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No, this amplifier is presenting what it 'hears' from the guitar in as clean and natural way as possible. The onboard EQs are powerful as overall shaping devices, but you get the feeling that an AER amp isn't designed to 'colour' the sound in the way that an electric guitar amp would do. Plugging in a couple of electro-acoustics - one with a Fishman under-saddle system and the other with Taylor ES1 - the first impression is of a modern, hi-fidelity presentation. A strange omission though is the lack of CD/MP3 player input option.
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In addition, there's a direct output for a tuner, headphones (main speaker is muted), plus a send and return loop for outboard effects. It sounds more complicated than it is the more important point is that it's great to have plenty of options, depending on what the out-front engineer wants. If you want effects included in your direct output, use the line out jack socket. It's also worth noting that the DI out happens before the effects sections (so there are no effects in your DI), though it does include your EQ settings. A qualified tech needs to switch this on inside the amp. However, it's turned on as a factory default, meaning that your mic must be able to cope with it - do check with the manufacturer before plugging any mic in! It's also worth mentioning that the jack input can be supplied with phantom power if your guitar can take it. Phantom power at +48 volts is also supplied if you want to use a condenser/capacitor mic for singing or instruments. Optimised for mics or line-level sources, it means you can plug in pretty much anything, including microphones, preamps, DIs or what have you, for full-range sound reproduction. The amp also has an XLR input/channel in addition to the expected 6.3mm jack. That said, we took the amp on a variety of bigger- and smaller-room gigs and found the onboard EQ more than capable of dialling in the sound we wanted, without any significant feedback problems when using a variety of common under-saddle and soundhole pickups. There are no parametric EQ controls, it's interesting to note, so if you do have a very specific troublesome feedback frequency, it'll need to be dealt with elsewhere. "We took the amp on a variety of gigs and found the onboard EQ more than capable of dialling in the sound we wanted" It changes the midrange response considerably which can be useful depending on what kind of instrument/pickup you're using, and indeed to suit different playing styles that either need to cut through, or sit back in a mix. Less obvious is the 'colour' button that appears in channel one. Every input has a corresponding gain control to set your ideal input levels and the various bass, treble and mid pots do exactly what you'd expect. The Compact 60 is straightforward in terms of what to plug in where - guitar in channel one for the most part, mic into channel two. Less obvious here is that with the internal effects level at minimum, the external effects you have in the amp's loop will still be heard. Helpfully, there's an efx-pan control enabling you to have effects in whatever proportions you like on either both, or just one channel. It seems slightly odd to limit the delay to one timing, but it's nevertheless a good all-round choice if you had to pick just one! Thus the Compact 60 3 has a simple, but very high quality digital effects engine offering up two reverbs (short and long), a 320ms delay and a chorus. Now that's portable.Īnother big plus in any one-box amplification solution are in-built effects. In fact we recently did a video feature with jazz guitarist Jim Mullen, who arrived on the bus with his Aria archtop and a Compact 60 over his shoulder. While being a better choice for sound in AER's opinion, it also helps keep the weight down to just 6.5kg. Underneath the very modern looking, tough black acrylic coating, the cabinet is actually birch ply, not particleboard. What's interesting in AER's case, proven over many versions of its amps, is that its dynamic power amp control, using a complex system of filters and limiting, puts those watts over in an incredibly efficient manner, sounding super clean and clear all the way: the Compact 60 3 will stand up just fine as an acoustic guitar amp in a normal pub/club band scenario. "The Compact 60 3 will stand up just fine as an acoustic guitar amp in a normal pub/club band scenario" So far so good, but as ever with wattage and guitar amps, the numbers rarely give any meaningful indication of volume. Inside is a DMOS, monolithic IC power amplifier and one dual-cone speaker and amplifier, for an output of 60 watts.