Acoustic and Electic guitar

thomasross20 · December 2022

@ICBM I also use 11s.

Lol to the wind machine when playing electric.

Wood defo affects electric guitar in a band mix but I know what you're saying.

Electric defo a band instrument but just as difficult, just different. I struggled with some lead lines the other day I hadn't played in years.

Great input on this thread!

Dave_Mc · December 2022

CaseOfAce said:

Dave_Mc said:

Sporky said:

CaseOfAce said:

I always remember a quote from of all people, Mick Thomson of Slipknot who said something along the lines of "any guitar player worth his salt has an acoustic guitar at home".

Gatekeeping is pathetic.

And also does a ton of harm.

Yes acoustic- depending on how you look at it- can be harder. But there's a lot of electric playing which is difficult in a different way.

Hand someone who's only ever played an electric strung with 9s (like me for the first ages after I started playing!) an acoustic strung with 12s and they'll look a bit silly.

Hand someone an electric strung with 9s plugged into a 5150 lead channel who's only ever played an acoustic strung with 12s and I'm not sure they're going to look any less silly.

Does a tonne of harm?
In what way ?
I find it fantastic for building hand strength - when I go on to electric this aids me in nailing intonation on bends...not to mention clean fretting / picking technique for fast runs... It certainly hasn't done Al Di Meola or John McLaughlin any harm. Check out Friday Night In San Francisco.

I would never use the same strumming / rhythm technique on electric and acoustic - if you do that it's gonna sound off. You obviously adjust according to the circumstances.

Sorry, I meant gatekeeping did a ton of harm, not playing acoustic!

I'm not sure if goatkeeping does harm or not...

Dave_Mc · December 2022

Tannin said:

It's just a job handed to the least-skilled guitarist in the band, sometimes to fill the sound out, sometimes because at least it looks better on stage than dancing and playing maracas.

Well now, that's just not true

Image: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/61/Bez-2007.jpg/440px-Bez-2007.jpg

CharlieShaw · December 2022

I often wonder why I’d rather play acoustic guitar but most of the music I listen to is electric. I also play fingerstyle exclusively nowadays yet very little of my favourite music is fingerstyle. I think it’s something to do with the fact you can feel the music as you play with acoustic whereas with electric it’s kind of detached. Also I’m not in a band. Acoustic is good to sit and play alone.

bertie · December 2022

CharlieShaw said:

. I think it’s something to do with the fact you can feel the music as you play with acoustic

the situation you pick up an acoustic tends to make it more "organic" you can let it come out of your fingertips and not think about it - electric tends to be "I want to play this and it has to be like that.........."

but TBH - if you're a "guitar player" then guitar is guitar, there isnt much difference

CoolCat · December 2022

Acoustic and electric guitars each have their own place and both, to a degree, require different techniques in order to play them properly.

What is interesting is that many of the well-known songs were composed by the artist 'noodling around' on an acoustic guitar.

goldtop · December 2022

IMHO:

Acoustic guitar ≡ piano
Electric guitar ≡ synthesizer

Cranky · December 2022

CharlieShaw said:

I often wonder why I’d rather play acoustic guitar but most of the music I listen to is electric. I also play fingerstyle exclusively nowadays yet very little of my favourite music is fingerstyle. I think it’s something to do with the fact you can feel the music as you play with acoustic whereas with electric it’s kind of detached. Also I’m not in a band. Acoustic is good to sit and play alone.

‘It’s a mystery.

The music that I play and noodle around with often bears little or no resemblance to what I’ve grown up listening to. And the last couple years this has actually sent my ears off to new (to me) musicians and new horizons.

stickyfiddle · December 2022

Tannin said:

* Electric guitar mostly falls into two categories, rhythm and lead. Far and away the majority of the repertoire has a repetitive rhythm part which is boring to play, and a "creative" lead part which is challenging and interesting in its way, but tied to the same-old, same-old changes. Yes, there are bands who craft their songs such that nothing repeats and all the players have real parts which grow and develop as the songs progresses, but this is very rare. It also takes a major commitment from each player and a hell of a lot of time in the practice room. Playing solo acoustic, you are your own bass player and your own rhythm player. There is nothing at all to stop you making the the different parts of the song (bass, rhythm, lead) as interesting as your imagination and your technique allow. There is no straightjacket.

