You get on stage, plug in your acoustic guitar, tweak the sound and start playing. Things are rolling along fine, and then, suddenly, in the middle of the song, an obnoxious “honk” slaps you (and the audience) in the face!
You turn a few degrees to the right and the honking stops. Then back to the left and the howling returns. A few degrees further to the left and it stops. Then you move slightly again and it roars back with a vengeance.
You frantically try to make adjustments to your on-board EQ to eliminate the offensive noise, while your band mates shoot daggers at you. The frustration builds as nothing you do seems to work.
Unfortunately this is an all too common scenario that plagues guitarists attempting to amplify an acoustic guitar. The inevitable “honking” sound known as the “Goose Effect”.
Fortunately there is a simple, and inexpensive, solution.
By nature, an acoustic guitar is a hollow body instrument that produces sound by vibrations that emanate from the body and out through the sound hole.
Under normal circumstances this works fine. But when amplifying the guitar, the frequencies that emanate from the sound hole have a nasty tendency to collide with the other multitude of frequencies produced by the PA system, monitors and other instrumentation on stage.
Even when not on stage, and simply plugged into an amplifier, the “goose effect” can rear its ugly head.
The only way to truly control this is with the use of a device that “covers” the sound hole, thereby preventing the offensive frequencies from escaping the body of the guitar.
These sound hole covers are usually made of a rubber or plastic material, and are designed to wedge snuggly into the sound hole of the guitar.
On guitars with built-in pickups and electronics, the tone of the guitar is unaffected and a good sound can still be re-produced.
There are a number of manufacturers that produce sound hole covers, and one of the most popular is known as the “Feedback Buster”.
They can usually be purchased for ten dollars (more or less) and, unless you really like subjecting your ears to the drones of “honking geese”, are more than worth the investment.
