) and then sends the signal into your amplifier or P.A. system. The more complex ones, manipulate the sound and send the signal off to an amp. These ones, have the technology to capture the essence of a particular guitar sound in a electronic file and you can store it inside this device to be used at the touch of a button on the guitar. Boy have acoustic guitar’s changed!
As for Bruce’s, I can’t say that I’ve used it in a store through an amplifier, but from what I’ve heard it has had mixed reviews. That being said, this product in concert with other products can over come their defects to compliment each other nicely. I know that from my experiences with pedals. I’m sure that he has figured something out! The side mounted Fishman Prefix Pro Preamp and Pickup System
I use a B-Band A5T in my Larrivee L-03. I honestly can say that this is the best acoustic pre-amp that I’ve ever owned! With or without my pedals, this thing still sound lovely. The only thing I’d like to add would be a nice EQ.
So I hope that you all found this relatively interesting, that is if your not a guitarist! In the next installment I will be talking about his acoustic Matrix pick ups that he uses.
Keep on Jammin’