* I love wood. Acoustic guitars are (mostly) made of wood, and the exact choice of wood makes a huge difference to the sound. Electric guitars are often made of wood too, but seldom if ever does the wood make any real contribution to the sound. It is merely decorative (if even that). In acoustics, there is a vast range of timbers and combinations and body shapes and styles, all showcasing the particular woods in different ways. If you love wood, acoustic is for you.

You had me 100% up to these last two :P

But there's nothing I hate more than the obsession with "rhythm" and "lead" being separate skills and rhythm being boring.

And wood is 100% important. Less so than pickups and the hands of the idiot playing it, but definitely not "no contribution"

Tannin · December 2022

^ Seriously? Think about it. Let's face it, any suggestion that the wood of an electric guitar neck or body has one quarter as much influence on the sound as (e.g.) the difference between rosewood and walnut for acoustic backs, let alone the difference between (say) cedar and Red Spruce is pretty laughable. Possibly it is reasonably to suggest that electric neck timbers are as important as acoustic neck timbers (i.e., not very, but more than nothing). I retain an open mind on that.

As always with every single* optical or audio system, the transducers are the critical components. For recorded music in general, it is microphones and speakers. Get those two right and the rest of the system will usually be OK and the result good. Get either one of those two wrong and it doesn't matter how good your amplifier and electronics are, you have a crap sound. Same with photography: your film plane (or digital sensor) has to be good, as does your monitor (or printer if you are outputting to paper). The rest of the system depends on the transducers, which are the difficult part to make. And it is the same with guitars: everything plays a part but most of the sound quality comes down to the transducers - that's the top wood with some help from the back wood in an acoustic, in an electric it's the pickups and the speaker system. (FX are huge in the electric world, so perhaps we should also count amps and pedals.)

*"Every single" - possibly there are exceptions which I can't think of. I cannot imagine what they might be though.

stickyfiddle · December 2022

I'm not saying wood as as big a factor in electrics as it is in acoustics, but it's not not a factor. A maple/ash stat definitely sounds a little different than an alder/rosewood one. Similarly all-mahogany LP Customs sound different to maple/hog ones.

I completely agree that pickups and the entire post-guitar chain have a bigger impact though.

Tannin · December 2022

I think we are furiously agreeing then.

ICBM · December 2022

I’d actually put electric guitar neck wood close to acoustic guitar back/side wood for tonal impact - it does make quite a big difference, and in some ways defines the character of the guitar... it’s the main reason why Fenders and Gibsons sound different even when fitted with the same pickups. But this may be splitting hairs, it’s not really where the main differences are, any more than the back/side wood for steel-string compared to classical guitars

.

If you can’t get on with electrics because they’re not responsive in the way you’re familiar with... try a Telecaster, strung with either 11s or 10-52s, through a Fender-ish sounding amp with a master volume - this might be harder to find, but you’re looking for a bright, crunchy mildly overdriven sound that’s clean unless you play hard - it doesn’t have to be valve - that’s about the closest an electric guitar gets to responding like an acoustic in my opinion.

Leo Fender was actually aiming for that with his early guitars and amps - he was looking for something that combined the sounds of an acoustic guitar and a pedal steel... and I think he succeeded.

bertie · December 2022

stickyfiddle said:
>But there's nothing I hate more than the obsession with "rhythm" and "lead" being separate skills and rhythm being boring.

And wood is 100% important. Less so than pickups and the hands of the idiot playing it, but definitely not "no contribution"

massive wiz

guitarjack66 · December 2022

GoFish said:

I'm a big advocate of being familiar with acoustic playing, but obviously not playing exactly the same stuff as electric. That said, I do play electric in a far more "acoustic" style than most.

