Electric acoustic hybrid

Tannin · May 2023

Interesting evening with Tommy Emmanuel last night. I will take me a while to get to the point so my old mate @bertie can skip ahead.

Great night. Very glad we went. Mrs Tannin and I haven't been out 'til after midnight for many years.

Straight up I'll say the sound was bad. Boomy and muddy. Not Tommy's fault and I don't think it was his mixing guy's fault either. My read on the problem is that it is simply the room acoustics in that hall, which is a multi-purpose venue probably used more for conventions and exhibitions than anything else. It is a big rectangular room with no acoustic design worth mentioning, just a big high-ceilinged box with fairly reflective surfaces. I reckon Mrs Tannin and I were seated smack in the middle of a big standing wave and there is nothing much any engineer could have done about it without actually bringing in the builders to fix the room acoustics. We were 8 rows from the front: quite possibly moving back or forward or even sideways a few rows would have fixed it, but in a 1600-seat sold-out venue that was not an option.

Allowing for the boom in the upper low-end, the rest of the sound was good.

Nothing to say about Tommy's sound. Tommy sounds like Tommy and he has a mindboggling ability not just to play hugely difficult stuff, but to do it with perfect tone and matchless versatility. Tommy played his usual three Matons (one 808 for primary use, another larger guitar tuned as a baritone - in B at a guess - and a rather odd looking Maton also tuned low which I don't recognise). All as expected and all good (room acoustics aside).

The support act was a chap named Anthony Snape. Where Tommy plays great guitar and sings a bit, Anthony Snape sings and plays guitar. Great voice. Mrs Tannin and I blew a bit hot and cold on him but at worst he was listenable and we both liked several of his numbers. Later on towards the end of Tommy's headline act he invited Anthony back on stage and they did two numbers together, Snape singing, Tommy playing guitar and doing harmonies. Their version of April Sun in Cuba was out of the top drawer - first class! Snape belted it out in grand style and Tommy harmonised sweetly while producing, out of his one little guitar - no FX, no looper, no fancy crap, just Tommy and an 808 - a sound in no way inferior to that of the original recording (which was of course a 5-piece with keys).

(Back before the Dawn of Time (i.e. about 1977) New Zealand band Dragon had a huge hit with April Sun in Cuba. They had various others but that was their signature tune. They had a few lineup changes and ended up hiring a lead guitarist named Tommy Emmanuel not so long after. As they gigged around he must have played April Sun every night for years. Mind you, in those days young Tommy was playing the guitar part, not doing the drum, bass and keyboard parts as well.)

In the opening set, Anthony Snape's sound also suffered from the boomy room acoustics - even more than Tommy actually - but was was otherwise fine. For the most part - and here we get to the interesting bit @bertie - he played a Cole Clark True Hybrid. https://coleclarkguitars.com/portfolio-item/tl2ec-blbl-hss/ In the past he has mostly played Cole Clark dreadnoughts, and he did a couple of numbers on an all-Blackwood Humbucker model in different tuning last night, but his main guitar was the True Hybrid. Quite a bold move considering that the model has only been on the market for a couple of months.

Most of the time, Snape played a mixed not-really-acoustic, not-really-electric sound which although it wasn't my cup of tea was a perfectly good thing to do - think acoustic(ish) with balls and a touch of distortion. But in the last number - which we agreed was his best one - he had a pure acoustic sound - and this is the key point. It was a good acoustic sound. It's easy enough to imagine getting a good electric sound out of one of those little hybrid things - I mean let's face it, electric sound is mostly about pickups and amps and pedals and shouldn't be hard to do - but good acoustic sound is a different matter.

Top marks to Cole Clark for making that remarkable little guitar. Not something I'd ever buy (I'm an acoustic player through and through) but it was an amazingly good acoustic sound from a tiddly little thing not much bigger than a Les Paul.

Trude · May 2023

I’m very much in the hybrid world in my solo act, and have tried almost every one you can get, including the Cole Clark Humbucker equipped acoustics. I have my eye on the True Hybrids, but at £3k I’m not pulling the trigger any time soon. Good to know it impressed in a gig scenario though!

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Electric acoustic hybrid

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