Best Electric for Acoustic player?

[Mike114]

Lee I see Dave's has that guitar, did you play it there? I'll get to go to Daves more since my son goes to college there. Ironically, my son going there is the financial reason I won't be getting a PRS 22 anytime soon... the demo's on Youtube sound amazing...

-Mike

[bbrunskill]

I started out on electric, and grew to love Strats and Teles. But now that I’ve become mostly an acoustic player for me, the best feeling electric is the Gibson 335 with heavy strings. I can transfer between the acoustic and electric very easily, and they feel similar.

I just wished I owned one!

If you like the Fender instruments, also check out G&L - I think they are better made and sound better, personally. They can also be picked up pretty cheap second hand. When I do play electric, it’s G&L semi hollow ASAT (telecaster type)

[lespaul_79]

1979 Les Paul Standard? Great neck, great tone, vintage vibe.

[bohemian]

Telecaster... the obvious answer

Godin Kingpin... outstanding

[Davis Webb]

Originally Posted by bohemian

Telecaster... the obvious answer

This. A great option.

[Goodallboy]

Definately not a Les Paul or Tele, or anything other than a hollowbody. 335 type, various makers. Other hollowbody designs, JonnyA, etc. would suit you well. I have the same issue with solid bodies and on ly after many uears of working on my electric technique was I finally satisfied with solidbody.

[mikealpine]

I just bought an Epiphone Ultra 339, and I think this is going to be my go-to electric. The body size is extremely comfortable, smaller than the 335. I'm 5'6" tall and the 335 felt too big for me, less comfortable than my larger bodied acoustics, especially when sitting. And, the Epi Ultra 339 has a Nanomag pickup for acoustic sounds. You can blend the acoustic and the electric tones so you get something totally different as well. And, you can split the signal, sending the acoustic tones to a PA or acoustic amp and the mag pickups to another amp and make it sound like more guitars. It retails for $799, but shouldn't be a problem to get it for 15% off of that.

[Davis Webb]

Any electric will work just fine. If you want an acoustic tone, then dump the electric altogether. If you want amplification use an acoustic pickup.

I fingerstyle on an Ibanez shredder guitar and its just fine. I dont see why one would insist on a hollow body when an acoustic with a pickup is an acoustic.

[Duff]

I don't think just any electric will be the sensible route to take.

You are probably a sophisticated player with some stylistic expertise and know your way around a fretboard.

I personally think you should go for something quite different from an acoustic.

I like a lot of different guitars, but I have a feeling that you would like one of the Schecter C-1 superstrat type guitars with "real" Seymour Duncan nickel covered full sized humbuckers, like a SD JB bridge and '59 neck. These are usually on the Schecter C-1 "Customs" if I'm not mistaken.

These Schecter C-1 Customs are awesome guitars with a really great feel and sound, in my opinion. These produce some beautiful tones and feel very good in the hand, again in my opinion. Assume everything here is "in my opinion" so I don't have to keep repeating it.

These Schecter C-1's with the passive Seymour Duncan humbuckers look, feel, and play beautifully and you can get some heavy metal sound out of them with no problem, as well as some way more gentle classic rock and so forth, all with beautiful smooth tone. These are great guitars for a relatively small amount of money. Try to get a "Custom" because they are made in Korea I believe, and Korean guitars tend to be somewhat nicer, supposedly.

The next real factor is going to be getting a real decent amp; a tube amp capable of doing heavy metal and clean rock and so forth. This is not always easy to do, and getting too small of an amp with not enough power is often an early pitfall that people just getting into electric guitar fall into.

From my point of view, it has been suggested by many that you should plan to spend an equal amount on your amp as on your guitar, as a general rule of thumb.

Supposing a Schecter C-1 Custom is about six or seven hundred, that includes a lot of amps, and you shouldn't necessarily have to spend that amount to get a good amp.