I have a 70's japanese parlour that is much more electric-like in neck dimensions and strung with 10's. It's a good halfway house between an electric and a dread.

Playing acoustic is more physical, but not "harder" than some electric techniques and theory. There is also the greater control and lighter touch electric needs, let alone the gain, effects and wind machine! It's also a struggle to fit into those tight trousers and tasteful whammy bar usage is an art unto itself.

I'm just starting to play more electric after beginning on acoustics for a few years and the difference is telling. Not good,not bad but different. Coming from an acoustic to an electric is very helpful though and,in my humble opinion only,playing both is really helpful on both sides of the divide.

ICBM · December 2022

Being a bit of a contrarian

I’ve often gone out of my way to *disprove* the idea that they’re actually different, other than in the sense of two sides of the same coin… I play electric more like an acoustic with a lot of mixed chord shapes and never really play traditional electric-guitar ‘riffs’, and acoustic like an electric in some ways - single notes, string bends and if amplified, I use effects including distortion. (I gigged with a Taylor through a Mesa amp at one point

.) I can play all the songs I did with the various bands I wrote music for on either and they don’t really need *that* big a change - other than if I use a vibrato bridge on the electric.

I love the complicated relationship they have in fact - they aren’t the same, they can be very different and the traditional ways of using them are, but they can also be surprisingly similar if you want them to be. I also like ‘hybrid’ guitars - not so much ones which try to do both traditional sounds accurately, but ones which do something which can be both, whether that’s an acoustic guitar with magnetic pickups or an electric with some sort of more ‘acoustic’ qualities (not necessarily a piezo pickup). Or an acoustic with a Bigsby

.

ToneControl · December 2022

acoustics are physically more effort to play

However, IMHO fewer people sound tolerable on an electric
Mostly because so many guitarists have crap pitch-accuracy when they bend, and have unmusical vibrato, both of which are not needed on an acoustic, but essential to most good electric playing

bertie · December 2022

playing acoustic is more about the simplistic enjoyment of the sound you get out of it
playing electric is all about ego

nobody makes video or boasts about what they can do on an acoustic guitar
that's all anyone ever does with an electric guitar

a view, not a judgement

Dave_Mc · December 2022

@bertie If you could see the silly, inane grin I have on my face when playing an E power chord with a ton of distortion, chugging away, divebombing way too much or hitting my six trillionth pinch harmonic of the current practice session, I'm not sure you could argue there's much more puerile simplistic enjoyment than that!

Dave_Mc · December 2022

ToneControl said:

acoustics are physically more effort to play

However, IMHO fewer people sound tolerable on an electric
Mostly because so many guitarists have crap pitch-accuracy when they bend, and have unmusical vibrato, both of which are not needed on an acoustic, but essential to most good electric playing

Yeah I mean there are really two types of instrument- those where you can sound pretty decent even when a relative beginner, and those which are pretty hard to sound decent on until you're pretty proficient.

Don't get me wrong- any instrument is really hard to play genuinely well, and some of the ones which are easier to sound decent on when a beginner can often be the hardest to genuinely master!

ICBM · December 2022

ToneControl said:

However, IMHO fewer people sound tolerable on an electric
Mostly because so many guitarists have crap pitch-accuracy when they bend, and have unmusical vibrato, both of which are not needed on an acoustic, but essential to most good electric playing

I usually play electric without vibrato. It's wildly overused, usually by rote rather than when actually necessary.

But I do have good pitch accuracy when bending.

goldtop · December 2022

bertie said:

playing acoustic is more about the simplistic enjoyment of the sound you get out of it
playing electric is all about ego

nobody makes video or boasts about what they can do on an acoustic guitar
that's all anyone ever does with an electric guitar

a view, not a judgement

Peter Green.

drofluf · December 2022

GoFish said:

And what's wrong with keeping goats anyway?

That depends where you keep them. Fine in a field, but more questionable in the bedroom

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