In comparison to a regular accoustic? I am feeling the urge to upgrade my accoustic and I would love to have an accoustic I could plug in so as to be heard over the fiddle player when she's around. But some folks mention that A/E's don't sound as good as a pure accoustic.
Does anyone have any input on this issue?
I would plan on buying a pretty nice guitar, Taylor 310CE or Martin D-18 type range.
If you run it through a direct box into a PA, it should sound almost exactly the same. If you use an amp, the sound will change a bit. Get a nice acoustic amp, and you'll probably like the sound you get. Then you can add some effects pedals like Chorus, Reverb, EQ, .... oh yeah, it'll never end! :P :wink: :lol:
Dan
"The only way I know that guarantees no mistakes is not to play and that's simply not an option". David Hodge
Thanks for the input but I realize I phrased that question wrong. When the guitar is played accoustically, is it inferior sounding to its non-electric cousin? Because if its not, why would anyone buy a regular accoustic.
it depends on the body style and construction /materials.
there are cutaway A/Es that lose some of their volume but only compared to the exact bodystyle without the cutaway.
as far as tone goes, imo that has more to do with the strings and the player then the guitar, in other words if you have use for an A/E, a good acoustic amp will deliver the tone.
there are some really nice acoustic amplifiers out there today. i highly recommend the fishman line.
http://forums.guitarnoise.com/viewtopic.php?t=13995&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=270
#4491....
Okay, so its a volume thing. That would make sense since if there is some pickup mechanism attached to the bridge, there would be less transfer of energy from the strings to the top. Less energy=less volume. Yeah, tone was the wrong term.
Hmm, seems like A/E might be the way to go.
Damn Fiddle players always making things more complicated... (J/K)
my acoustic/electric cutaway Martin GTE16 sounds great unplugged or plugged in.
of course it mis a higher end guitar so it should.
still, manufacturing is so sophisticated nowadays it is hard to have a crappy sounding guitar.
unless you buy something so cheap it has cardboard in it.
seriously, you wont hear the difference.
l
i don't agree with twisted lefty. each acoustic guitar has a distinct tone independent of strings and player.
anyway, you can get a/e's that sound as good as acoustics, but they'll generally cost more, because pickups cost money, there's more work involved in producing them, the electronics affect the integrity of the wood, and since most a/e's are cutaways, they lose a little sound quality there, too. but the best sounding and best playing acoustic guitar i ever played was an acoustic/electric. it was a very expensive model, though. i think it was a takamine or larrivee selling for well over a grand. i didn't plug it in, though.
my brother owns a classical guitar with a pickup, and it sounds great. i owned an acoustic electric bass that was really warm sounding, and thumped when plugged in.
there aren't as many options with a/e's as there are with regular acoustics. at the low end, there are ovation guitars, which i find incredibly uncomfortable, but some people love them. other than that, most a/e's will run you over $5 or $600 to start. you'll get good quality for that price, but most shops i've been in only will have at most one or two non-ovation a/e's for under 500, and they're generally used. you might find a deal online, though. ebay or craigslist.
jason~
you misunderstand me, i meant guitars of the same build. of course different guitars sound differently.
what i said was imo "tone" itself has more to do with the player and strings than whether it is an A/E or not.
"better or worse' is up to your opinion, in my experiance a better player can make almost any guitar sound good , but that isn't what he was asking.
#4491....
I have the same guitar as Dogbite and it's fabulous. It's loud (enough) on it's own and has great tone. I've really happy with it. I believe the same model comes non-electric and without the cutaway so you can probably make a comparison if you can find a store that has both. if you're looking into a Martin, look into the 16 series. They're great value.
Some electric/acoustic guitars do sound really great, but I think the majority of pro acoustic players (I'm thinking of players like James Taylor) will often mic an acoustic guitar. They do this because it really captures the sound that people in the audience hear from an acoustic. An electric/acoustic amplifies the sound inside the guitar to a great degree, but does not amplify the sound coming from the guitar, which is what listeners hear most.
So, I think to really capture the true sound of an acoustic guitar, it is best to mic it. Electric/acoustics have a very hard time duplicating this very natural tone. Some will mic an electric/acoustic in addition to using the guitar's pickups to capture this more natural tone.
If you know something better than Rock and Roll, I'd like to hear it - Jerry Lee Lewis
Yeah, I had heard from many others (this board included) that Mic'ing an acoustic is really the best way to go. The downside of that is that it really ties you to a sitting position and so far, the mic's I have found, really do a poor job of picking up the guitar without feedback issues.
Hence the desire for the "easy" route. I really fear going out and getting a nice AE and regretting it later. I am kind of a purist at heart and a good old fashioned dreadnought appeals to me.
But if the sacrafice is small enough to get a A/E then count me in.
The reason that I bought my acoustic-electric rather than the regular acoustic version of the one that I have is that I figured I won't be buying another guitar for a long time (!). I was already spending more than what I had planned and the electic version only added another $200 (!!). so I bought it.
