Acoustic electric v.s pickup?

Question:Im trying to get my father to understand why i should get an electric acoustic rather then just a pickup...

Just for a reference i play on my youth groups worship team...

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: Im trying to get my father to understand why i should get an electric acoustic rather then just a pickup...

Just for a reference i play on my youth groups worship team...

So.... you have an acoustic guitar, and you want a semi-hollowbody rather than just getting a pickup for an acoustic guitar?

Well, number one would be feedback. If you guys play at any volume, you have to be careful with feedback with an acoustic guitar. You need a soundhole cover to start with. you'll want transducer pickups instead of the piezo pickups to get that warm acoustic sound. so yeah, the last answer was spot on in that regards.

you don't have to worry about feedback with a semi-hollowbody unless you are at full rock-concert volumes and your sound guy doesn't know what he's doing. your sound will be more electric, which means you can distort it and sound like a woody electric, but if you want to sound like an acoustic, you will need to treat your sound with some processing, like a Boss Acoustic Simulator pedal or something of that nature. Some good EQ might do it, too (a decent EQ pedal cutting low-mids ie cut 300hz-ish to start).

Oh, wait. Do you mean that you want to get an acoustic with a built-in pickup instead of the acoustic you have now that doesn't have one?

Hmmm. Well, in that case, after-market pickups are expensive, but the right kind actually do sound pretty good. However, when they come with the guitar they usually have built in EQ, and some actually have built in feedback control.

Look, it's a matter of price. Buy an aftermarket pickup and an EQ pedal (you will probably need one to balance out your tone, to cut bass especially, to avoid feedback, etc) or buy a brand new guitar with that stuff built in.

Honestly, I'd go with the pickup and pedal, unless you were going to spring for a pretty nice guitar, ie, spending at least 400 or 500$.

If modding your current instrument is going to be cheaper than buying a brand new one, you might be better served by modding this one, and saving up for the next one. I mean, if you break this guitar or something like that, getting the pickup transferred to a different acoustic is much cheaper than buying a brand new electro-acoustic guitar, right?

Cash rules everything around ... ahem. I guess what I'm saying is that you'll need to come up with some dang good reasons why you need a brand new guitar rather than just improving your existing one.

Saul

It depends on what type of pick-up. The common soundhole pick-ups don't sound as "acoustic" as a acoustic/electric guitar because they are magnetic - like an electric guitar. You can get transducer pick-ups though, and they can sound great. My favorite is the LR Baggs I Beam - you can install it yourself. It's $140 though, so if you've got a cheap guitar it may be better just to get a new Ibanez or Washburn (D10SCE) with a pick-up.