One awesome amp in that price range is the powerful and loud Fender Hot Rod Deluxe, at forty all tube watts and three channels with a real good clean channel that can support a very nice Big Muff Pi fuzz pedal or any other good overdrive or distortion pedal. This will be able to rock with a loud drummer in most any heavy metal band and will roll right along perfectly in a more modest rock band.

For around the same price you can get an all tube Fender '65 Deluxe Reverb that has a beautiful clean channel and tube reverb and vibrato, and it sounds great with a distortion or overdrive pedal, has a good stock speaker, etc.

For a real bargain Marshall is blowing out on sale all of their Marshall JMD-1 hybrid amps that model only Marshall amps, clean all the way to ultra high gain amp models; plus they have some excellent effects built in and the best factory preset channels and settings I have heard in a modelling amp. They come in a head or combo; fifty or one hundred tube watts with EL34 power tubes.

These are selling at half the regular internet price at the big internet places but are selling fast, but you should still be able to get one.

I paid 700 or 800 for the JMD-1 two twelve inch Celestion speaker fitted combo at one hundred watts with four EL34 power tubes. There are two different Celestion model speakers in it. It models about sixteen initial Marshall amps on a rotary selector knob. Then each of the models has five different preset buttons that often sound great to begin with and are user modifiable. It comes with a six button footpedal that connects with a regular guitar cable to the amp. It expands the power of the amp by a quantum leap seemingly. The amp models are called channels, so instead of having two or three channels on your amp you have a lot more. The delay and reverb sound great and it has a built in very excellent noise gate. It has an acoustic setting so you can play your acoustic guitars thru it.

The amp is awesome to say the least. Many people really like this amp and use it for home use or for gigs. I think it is the digital preamps that allow me to turn my master volume down to whisper quiet bedroom level and still retain the full blown ultra high gain tone, or the clean pristine tone. That is a great feature to have, plus you can crank it up and be loud enough to keep up with the loudest of drummers, which is a very nice capability to have. Also it is very self gratifying to crank it up very loud for a while to just plain bathe in that powerful wave of sound those two speakers pump out. And the tone of the amp gets better the louder you turn it up; so you can get sustain laden Santana type full saturated sound or ultra gain super loud overdrive and distortion - good sounding tube distortion, with plenty of room to turn up the amp even more. You never, it seems, have to come close to maxing it out, which is good, because amps sound best before they are maxed out.

That is one awesome amp that will be guaranteed to fill thousands of your playing hours with all sorts of hidden pleasures, believe me.

I even have a Vox VT30 hybrid tube modelling amp that is an awesome thing. They are discontinued now but I recently got mine for 165 dollars, brand new, old stock (NOS), out the door. You can spot these a hundred yards away because the have chrome BBQ grill speaker grills - earning them the nick name "Chromies". The Chromies in the VT series are awesome amps and can still be found NOS in stores. The ADxxVT series is an older series and they do not sound as good to "me". They too are "Chromies" with the chrome BBQ grill speaker grills. These are protective and I think cool looking. The VTxxx series are dependable amps and can be found brand new for small money. The VT30 is surprisingly loud and has a power attenuator on the back that allows you to take whatever tone you have, distortion or clean, down to one watt while holding on to that great overdrive or pristine sound you started with when you were playing loud earlier in the day, but at two o'clock in the morning the neighbors might not appreciate you rocking out loudly - you can turn it down to a very satisfying whisper quiet but saturation laden sound. You don't even wake anyone up. And of course, as some of us know, it is really fun to play guitar very late at night; "After Midnite" we might want to let it all hang out type of thing, but at whisper quiet levels which are secretly satisfying to some of us.

Anyway, the Schecter C-1 Custom is a serious guitar, and the PRS SE guitars are also nice, but the Schecter is a larger guitar with a presence that the smaller PRS SE's don't have. The SE's are awesome guitars though, I have two, but something tells me you would really dig a Schecter C-1 Custom with Seymour Duncans.

Good luck in your quest and try some nice amps like the Blackstars, and Marshall JMD-1. Get some good, real decent stuff now and you will appreciate it later.

