Electro-acoustics

lloyd · May 2014

Hello all, I'm completely clueless with regards to these-I'm on a phone so can't do a search-I'm looking to pick up an electro-acoustic for around £200. What's good, what should I avoid? Anyone on here selling one? I'm in Manchester.

Cheers guys

stimpsonslostson · May 2014

When I did a similar quest a while ago I found-
The Vintage VE300 is nice. It's a folk sized acoustic going for £160ish new.
Second hand, I'd be looking at-
The Yamaha cpx500ii is good amped, but I felt it was somewhat lacking unplugged. You could certainly get one for around £200.
I also liked the Gretsch rancher jr- it's quite unique (& maybe stretching the budget).

You MIGHT be able to bag a Simon & Patrick SP6 with electronics if you're lucky/patient, they're awesome guitars but the lack of "name" sees them quite reasonable on the second hand market.
Or you could buy a sound hole pick up for your existing acoustic (if you have one).

lloyd · May 2014

Nice one cheers mate I'll have a look at them-appreciate it

BilliBob · May 2014

Have a look at Takamine on ebay. Should be something in your price range. They are the go to gigging electro acoustic.
Find one with the Cool Tube Preamp in it.

lloyd · May 2014

Cool will have a browse

Steadhock · June 2014

Vintage are generally a good shout. Tanglewood also make some nice models and if you can find a good price on a Sigma those are just about some of the best 'budget' acoustics around at the moment. Also one name to check out would be James Neligan - I was skeptical at first but they're actually surprisingly good!

IanSavage · June 2014

I know someone selling a Takamine G-series electro-acoustic in a Hiscox hardcase for £250-ish quid, it's one of the higher-end ones (5013 rings bells and looks right from a quick image search) - Birmingham-way if that's any use?

lloyd · June 2014

Cheers for the comments, appreciate them-I've learnt a bit and educated myself a bit. I've been out and played a few...I've settled on an Epiphone el-00 (which I'm aware is not in any of the suggestions!!)

Fretwired · June 2014

A second-hand Yamaha - they sound great plugged in .. I have an old APX4 it and sounds pretty good through my Trace Elliot acoustic amp.

ICBM · June 2014

Electro-acoustics are the work of Satan.

lloyd · June 2014

A necessary evil I'm afraid-more opportunity for gigging my bands tunes in an "unplugged" environment.

ICBM · June 2014

I do that too, but I much prefer either a magnetic soundhole pickup, a simple undersaddle transducer with an outboard preamp, or a microphone in front of the guitar if possible (which it isn't always, I know). All of these sound better than the typical UST/onboard preamp electro-acoustic, and have none of their problems. OK, you do get fingertip controls, but in many cases those are a bad idea because you usually can't properly hear what the guitar sounds like outfront from on stage so you're likely to set it wrong, and if there is a sound engineer the best way to piss them off completely is to adjust it at all. You're really better with just a flat-EQ buffered output. You can do that even with a plain passive UST if you just run it through a Boss tuner pedal.

Electro-acoustics also have issues with preamp reliability, impossibility of easily bypassing it if it goes down at a gig, battery access in some cases, rattling cables, sometimes string balance problems, difficulty of replacing or upgrading the preamp when the guitar body has been cut for a specific box... it just goes on! (For example, Yamaha appear to have now run out of replacement preamps for the older APX series, and there's nothing else which fits.)

And then there's that horrible, artificial rubbery/buzzy piezo "tone" they all seem to have - which doesn't actually sound any more like an acoustic guitar than a magnetic pickup does, it just sounds wrong in a different and more irritating way

.

If God had meant acoustic guitars to be plugged in he wouldn't have invented the Telecaster

.

DiscoStu · June 2014

Explain this then!

http://assets.fender.com/frl/51c46e81c8d646ab068fb82045cd2fd7/generated/bf7cc0e6ef77f26ed72ad6e5af6d8c0b.png

ICBM · June 2014

DiscoStu said:

Explain this then!

Abomination!

