by Neal Walter



Take your ordinary acoustic guitar and make it sing like a Martin, Gibson or Guild with this feature-enhanced best friend to the acoustic guitarist.

Most acoustic guitar pickups don't reproduce a guitar's natural body resonance since a piezo-type pickup senses vibrations mostly from the guitar's bridge area, which makes an amplified acoustic guitar sound bright and lacking in richness.

Boss has addressed this problem with the AD-8 by using a high-quality condenser microphone with six of the worlds finest guitars in the studio to capture these oft-missed tones. This is the first time an acoustic simulator has taken into account all of the guitar by miking the guitar's neck and body to simulate warmth. The six guitars chosen for this task are the Martin D-28 and 000-28, Gibson J-45 and B-45, the Guild D-40 and a Jose Ramirez classical.

Not only has Boss miked the neck and body of the guitars but the AD-8 gives you a separate control for each. If you need a little more body resonance you can add it with the BODY knob, for a little more brightness you can do the same with the STRING ENHANCE knob. Turning the STRING ENHANCE knob clockwise will boost the pleasant overtones of the guitar strings. This effect works particularly well with fingerpicking performance styles.

The AD-8 has a 4-band EQ to give you more control over your guitar's sound, this is useful in matching the tone of the acoustic modeler to your guitar type. It's like having your very own mixer for your guitar. Also on board are a high-quality reverb effect that was designed specifically for acoustic guitar, a presence control and an onboard tuner based on BOSS' acclaimed TU-Series.

After you've dialed in your favorite sound you can save it to one of the 4 available banks, accessible with the foot control. On the back of the unit there are balanced XLR outputs for direct connection to a PA or your recording gear, a ground lift feature available to eliminate hum, two quarter inch outputs, a headphone jack and a dedicated Electric Guitar amp output. Also, the AD-8 performs the same function as a Direct Box so that makes one less tool you'll need to carry in your toolbox.

Pressing the left and center pedal at the same time and holding for two seconds activates the ANTI-FEEDBACK function which greatly reduces the amount of embarrassing feedback that seems inevitable with amplified acoustic guitars, especially in a club setting. The more control over your guitar, the better. Flexibility seems to be a common theme with this effect and the battery powered option is no exception. The AD-8 can be used with a magnetic pickup or a piezo pickup (most acoustic guitars have this one), however, the tone and effects of the AD-8 are optimized for the piezo type pickup.

I demoed this unit with a Guild Songbird and my favorite BODY TYPE setting was 2, which is the Martin 000-28 setting. I found the BODY control very helpful in warming up my guitar's sound since it's a thin acoustic, about the width of your average solid-body electric. The AD-8 enhanced the sound well without sounding processed.

This one can be yours courtesy of our friends at Sweetwater by subscribing to our monthly newsletter and reading the product review for the month. Sweetwater sponsors this giveaway and they are always a real pleasure to deal with. They give free shipping on all orders (even strings!) and have an outstanding staff of real musicians who can help you make the right purchase the first time.

Sweetwater provides the gear, we review it for the Guitar Tricks Newsletter, and we give it away to one lucky Guitar Tricks member. Just reply to this post to qualify to win, good luck!

Check out my demo on the Guitar Tricks Channel.