Just my ideas, others will vary and have at least as much merit as mine.

[rockabilly69]

I think this way too general of a question to ask here on this forum, and that some time spent guitar shopping and playing everything you can get your hands on will answer this question for you.

but here are so guidelines to help narrow things down...

If you want a smooth transition from acoustic to electric, stay to similiar scale length, nut width, and neck shape to that of your acoustic.

If you want the clarity in the lower strings like an acoustic, go with single coil pickups.

If you want to move a little air in your tone, go with full hollow, or semi-hollow designs. Semi-hollows are less prone to feedback and are more useful as all arounders. I am a solo musician and sometimes for variety I bring an electric with me to gigs. I find solid bodies don't really have the fullness of sound I need, whereas a good semi or fully hollow electric can get the job done.

[leeasam]

Originally Posted by Mike114

Lee I see Dave's has that guitar, did you play it there? I'll get to go to Daves more since my son goes to college there. Ironically, my son going there is the financial reason I won't be getting a PRS 22 anytime soon... the demo's on Youtube sound amazing...

-Mike

yes that is where I played it. What I like is that the necks on them come closer to the feel of the acoustic so switching back and forth is not a big issue. One reason I like my LP Studio. ya it has a beefier neck but that combined with the narrower nut than on my Taylor with wider nut the feel is simular.

I am hoping to get this on soon. I know it will make life much easier with worship. I know many have said try the tele etc. But I don`t like the feel of the standard tele neck as much-- no where near close to the feel of most acoustics.

The P22 also sings well through a Mesa Head and 4-12 cab too!

[locorogue]

i would assume an electric for an "acoustic player" would be at the least a semi-hollow body, most probably a hollow body...just my worthless .02 cents. But i gues it depends on the sound you're looking for, as others have stated...

[nrand]

I initially found the change to an ES335 was easier than to a solid body like my SG1500. For me the bigger issue is string gauge, and I tend to use strings that more or less approximate what I use on my acoustics. I use both when playing out and it makes jumping from one to another easier.

[Capefngrpkr]

After 50 years playing an acoustic, I faced this same issue. I wound up with an Eastman archtop. Several reasons...1 3/4" nut....only one pickup on the model I bought so there's nothing to get in the way of my fingerpicking! And the model I bought is only 1 3/4" thick so it doesn't bother my aging shoulder.

Now you still have to learn to play electric...but I'm able to focus on the differences...like tone, bending, sustain etc. instead of being consumed with the fact it just doesn't feel right. In fact, I'm so pleased, I just ordered a 2nd Eastman.

I regularly play a Froggy and a Sheppard. $ for $ the Eastman is unbelievable!

Schaef

[DaddyRabbit]

I'm probably gonna' take a beating for this, but if you want a TRULY versatile electric -
http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/JTV59TS/

I had the original Variax 500 for a few years. I bought it for the acoustic sounds (don't do that) but if you need a sitar, reso, or banjo in a pinch it's there). The electric models are actually very good, purists may disagree but I find them to add to the tonal versatility of the guitar even if they aren't spot on accurate.

The new JTV series adds (actually pretty decent) mag pickups and an alternate tuning knob. Imagine going from standard, to drop D, to DADGAD, to 1/2 step down and back with the twist of a knob, while still holding the same intonation and not putting the guitar down. Amazing stuff! AND you have 10 custom banks and can change any of the models/alt tunings with Workbench on a PC or Mac.

They make several models based upon 3 basic styles, the JTV-59 is modeled after a 59 LP, the JTV-69 is a "Sratish" style, and the JTV-69 is more like an Ibanez "shred" style. They also have US built models that have the same pickups and modeling electronics but better accessories and are considerably more expensive.

Couple of links:

http://youtu.be/m6lbTAu-Xdw

Part two of a five part review,

http://youtu.be/szt7olDVew4

http://youtu.be/9m3E4kTm98Y

The JTV-69 seems to have some neck and tremelo issues but the other models are less problematic.