That's the Anti-Telecaster, the false Fender, sent by Satan to deceive and mislead.

In the final Battle Of The Bands the Telecaster and the Anti-Telecaster will clash together and the Anti-Telecaster will be destroyed.

Octahedron · June 2014

If you still looking, check out Cort or Washburn!

N.B. some seem to have a distaste toward Cort and I don't understand it. I've owned a Cort for 3 years now and it's one of the best sounding, best playing acoustics I've had. In fact, it's been with me longer than any other acoustic!

If you can get your hands on an MR710F model you won't be disappointed! Even if it does take things a little over your budget...

Otherwise, Takamine, Epiphone and Tanglewood are also great guitars.

Gassage · June 2014

If you can get a Yamaha with the ART system you'll love it. If you can get one with the SRT system you'll be blown away.

You may get lucky and get an APX900ii for your budget.

DulcetJones · June 2014

BilliBob said:

Have a look at Takamine on ebay. Should be something in your price range. They are the go to gigging electro acoustic.
Find one with the Cool Tube Preamp in it.

Great guitars, I've had an electric classical Takemine for over 20 years, played about 100 gigs a year for ten years and all it needed was strings and batteries. Wasn't the Cool Tube model though.

RaymondLin · June 2014

ICBM said:

Electro-acoustics are the work of Satan.

I have a Taylor T5, in redddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddd.

Steadhock · June 2014

Octahedron said:

If you still looking, check out Cort or Washburn!

N.B. some seem to have a distaste toward Cort and I don't understand it. I've owned a Cort for 3 years now and it's one of the best sounding, best playing acoustics I've had. In fact, it's been with me longer than any other acoustic!

If you can get your hands on an MR710F model you won't be disappointed! Even if it does take things a little over your budget...

Otherwise, Takamine, Epiphone and Tanglewood are also great guitars.

From what I understand a lot of the bad vibes thrown Cort's way stem from issues with the way their factories treat their workers. Of course, this happens in an awful lot of Asian factories but Cort just seem to be the one that got a lot of attention. A quick Google will throw up a few results but I have to admit I haven't read into it an awful lot.

As for the guitars themselves, never had a particular problem with them myself but never been a fan either. While I can't remember the model names or anything, the last time I tried some Cort acoustics I can only remember thinking they were OK. Seem to recall that they had a nice core design but were ruined with excessive amounts of fake pearl/abalone/etc! All subjective though of course and if the stories about their factories don't bother you too much then there's no reason not to check them out I guess!

Phil_aka_Pip · June 2014

A Cort won't seem so good if the next guitar you play is a Faith.

geepers0677 · June 2014

Can't go wrong with a preowned Yamaha CPX500 or above.

Frankieabbot · February 2015

ICBM said:

Electro-acoustics are the work of Satan.

Maybe they are ICBM......but I love my little Tanglewood Roadster. It will do until I get GAS.

bluechargeboy · February 2015

Random fact: The Takamine Cool Tube preamp will not fit into the G-Series guitars, only the Japanese ones. So there is no easy upgrade path.

I have been to hell of a lot of acoustic gigs in recent times and I think the soundhole pickups are my favourite overall, as an audience member. My own guitars have onboard preamps, which is convenient. Once I have set the controls to my liking I leave them where they are to avoid sound engineer rage.

close2u · March 2015

I'm looking and learning too ... ICBM has made some very interesting additional comment over here ...

http://thefretboard.co.uk/discussion/36949/

english_bob · March 2015

ICBM said:

Electro-acoustics are the work of Satan.

Agreed. I'm in the @ICBM, @bluechargeboy camp- soundhole pickups are the way to go.

I've had an LR Baggs M1a in my guitars for years, and with fresh strings and a remotely decent PA it sounds bloody fantastic every time. No messing with preamps, batteries that last forever, comes out with two fixing screws and a jack socket so you can take bloody fantastic sound with you when you trade in guitars. Who wants one of those quack boxes stuck to their guitar?

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