Good Small-Sized Guitar

BigBear
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Joined: Sat Mar 21, 2009 11:02 am
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Sat Oct 17, 2009 3:01 pm

Chasplaya wrote:
suziko wrote:
This is probably a dumb question, but when you say you wish you'd "bought it with the pickup" does that mean you wish you'd bought the acoustic/electric version of it? It looks like (from guitarcenter.com) the ac/el version runs about $100 more. Should I seriously consider getting that over the plain acoustic?
Its all personal choice , me i'd go with the option of A/electric. Its best 'factory fitted' IMHO. Plus to get retro fit of good quality by a Luthier can be expensive. The A/E option gives you just that the options straightaway. Next though you go looking at amps, then effects then... lol. Serious though as I say going A/E at start gives the option immediately, and no expensive luthier costs down the road. Remember a straight Acoustic might just not be designed entirely with electrics in mind either so adding on retrowise might not always be good. If you were particulalry handy you can convert a acoustic yourself by buying cheap passive piezos and placing under the bridge with super glue opr velcro and drilling a hole for jack through the base of the guitar (not for the faint of heart though)dubious quality though. Best to try under saddle piezos if you're going to do that and thats another story again not for faint of heart taking drills to your pride an joy and drilling through the bridge and routing out saddle groove to get right intonation!!

Phew I digressed a bit sorry. But in summary me i'd buy a Grand Auditorium cutaway style and ensure it comes with factory fitted electrics. The body unplugged will give good sound yet you got the options

cheers
Chas

Chas, old buddy, normally I agree with you 100% but I think the choice of buying factory installed vs. after market pickups has changed dramatically in recent years. When buying a good guitar, there may be a very slight, if any, price advantage to factory electronics. Getting one after market should not be a deterrent.

Modern pickup technology has progressed significantly. Many aftermarket pickups are easily as good and often better than factory installed. K&K, B-Band, Schertler, PUKW and many others make fantastic pickups, be they under saddle, sound board or sound hole. They offer many different feature and price levels. Unless you get fancy with externally mounted pre-amps and volume controls the price to get them installed isn't prohibitive either.

Sometimes the "big boys" Taylor, Martin, Tak make deals with large pickup companies, like Fishman, that may not always be best for ever musician. Taylor for example has had a real problem with their "Expression" system and has switched from Fishman electronics to a proprietary system. Basically they put the same pickup system in all their guitars except for the very high end models. The jury is still out on the long term reliability of the new system.

Bottom line, I personally would not let whether a guitar had electronics in it influence my buying decision because I know that I can always get a really good after market pickup installed. The only advantage I see is not having to mess with it later and you can go home right now and plug it in!

Cheers! :cheer:


Chasplaya
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Joined: Sat Sep 20, 2008 8:41 pm
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Sat Oct 17, 2009 3:20 pm

BigBear wrote:

Chas, old buddy, normally I agree with you 100% but I think the choice of buying factory installed vs. after market pickups has changed dramatically in recent years. When buying a good guitar, there may be a very slight, if any, price advantage to factory electronics. Getting one after market should not be a deterrent.

Modern pickup technology has progressed significantly. Many aftermarket pickups are easily as good and often better than factory installed. K&K, B-Band, Schertler, PUKW and many others make fantastic pickups, be they under saddle, sound board or sound hole. They offer many different feature and price levels. Unless you get fancy with externally mounted pre-amps and volume controls the price to get them installed isn't prohibitive either.

Sometimes the "big boys" Taylor, Martin, Tak make deals with large pickup companies, like Fishman, that may not always be best for ever musician. Taylor for example has had a real problem with their "Expression" system and has switched from Fishman electronics to a proprietary system. Basically they put the same pickup system in all their guitars except for the very high end models. The jury is still out on the long term reliability of the new system.

Bottom line, I personally would not let whether a guitar had electronics in it influence my buying decision because I know that I can always get a really good after market pickup installed. The only advantage I see is not having to mess with it later and you can go home right now and plug it in!

Cheers! :cheer:[/quote]

Thats alright Bear you're allowed to disagree with me. The point which you did agree with though is straight away you have it to take home already for either acoustic or electric. BUt you also alluded to the aftermarket business, and that quality electrics are available, very true and don't dispute that and thats not my issue. The point I made is that the construction of non electrics and those factory fitted with is slightly different and to add on after wards requires profesional fitting to ensure the integrity of the guitar is maintained, if fitting active electronics which mean battery compartment etc then the original structure wasn't designed to carry the extra weight in them, also the tone can be adversely affected. Thats why I only mentioned passive piezos as they are lightweigt easy to install (relatively) yourself. The difference in initial cost shouldn't detract as the aftermarket cost, if you get it done professionally with the quality pups is not cheap, or shouldn't be if done properly!

Bottom line should be...If you can never see yourself needing to plug-in then don't buy A/E, but if you imagine jamming with friends, playing with effects, or playing with a drummer and bass player in the future or if thats a goal then you need the option. My best sounding guitar (not the Cole believe it or not) is my Alhambra (Lisbeth) no electrics and I don't jam with it as it gets drowned out. And to upgrade it would change the tone forever, so its solo unplugged for Lisbeth all the time. Option buy more than one guitar lol


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