Help me appreciate acoutsic guitars

cephus

cephus

Slow Children Playing
There's another thread about buying a taylor for $3000. I never even thought about itt until today. First off, the thought of an expensive acoustic guitar does not appeal to me int he least at this stage of the game. I am getting older and caring more about having my gear battle ready and have invested more in the past 2 years than I had in the previous 20 probably. An acoustic is way low on the list. After decent banjo.

Why did you buy your expensive acoustic?

The qualities that an expensive one has are mostly imperceptible given the resolution of even the best sound recording and reproduction equipment - at least the the majority of listeners. Any edge that you gain by playing an expensive axe would only stand to impress a couple people, right? And those people are probably bigger dorks than you and me.

Maybe electronic reproduction or enforcement doesn't matter at all to you since you play acoustically with other acoustic instruments. So maybe you take it to the park and play in a bluegrass group or something. You need an efficient acoustic machine. It would seem that high end guitars could possibly have an edge. But maybe a carbon bowl acoustic could be enginieered to be even more efficient? I can't imagine thay're shaped that way just so they'll flip off your lap when you sit down and try to play one. You never see bluegrass guys with those do you? I don't. They always have really nice acoustics.

If you're playing hayrides and hootnannies, I'd think a more disposable acoustic would be in line. Something you could leave leaning against a tree while you take a piss and make a hitter out of a beer can that you sweat and slobber and spill and scratch and tie nots in the broken strings rather than replace them. How can one cultivate an afternoon outdoor buzz when you have to keep remembering where you left your 17 pound hardshell case?

Maybe you never play it in front of anyone. Is it just the way it fillls the room? Or the way it feels under your fingers? It touches you on a spiritual level. Did yo buy it primarily for the way it makes you feel? If so, how could you possibly have connected on that level while plunking on it in guitar center with pantera blasting through the store pa system or clicking through musician's friend's website after sorting acoustic guitars by price high to low?

Come on. Spill it. It's because it's got that hole right in the middle, isn't it? You can't help but think that you're stumming a vagina, can you?

sickos.

And I don't want to hear any sexual innuendo about me being a pillow biter because I've been going on an on about how much I love my new whammy bar.
 
I'm kinda with you. The acoustics I own are the Korean Fender my dad bought for me in 92 when I was in 7th grade, a really cheap Samick that a friend gave to me, and a new Ibanez Sage series 12-string that I think was $175.

They all work for my purposes.

Then again, all of my electrics except one (my first, 40th Annv Strat, dad bought that too) cost between $85 and $200 as well.

I guess I just like cheap shit.
 
The only difference that matters is how an acoustic with beautiful tone resonates against your body as you play it. When you become one with the damn thing and it just feels a part of you as you play it.

Cheap acoustics can't do that. They can get the job done, but you don't bond with them.

Maybe that sounds strange, but it's true, at least for me.
 
My guitar produces an excellent sound. I spend as much money I can on instruments because I do believe that you get what you pay for.
 
As I'll get to it, Ill need an acoustic for recording...

...and drunken fooling around, and the dreams of playing it live..


Same reasons that dudes buy 12000-buck electrics???

..luckily, I have to bond with the cheap stuff, goes for women too.
 
Some of the hours I have spent wrapped up in my old Martin D-28 have been as close to spiritual experiences that I think I'll experience.

Well, there have been a few other encounters that come to mind.... :D
 
Zaphod B said:
Cheap acoustics can't do that. They can get the job done, but you don't bond with them.
Click to expand...

I tried to bond with mine, but my wee-wee kept getting caught in the strings. :(
 
The few ultra high-dollar guitars I've played just didn't impress me. Maybe they weren't set up right, maybe the strings were old, maybe they simply lacked any sonic character...They certainly didn't play any better than my battle hardened old Seagull...

