Fixing a Rattle in My Gibson J-45 + My Current Acoustic Pedalboard Setup
My Gibson J-45 has been my main working guitar for years - I bought it in 2019 when I was playing a lot of acoustic guitar at church and needed something that sounded good through in-ears.
It has an LR Baggs Anthem pickup system installed, which blends an undersaddle pickup with an internal microphone. For the kind of playing I was doing (acoustic guitar straight into a PA, hearing it through in-ear monitors) that setup made a lot of sense. It gives you more of the sound of the guitar than a straight piezo sound, but keeps things controllable on stage.
Recently I noticed a bit of a popping sound when I moved the guitar around. It sounded like it was coming from inside the guitar, and because the Anthem system has a microphone mounted under the bridge area, I wondered if something around the pickup or wiring had come loose.
So I took the strings off, had a look inside, gave the guitar a clean, restrung it, and then ran through the acoustic pedalboard setup I’ve been using recently.
Finding the rattle
The first job was simply to check whether anything felt loose. The pickup itself seemed secure, and nothing obvious was moving around near the bridge. But I could hear something shifting inside the body, which made me think it was more likely to be loose wiring than a problem with the actual pickup.
After looking inside with a torch, the issue seemed to be a cable running towards the battery pack. It looked like it had either moved out of place or got caught in a way that allowed it to knock against the body when the guitar moved. Once that cable was tucked back properly, the rattle disappeared.
A nice simple fix in the end, no major repair needed, just a bit of careful checking inside the body.
Quick clean and fingerboard care
With the strings already off, it made sense to give the guitar a basic clean. I wiped the body down with a cloth that was just slightly damp just enough to lift off the usual marks and grime.
You can always tell a guitar that’s been used by a singer. The top of the body tends to collect a few marks from actually being played and sung over. Slightly disgusting, but also a sign of an instrument in use!
For the fingerboard and bridge, I used Monty’s Instrument Food. The J-45 has a rosewood board and bridge, so I like to give both a bit of attention whenever the strings are off.
I also like getting a tiny amount into the nut slots, just to help keep things moving smoothly.
The guitar is starting to show some fairly serious fret wear, especially around the third and fourth frets, pretty much where you’d expect on an acoustic that’s had a lot of use. At some point it’ll probably need a refret, but for now it’s alright.
Restringing the J-45
For strings, I’m currently using phosphor bronze 12–53s.
I have considered going down to 11s, mainly because I’ve been playing electric guitar more often with 11s tuned down to D standard. Going back and forth between that and an acoustic with 12s is definitely noticeable. But for now, I’ve stuck with 12s. They still feel right on this guitar, and the J-45 scale length handles them well.
When restringing, I do a little bend at the ball end before putting the string through the bridge. It helps the string sit in place before the bridge pin goes in. Once it’s under tension, the pin is really just there to stop anything embarrassing happening. At the tuner end, I usually leave about three fingers’ worth of slack, feed the string through, pull it back, bend it over, and wind up from there.
I don’t use a string winder most of the time. I know it’s slower, but I like feeling the tension come up as I tune the guitar. If I were doing loads of guitars a day in a shop, I’d probably feel differently, but for my own instruments and repair work, I quite like the control of doing it by hand.
Once everything was tuned up and clipped, the guitar was looking a lot better.
The LR Baggs Anthem setup
On the guitar itself, I tend to run the LR Baggs Anthem with the microphone dialled fully in and the volume all the way up.
The Anthem system is useful because even with the mic blend turned up, it still retains the low-end solidity of the undersaddle pickup - the system keeps the low frequencies from the piezo, which helps avoid stage rumble through the microphone.
My current acoustic pedalboard setup
After the setup, I ran through the acoustic rig I’ve been using recently.
It’s not wildly complicated, but I do use pedals with acoustic guitar in a similar way to electric guitar: not necessarily to make it sound extreme, but to keep things inspiring and give me a few different textures.
The basic idea is:
clean acoustic tone from the J-45
some compression/boost for lead parts
dotted eighth delay with filtering
occasional mid-push or preamp from overdrive-style pedals
big reverb/pad sounds for transitions and atmosphere
Hamilton Effects Embers used more like an acoustic preamp is my go-to at the moment
HX Stomp: compression, delay and tone shaping
In the HX Stomp, I’m using a compressor that is really more of a lead boost than a heavy compressor. It gives the acoustic a bit more level and presence when I need something to lift.
I’ve also got a dotted eighth delay set up using the Simple Delay, with high and low cuts to keep it sitting in the right place. There’s also a Tube Screamer-style model involved, not really for obvious overdrive, but more as tone shaping on the delay path only.
I’m also using the Studio Tube Preamp model to add a bit of polish to the acoustic sound. Not a dramatic effect, but enough to make the direct sound feel a little more finished.
Overdrive pedals with acoustic guitar
At the front end of the board, I had a Tube Screamer and a Blues Driver-style pedal on there, partly because I’d also been using the same rig with my Casino. With acoustic guitar, I’m not really using overdrive as “overdrive”. It’s more about tone shaping. A Blues Driver-style pedal can give a bit of a mid push, which can help the acoustic poke through. It’s not necessarily something I’d leave on all the time, but it can be useful as a different colour.
This is also where the Hamilton Effects Embers comes in.
Using Embers as an acoustic preamp
Embers is obviously a fuzz-based pedal, but one of the things I like about it is that it can work more like a preamp or tone-shaping stage when the gain is kept under control.
On acoustic, I wouldn’t use it as a full fuzz sound. That’s not really what I’m after. But with the bias set higher and the gain in a more controlled range, it can scoop out some of the low mids and shape the acoustic in a really useful way. It feels like it’s doing something around that perhaps boxy 200Hz area, helping the guitar sit better without making it sound thin.
As the gain comes up, it starts to bring in a bit more midrange and compression under the fingers. It feels more responsive and slightly more pushed, but still usable as an acoustic preamp rather than an obvious effect.
That’s the thing I’m enjoying about it: it gives the acoustic a different feel, not just a different EQ curve.
Big reverb and pad sounds
The other big part of this rig is reverb. I’ve been using a Boss RV-500 for large hall reverbs and pad-like sounds. One of the really useful things is the hold function. You can hit the hold button at different points in the reverb tail, which gives you different kinds of pad textures.
If you press it straight after a strum, you get a bigger, more immediate pad. If you wait slightly longer into the tail, you get something softer and less defined.
That has become a big part of how I’m using acoustic guitar live. It helps with transitions between songs, especially in more atmospheric sets where you don’t necessarily want silence between sections.
I also have a duplicate patch with a bit more low-pass filtering, in case the reverb is getting too bright or splashy.
Final thoughts
This ended up being a bit of a mixed job: part repair, part restring, part rig rundown.
The actual issue with the J-45 was thankfully simple, a loose cable inside the body rather than a problem with the pickup itself. After a clean, some fingerboard care and a fresh set of strings, it was back to feeling like a proper working guitar again.
The acoustic rig is still evolving, but I’m enjoying using pedals with acoustic in a way that feels musical rather than excessive. Compression, filtered delay, big reverbs, and subtle preamp-style drive can make an acoustic guitar feel much more inspiring without taking away what the guitar naturally does.
And Embers has been a pleasant surprise in that setup. Not as a fuzz, but as a tone-shaping preamp that can tighten the low mids, add a bit of feel, and help the acoustic sit in a more interesting place.
If you use pedals with acoustic guitar, I’d be interested to know what your go-to sounds are - subtle tone shaping, big ambient reverbs, delay, drive, or something else entirely.