Beginners inexpensive electro acoustic suggestions ?

Willow · May 2020

Hi all - Im after any suggestions / advice on an affordable (sub £100 ..) electro acoustic guitar for a teenager to learn on ...

Just to say I have been playing for 40 odd years so I understand the basics, but I havent been in this market for many years (last bought a lovely Fender DG back in the 90's ..)

Im thinking full size but not 'Jumbo' type body - more like the semi cutaway's with a thinner body - I know these days cheap stuff is so much better - wondering whether of the generic 'Gear4music' type things would be any good ?

any thoughts welcome ...

ICBM · May 2020

Sub-£100 is going to be really pushing it for an electro-acoustic. Do they actually need electrics? If not you always get better value for money and usually a better guitar with a plain acoustic. The electrics in most cheap electros usually sound so bad you probably wouldn't want to plug them in anyway!

Even then, at that end of the market any guitar is likely to have set-up issues out of the box. You may be better buying used - where things like that have probably been fixed by the previous owner - and you might even be able to find something like an older Yamaha APX4 for that sort of money.

TrevinDevon · May 2020

Hi. First, I would definitely buy used at that price point. I was looking for an electro-acoustic that I could hand round in the garden without having a heart attack if someone dropped it, and I found a second-hand Freshman Renegade cutaway on Gumtree for about £85, case included. Obviously you don't get the quality of a £2k guitar, but when I'm learning something in an unusual tuning I'm quite happy to use it instead rather than continually retuning one of my 'better' instruments. Plus, as advertised, they are easy to play. I'd have loved one of these when I was a teenager. The neck is a little skinny with a 43mm nut, but unless your offspring is escecially fat fingered I wouldn't worry about that.

Musicwolf · May 2020

ICBM said:

Do they actually need electrics?

The first question I put to people who ask my advice. The piezzo pickup on my Breedlove was just something that was there when I picked the guitar, it didn't influence my buying decision and it's only useful purpose is that it makes it easy to plug into my rack tuner.

If I was gigging it then I'd want to spend some significant money on something that made it actually sound halfway like an acoustic and, when I record it, almost any mic pointed roughly in the direction of the instrument will sound better than plugging it in.

ICBM · May 2020

Musicwolf said:

If I was gigging it then I'd want to spend some significant money on something that made it actually sound halfway like an acoustic

And in fact, both by far the easiest and the best way of doing that is simply to plug the existing guitar and its pickup into something like a Fishman Aura Spectrum, which is specifically designed for a plain piezo signal. There is absolutely no need to burden a nice acoustic guitar with onboard electronics which will eventually be obsolete, can have reliability issues, and add weight (even if only minimal) to the guitar.

Willow · May 2020

Thanks all for the comments .. good point about electrics - I def dont need onboard (my Fender DG had that - always falling out / going wrong) so its just really a pickup so she can plug it in to record and maybe do open mic nights with it ...the freshman looks as mentioned above ..

I will also want to play it - its strange but the Fender DG I had I never really enjoyed playing - not sure if it was just combo of too larger body and being used to thin necked electrics (Im a strat player normally ..)

icu81b4 · May 2020

Defo second hand - preferably from somebody on this forum so that it at least has a decent setup - Cheap guitars are just that - Cheap and if it's hard to play then the learner won't play it.

Willow · May 2020

icu81b4 said:

Defo second hand - preferably from somebody on this forum so that it at least has a decent setup - Cheap guitars are just that - Cheap and if it's hard to play then the learner won't play it.

yes very true - well im in Paddock Wood in Kent so if anyone is selling anything suitable (or will post..), let me know ...

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Beginners inexpensive electro acoustic suggestions ?

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