Last month I sent my good friend Vince Lee our new Airline Folkstar Resonator guitar – asked him to take it for a test drive. Here are three short videos he sent back:
1) Vince Lee playing the FOLKSTAR unplugged to you can get an idea of the natural tone. Nice!
2) Vince Lee fingerpicking on the AIRLINE FOLKSTAR part #1
3) Vince Lee fingerpicking on the AIRLINE FOLKSTAR part #2
Thanks Vince!
Check out Vince Lee here: http://www.myspace.com/vinceleemusic
Surely sounds good to me but I guess not everyone has the fingers of Mr Vince Lee ;o)
The Folkstar Resonator is probably one of the best examples of this general type of guitar—the electrified resonator. Unfortunately, it shares the same fatal deficiency of the entire genre, namely that neither the magnetic pickup nor the under-saddle piezoelectic pickup capture the essence of the resonator sound, which comes off the resonator cone.
Just listen to the difference between Vince’s sound when he plays the guitar acoustically (awesome) and the amplified sound (yawn…what resonator?). I don’t care how you blend the mag pickup and the piezo; without a pickup on the resonator cone, it still sounds like an electric guitar. For all its other virtues, the amplified guitar might just as well NOT be a resonator.
Five stars for a superb modernized version of the original. Zero stars for completely missing the point of a resonator guitar in the electronic implementation. If it doesn’t sound like a resonator when it’s plugged in…FAIL.
Redesign the guitar with a contact pickup on the resonator cone, and you’ve got a resonator guitar that every acoustic resonator player (including yours truiy) will pounce on in a heatrbeat.
I guess it all depensd on your application and expectations. If you want a “true” resonator cone sound, then use the Folkstar in your studio, unamplified, just with a Mic on the cone. But try to do that on stage in a live performance? Not likely with any resonator guitar, amplified or otherwise. So that is why the peizo is a reasonable compromise for the live perofrmer.
I agree with Vito. I want a resonator to sound like a resonator. I mic my Style O14 live. Its less than ideal at louder volumes. I was intrigued by a friend’s piezo equipped reso. When he plugged in however, you’d never know that’s what he was playing.
Its a great looking instrument at a good price. But I’m always after translating the sound that attracted me in the first place to the listener.
Hey dude.I was wondering..I have a Line6 PodStudio Ux1 inaetfrce. If i mic up my amp with a shure sm57 -> UX1 -> Reaper, would the quality be good? You probably dont have any experience with these cheap inaetfrces, but would i need anything else? Oh, and what about recording bass straight into the PC with a bass amp simulator instead of the real deal? I know guitars sound pretty digital when doing this, but how about bass?