NUX Optima Air: Make a Crappy Acoustic Guitar Pickup Sound Good! 

That’s because the IR waves are phasing with the guitar’s natural tone…most people including myself find they have to pull back the IR to get a natural tone. For me it almost defeats the purpose of the pedal.

Differences are still fairly subtle. Here's timestamps: Martin -- 5:54 (none) vs 6:31 (max) Gibson -- 6:57 (none) vs 7:31 (max) vs 7:55 (max w/ bass + mids adjusted)

But Nux cheaper than fishman

Sounds fishy, yet you will starve, because fish don't accept metal boxes hanging from an electric cable as bait...

How does the Nux compare to the Fishman?

@@jemyfahrudinsyah Yes, but the Aura Spectrum offers 16 preset images EACH for 7 different guitar body types (dreadnought, orchestra, concert, etc.). In addition, 16 user-defined images can be loaded and accessed for various wood types and microphones, so the Fishman gives you 8 times as many images as the Nux for twice the price.

@@davidderose1242 but your best bet is to use your own ir using your own guitar? Otherwise it’s not you guitar you are hearing right?

I also play ukulele and I'm interested in this exact scenario. Did you have any success in doing that?

@@corysly4463 I ended up buying the Optima Air - I bought a couple of acoustic instrument IRs from 3sigma, including a Martin tenor (?) ukulele one. Works pretty nicely, though I haven’t played much with my acoustic instruments for a bit (nothing the fault of the Optima!)

Taylor T5z :-)

I own a Risa Solid electric ukulele (the “stick” model with a piezo pickup, rather than the “mini electric guitar” steel-string ones Risa makes), and I’ve been trying it with my Optima Air (just got one). I bought a couple of 3sigma Audio’s acoustic instrument IRs, and I use their Martin TK ukulele one with the Risa. It’s not bad - it doesn’t sound exactly like a miked acoustic Martin uke, but it’s surprisingly close. Experimentation is the key, I think?

I have both types of pickups in my acoustics and the only reason piezos sound better with it is because piezos are pretty awful sounding to begin with.

Good question?

including belladonna by ufo? 🤘😁

I would say the best course of action would be to audition one in person. I don’t know if this pedal would give you a fatter sound per se, if anything, I would describe an IR as slightly thinning out the acoustic pickup sound and adding more air, a bit like an onboard mic blend. That’s with a steel string instrument at least...it would be VERY interesting to record a nylon string wavemap and see how it jives with your guitars.

I have aldo a silent guitar (steelstring, older model piezo only). Did you buy the pedal and are you happy with the results (also with strumming)?

@@45zapatero I used effecter, and I sold silent guitar and effecter separately. I was not quite satisfied.

Really? You don’t hear the IR waves phasing in and out with the natural sound coming from the pickups?

This has an XLR DI out as well as an effects loop

The big difference is that you make your own IR with this device. You could send your guitar to Fishman for a custom image but not many people do that. The Aura is probably the easiest pedal to use though. These new units take a bit more work and tweaking.

non-mic acoustic pickups, I mean. There’s that $300 fishman I think uses both mics and that soundhole unit to blend two spots that sound a great but this could also rock with my piezo ESP.

TL/DR: IR will only give you mono and the high frequency attack when the pick hits the strings is lost a bit (I assume piezo pickups aren't fast enough to capture that well) but it's actually easy to confuse the mic and IR signal when made with the same guitar. I might make a video. Long version: I did some experimenting with the free Cuki IR generator and recorded the raw microphone signals that were used to generate the IRs. The results were surprisingly good, especially if you make the IR using a mic on the 12th fret (a hand length away), a mic on the sound hole (to add just a bit of "oomph" and a room mic a bit further away (don't bother with AB, MS or XY stereo mic-ing, I tried, it's only getting you out of phase IRs, not stereo). Blend it together until it sounds like the unplugged guitar, maybe multiple versions with and without room and one with the dominant (feedback-prone) frequency notched out on the mics and you got yourself some damn nice IRs. You can even run a noise gate and a limiter to cut down on idle noise and limit the plug/unplug noise. My Taylor can sound very much like my Takamine and vice versa even though the piezo pickups are very different in design. The IR variant just miss out on the glassy treble of the pick attack but dealing in some of the original piezo signal (with a low cut around 13kHz) does wonders.

That is a fact the point of the pedal is for when miking is not an option. With that said I find the results of IR pedals to be unusable because of phasing issue

zoom a1x four

So true, the Cole Clark Angel is an awesome model and their special pickup system is among the best in the world. But then being an Aussie, I am biased.

Yes, there are impulse responses that are optimized for use with electric guitar. I personally have not tried it, as I was interested in seeing what the optima did with my acoustic guitar pickup.

@@chordsoforion I am impressed when using an acoustic guitar with piezo. It would be really convenient to use it with an electric guitar. Some send/return effect and no amp needed anymore in a repetition session or something like that.

@@chordsoforion to make it clear. I was talking about IR's of different CABS I own. I hope you were talking about the same type of IR's?

I think it's more the magnetic soundhole pickup he's using. Piezo pickups work better with this pedal

So far the only pedal that I’ve seen a demo of that does IR’s that I’ve been impressed by is the Tonedexter.

Agree, original pickup sounded best

I tried and it is not good

I agree I was just going to purchase this pedal but changed my mind for this reason I like to do the same thing you do

Here's the page on the company web site: www.nuxefx.com/optima-air.html

I am not using an amp. Am plugging everything directly into my audio interface.

No, definitely not.

try HOTONE OMNI AC It would never sound like an acoustic guitar in the room, but it is pretty close to piezo or pickup acoustic sound

Yep. That's the way they pronounce the name at the beginning of their videos: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-hvuJmEoC6VQ.html

Well, when I use it, it seems to function like a blend knob. All the way to the left is no IR/all original guitar tone and all the way to the right is all IR/no original guitar tone. In the middle is a balance between the two.

You can check the patent on Google Patent. Fishman , LR Baggs , and NUX all use IR technology in different ways. By the way, who is James May?

Watch the video again and pay close attention to the "includes paid promotion" popup and my comment about Nux contacting me and you shall have your answer.

Dude this is most likely publicity pre-launch to get people hyped for the product. Happens all the time

SAME! I watched the video and then I couldn't find it I was like "Did I enter an alternate dimension?"

@@thekramer1097 The way it is presented here is that they contacted him and asked him to check it out. It may very well be a preview but most of the time previews are presented as previews, not as if it is something available for purchase. Either way, you can't buy it.

@The Tired Horizon - probably so. I thought that toward the end was messed up. I wasn't sure if it was just me.

Yes - this is a re-upload with some minor edits - there was an issue with the video last week.

I only paid $2400 for it, however I agree. No guitar with a magnetic pickup ever sounds better than the actual acoustic tone of the guitar, Nux Optima or no.