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It’s electrifying...

Posted on Wednesday, May 29, 2008 by Steve Busby.

Electro acoustic guitars, such as those made by Antoria, Vintage and Breedlove, are proving very popular at the moment, but if you’re not sure what they are or don’t know how they work, you may find this next blog entry a useful introduction.

An electro acoustic is an acoustic guitar with a pre-amp fitted (usually on the top bout of the guitar), normally powered by a PP3 9V battery. Volume and EQ controls are delivered by the pre-amp. The guitar also has one (or more) pickups fitted; these can be small microphones inside the sound box, or single coils at the top of the neck, on the sound board or under saddle/ bridge piezo pickups.

There are a couple of basic issues with electro acoustics which should be noted before we go on. Firstly they can sound completely different when put through an amp, to the acoustic tone. This is due to the depth of the sound box and the quality of the on-board pre-amp and pickups. Secondly, when plugged in, they can feedback quickly. There are several solutions to this problem; a feedback buster which fits neatly into the sound-hole certainly works well. Many pre-amps also have a great feature which is a reverse phase. This changes the ‘shape’ of the sound and overcomes a lot of the feedback problem.

Although you can buy kits to fit pre-amps into your existing purely acoustic guitar, this will involve some drilling to the sound box which may cause changes in the tonal quality of the guitar. It really depends on your ability and, to a certain degree, confidence in working on your guitar. Another method is to fit either a transducer pickup to the soundboard which attaches with a blob of blue-tack like material or a pickup which straddles the sound-hole. The straddle pickup is in my opinion, the better way to go. However, transducers have the benefit that they work with nylon strings and will fit to a large variety of instruments. Of course you can always just mic up your acoustic guitar too!

Purpose built electro acoustics have been made to deliver a consistent sound. So, if you’re in the market, I would recommend this option, rather than hacking around your existing guitar.

Shadow, L. R. Baggs and Fishman make some of the best pre-amps on the market and are usually fitted to purpose built electro acoustics you’ll find readily available. Of course there are other fine makes too, but these are some of the most common and highly regarded pre-amps.

John Hornby Skewes (JHS), for instance, has a range of Vintage acoustics which have a variety of pre-fitted single coil and piezo (bridge/ saddle) pickups by Shadow.

I personally prefer a guitar that sounds very similar whether plugged into an amp, without effects, or unplugged. Then inserting effects comes down to taste. It’s great to have that confidence that your guitar still sounds good ‘round the campfire’ or in a gig situation.

It makes a big difference what you plug into as well. Most amp manufacturers produce an acoustic amp option, some with in-built feedback busting circuits, as well as stereo options (with a balanced XLR socket on your guitar), and effects. Makes such as Kustom and Marshall produce great amps at the low to middle price band, while there are a number of more boutique/ specialist amps like AER that are in the higher bracket. There are lots of other manufacturers too.

Bottom-line is that you can get a reasonable sound on your electro acoustic if you select the clean channel on your electric guitar amp, so find a showroom that will let you bring in your amp and try it with an electro acoustic.

Price wise, entry level electro acoustics (of any reasonable quality) start at just over £100. Look out for ones with a chromatic tuner built into the pre-amp for this price; Antoria, in particular, has a great value for money guitar. For £150-350 the JHS Vintage series is recommended by many (including Guitarist Magazine June 2008). The highly rated Tanglewood , Takamine and Yamaha ranges are also well worth checking out. Of course above that there are many superb instruments (Ovation, Breedlove, Gibson, Martin, Taylor, Larrivee, etc.) and you may want to spend £1,000-3,000 on a premier example. If that’s the case you probably know what you’re looking for.

Electro acoustic guitars add great texture to just about any genre of music whether recording or live and add a tonally rich counterpoint to overdriven electric guitars.

I hope this has helped, remember as with everything nowadays, you don’t need to spend more than a few hundred pounds to have a professional quality electro acoustic guitar.