Recommend acoustic

Cirrus

100% re; the Takamine thing.

Or going back further... Ovation 


The thing with acoustics is that you can't get around the need to go and try them. They have less ways to adjust the setup/playability than most electrics, and there's no substitute for playing a bunch in quick succession to see what sounds and feels right. That gives you valuable context - most acoustics in isolation just sound like acoustics, it's when you try a few back to back that you notice one has a harsh sound, another has congested mids, another has very little body etc etc.

If you trust your ears and fingers, it's hard to go wrong. I recently picked a 20 year old laminate back and sides Martin with a bolt on neck over a number of solid wood, much nicer decked out acoustics. It sounded and played better than any of them, and after 2 hours in the shop I realised it was going to come home with me.

bertie

Give Faith a go,  not sure which model is OM sized,  I had the parlor for a while - lot of bang for ££  

I really like my Tanglewood parlor - all solid woods (but in a previous thread the make split opinions)  -  again, not sure which model is their OM, but I think you'd get an all solid for that money

Not sure if Eastman can be got for that kind of ££,  Ive never been a fan of the lower end "big names"  

Recording King certainly worth a try

earwighoney

bertie said:

Give Faith a go,  not sure which model is OM sized,  I had the parlor for a while - lot of bang for ££  

I really like my Tanglewood parlor - all solid woods (but in a previous thread the make split opinions)  -  again, not sure which model is their OM, but I think you'd get an all solid for that money

Not sure if Eastman can be got for that kind of ££,  Ive never been a fan of the lower end "big names"  

Recording King certainly worth a try

I have guitars by Eastman and Recording King, the Eastmans I own and have played (the ones around £500) are vastly superior in quality, but the RK has a particular sound which really suits certain applications. The RK sounds the best for playing with a slide for example.

I'd attempt to play these and the Faith, Tanglewood etc to see which one suited the individual the most.

BigPaulie

ICBM said:

bertie said:

Id only really be looking at a "thin"  A/E  if you're looking to use it live.  If you want to just "get into"  playing acoustic more,  get a "normal"  depth body,  and TBH leave out the electronics  - you'll get much better bang for buck and better tone/fullness of sound

This - unless you actually *need* an electro-acoustic (for playing live, or because using it with effects is your main objective) then don't get one - you'll spend more money than you need on a less good guitar than you can get if you buy a plain acoustic. The electronics package does compromise the tone to some extent as well.

Even if you want to record with it, you'll get better results with a mic or a simple pickup and an impulse response/modelling-type system than with a typical electro.

They also have reliability problems and the system will be obsolete before a decent guitar has even aged nicely, and usually very difficult to replace with something different without major work to the guitar because they are very rarely designed to be backwards-compatible.

If you wonder how obsolete a pickup and preamp system can be in twenty years, listen to the sound of a 90s Takamine .

Expand that to include just about any '90s MTV Unplugged performance where they didn't actually use mic'd acoustics.

Most of those performances sounded absolutely terrible. The only things that were acoustic were the drums and vocals. I'm sorry: if you're playing an "acoustic" guitar with a piezo pickup into an acoustic amp, or going DI, you can't claim to be "Unplugged" at all.

ICBM

BigPaulie said:

Expand that to include just about any '90s MTV Unplugged performance where they didn't actually use mic'd acoustics.

Most of those performances sounded absolutely terrible. The only things that were acoustic were the drums and vocals. I'm sorry: if you're playing an "acoustic" guitar with a piezo pickup into an acoustic amp, or going DI, you can't claim to be "Unplugged" at all.

Ironically, Kurt Cobain with his Bartolini magnetic pickup going into a Fender Twin and then mic’ed is arguably *more* acoustic than a DI’d Takamine where there is no actual air in the signal path from guitar strings to recording equipment at all.

It sounds better too!

BigPaulie

ICBM said:

BigPaulie said:

Expand that to include just about any '90s MTV Unplugged performance where they didn't actually use mic'd acoustics.

Most of those performances sounded absolutely terrible. The only things that were acoustic were the drums and vocals. I'm sorry: if you're playing an "acoustic" guitar with a piezo pickup into an acoustic amp, or going DI, you can't claim to be "Unplugged" at all.

Ironically, Kurt Cobain with his Bartolini magnetic pickup going into a Fender Twin and then mic’ed is arguably *more* acoustic than a DI’d Takamine where there is no actual air in the signal path from guitar strings to recording equipment at all.

It sounds better too!

I totally agree

fendergibson

Try a Taylor Big Baby…and thank me later 

Smellyfingers

Second hand Taylor 110es seem to be plentiful on the used market last time I looked for around £350-500 mark. 1. Taylor mexicos plant qc is said to be top notch so probably difficult to find a dud. 2. Acoustics guitars are all Taylor do. 3. Martin Co hates them.

But maybe a bit sterile, but you can't really go wrong imi.