I'll never say never, of course, but shelling out that kind of money for ANY musical instrument, asides perhaps keyboards, is a concept I'm just too old school for...If the dough were absolutely, positively disposable, perhaps... :p

Eric
 
cephus said:
Come on. Spill it. It's because it's got that hole right in the middle, isn't it? You can't help but think that you're strumming a vagina, can you?
Click to expand...
I have posted this before, but you are just begging for it:


A woman from North Carolina
Strung fiddle strings 'cross her vagina
With the proper size cocks
What was sex became Bach's
Toccata and Fugue in D minor

- Isaac Asimov
 
to appreciate a good acoustic guitar you have to spend time with it. I used to have a fender acoustic and my ears were changed from it. From playing it so much, I had an ear for mid's. I went to an acoustic shop to search for a guitar that didn't have any bells and whistles, but a good sound. i found a martin mahogany guitar that i liked and thought it was better than my fender. I bought it and would A/B between the two. Partially the martin was set up a bit low, but i played that guitar trying to listen to the mid's and i thought i had made a bad choice in purchase. 2 years later...i really really really like my martin. its setup perfectly and the bass and highs are amazing. the mids aren't scooped, its just that the fender was so mid boosted that i thought it had a good sound. now when i play fender guitars i can hear the cheapness.

i guess its like buying monitors. you have to listen to a couple albums to really know what's up.
 
i almost forgot...i don't know why people buy really expensive stuff. my guitar was 500 with case, used (which was also the price of the fender, new). it didn't have a pickup in it though. it didn't even have an endpin. but that just made the martin perfect for upgrading with whatever pup i want.
 
I have the proverbial yamaha beater that I bought new in maybe 81 or 82. It is a small body one. They called it folk size, I think. It's a steel string. It's very loud. I hardly ever put strings on it, but when I do and i play with other pickers, my guitar is noticeably louder. I do dig in and use big honking strings, though. I have played that guitar all this time, but if the house was on fire, I seriously doubt I would think to pick it up. I'd go back in with my hair already on fire to get my homemade plywood guitar. Or the Disco Slut squier strat copy. First trip out of the house after the family was out would be the hard drive drawer in my desktop PC, my strat and the epiphone es-295 (they could repopulate the earth) then the recyclocasters, then the peavey T60s. I think I'd move to amps before i pick up that yamaha. that fucking cat is on his own.

If it was your high-dollar acoustic, would you put it in the same trip as the other members of the family, or would it be in the first trip back in?
 
I do most of my playing on acoustics. That's been true for about 36 years. Some great inexpensive guitars have been part of that experience. Somewhere along the way it got to the point that I would pay a decent amount of money to get that last little bit of sound you get with the high priced spread.

Doesn't it work the same way for you and your electrics? You can get some great sounds out of a Squier Tele but don't you eventually reach the point where that just isn't enough.

A good American made Telecaster isn't worth the difference in price until it is.
 
Milnoque said:
You can get some great sounds out of a Squier Tele but don't you eventually reach the point where that just isn't enough.

A good American made Telecaster isn't worth the difference in price until it is.
Click to expand...


That is one thing I don't like about acoustic guitars. Absolutely not screwdriver-friendly. I think I can take a pretty shitty guitar and make it worth playing. It may take me a couple years of tweaking, but I think even my shittiest guitars are useable and offer something that another one of them doesn't. An acoustic is either fuct or it isn't. I can't see shaving the bracing or changing the back piece of wood to make it better.

I'm a west Virginian. On one hand, I should appreciate a fine acoustic. Onthe other, I like to bolt crap on and accessorize to about one notch below a '78 cutlass owner by latin american ESL roofer.
 
I have some hi dollar acoustics and some not so hi. When it comes to recording, it's all context as to which records best. But as a player, the expensive ones become apparent why they're expensive. They just "feel" better. I think $2500 is about as much as I'd pay for an acoustic (though my D-41 lists for a lot more than that). After that, is the point of deminishing returns for me.
 
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