The Steel Guitar Forum

Has anyone tried using an Acoustic or Archtop six string through a Nashville 400? I have a 400 but not with me and I’ve been seeing some deals on acoustic specific amps. Just wondering? I know My Twin sounds a little harsh plugged in direct from the acoustic, but if I remember correctly, the 400 has an XLR input for a mic.

Don, I can't speak specifically about that because I long ago gave up on regular amps and bought acoustic designed amplifiers for my guitar and vocals. The acoustic amp is just a miniture PA flat frequency amp with smaller speakers and high impedance inputs to drive the piezo pickups commonly used in these guitars. However I have seen fiddle players use them on stage and get great results. Not sure what type of preamp they might use in front of the amp. Archtops are another story and results may vary depending on your taste. You'll have to try it and see how you like it.

I have used a Taylor acoustic through. a mic’ed Nashville 400, mainly as a monitor…it sounded better than I thought it would sound….I probably tweaked the tone knobs from my steel settings, though….

Archtops will usually do fine, but flattops have a tendency to feed back sometimes, due to the large soundboard hole. (That’s exacerbated if you run the bass or mids too high.). Many players will block the sound hole if the pickup doesn’t already do that function to reduce or eliminate feedback.

my kid played his martin through my NV400, using the stock pickup in the guitar.

it sounded great at moderate volumes. no feedback, easy to dial in.

this was at a private function, solo , not on a bandstand with bass, drums and such.