I am in the process of looking for a guitar. I like the look of the cutaway, but it seems that a lot of the cut away guitars that I have looked at have been acoustic/electric. I'm never going to need the electric part. Am I going to be paying more for the pick ups? Why is it so hard to find a cool looking acoustic? You go over to the electric side of the music store and here are all these cool looking guitars. And all the acoustics that they carry would be something my grandpa would like.
I can look back with a smile, knowing that my ambition far exceeded my talent.
I think they do that because that's the latest marketing concept. It's cool to have a pickup because at one point you might actually use it, but some of the pickups are not all that good and you probably wouldn't get such a great sound out of them anyway. But to put something in a guitar that makes people think "Yah, someday down the line I'll be onstage and need it" just makes the sale that much easier.
Now don't get me wrong, at some point in lots of people's careers they actually do need to amplify their acoustic, and mics are a bit complex sometimes and prone to feeback and howling/squealing. I for one though am thinking that I like the idea of not having a piezo and having a mic because, well, you can 'lean in' to a mic (to get more volume) and you can't do that with a piezo.
But it comes down to marketing. They, the companies, determine what the demographics are and hit that until they saturate it. I was thinking about this when I recently tried to find a left-handed (cheap) parlor sized guitar. Johnson and Fender both have them, but in righty. Then I saw all the lefty versions, and hey - they're all dreadnaughts! A plethora of dreadnaughts, and I was thinking, "Even for little kids beginning to play?" Yes, 3/4 size or 1/2 size *dreadnaughts.*
Why popularity of the body-style? Dreadnaught. Originally it was (and grand concert size and jumbo) to project the notes loudly, but now, with pickups and mic's, a parlor can do just as well.
It's still marketing though, and I guess it always will be.
C'mon Johnson and Fender and Rondo's Kurt if you're listening - how about some nice inexpensive (for stage) lefty parlor guitars?
J Rock, I thought the same thing - that I'd never need pickups. Then my neighbor asked is I wanted to paly at his 40th B-day party with some other guys - and they were all amped and I was just strumming into the wind. It's happened at least a couple more times in different situations. So now I'm looking at either having pickups installed or getting a new guitar. So my money-saving move is going to probably cost me more in the long run.
If you like the cutaways, I wouldn't be put off just because they all have pickups.
Blame it on the lies that killed us, blame it on the truth that ran us down.
