Quote:
Originally Posted by Steve DeRosa
The Collings I30 is a $5000 handmade guitar with specially-constructed, purpose-built top and back plates designed for acoustic resonance, and Lollar pickups - and sounds like it...
The Ibanez AF75 is a $400 Pac-Rim guitar, factory-built to a price from what amounts to glorified wall-panel plywood and equipped with $15/pair generic pickups...
Big difference - you need as much string tension as possible to get that dead-wood body into the game, and as much vibrating mass as possible to keep the cheap pickups from sounding harsh and trebly (in other words, "cheap"); as a teacher working with mostly younger students, I had to develop quite a bag of low-cost/no-cost tricks to wring the last possible drop of tone and playability from entry-level guitars (FWIW every one of my kids got a basic bridge/truss rod/intonation/string change setup job - and a "fret sprout" filing if necessary - on me), so I'm speaking from extensive experience here. With a good pro setup, the OP should have no playability issues with 12's - and a whole lot more tone to boot...
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That makes sense. When I was playing a bit more budget friendly electrics they were all solid body and I wouldn't have been able to tell the difference anyway. That is also why I included what guitar my experience were based on as a reference point as I didn't know if it would carry over
Thanks for clarifying.