Often, before you buy a guitar, the future musician asks himself the question, which instrument to choose, acoustics or electric guitar? In order to make the right choice, you need to know the features and the differences between them. Each of them, due to the specifics of its structure, is used in different styles of music, and both methods are dominated by different playing methods. Acoustic guitar differs from electric guitar in the following ways:
- Hull structure
- Number of frets
- String fastening system
- Sound amplification method
- Game tricks
For a good example, compare What is the difference between an acoustic guitar and an electric guitar? on the picture:
Body and sound amplification system
The first difference that immediately catches the eye is the body of the guitar. Even a person who does not understand anything in music and musical instruments will notice that the body of the acoustic guitar is wide and hollow, and that of an electric guitar is solid and narrow. This is because sound amplification happens in many ways. The sound of the strings must be amplified, otherwise it will be too weak. In an acoustic guitar, the sound is amplified by the body itself. For this, there is a special hole in the middle of the front deck, called "socket", the vibration from the strings goes to the body of the guitar, is amplified and goes out through it.
The electric guitar does not need it, since the principle of amplifying the sound is completely different. On the body of the guitar, where the acoustic is a "socket", the electric guitar has magnetic pickups that pick up vibrations of metal strings and transmit to the reproducing apparatus. The speaker is not installed inside the guitar, as some might have thought, although there were similar experiments, such as the Soviet guitar "Tourist", but this is more a perversion than a full-fledged electric guitar. The guitar is connected by connecting the connector "under the jack" and the entrance to the equipment with a special cord. In this case, you can add to the connection path all kinds of "gadgets" and guitar processors to change the sound of the guitar. On the case of an acoustic guitar there are no switches, levers and input "under the jack", which is on the electric guitar.
Hybrid Acoustic Guitar Types
Acoustic guitar can also be connected to the equipment. In this case, it will be called "semi-acoustic" or "electroacoustic". Electroacoustic is more like an ordinary acoustic guitar, but it has a special piezo pickup that performs the same function as a magnetic pickup in an electric guitar. Semi-acoustic guitar is more like an electric guitar, has a narrower body than the acoustic one. Instead of the "socket", it uses effects for playing in the non-connected mode, and a magnetic pickup is installed for connection. You can also purchase a special pickup and install it on a regular acoustic guitar yourself.
Frets
The next thing you should pay attention to is the number of frets on the neck of the guitar. On an acoustic guitar, they are much smaller than on an electric guitar. The maximum number of frets on acoustics is 21, on an electric guitar up to 27 frets. This is due to several factors:
- In the neck of an electric guitar there is an anchor that gives it strength. Therefore, the neck can be made longer.
- Due to the fact that the body of the electric guitar is thinner, it is easier to get to the extreme frets. Even if the acoustic guitar has a cutout on the body, it's still difficult to get to them.
- The neck of an electric guitar is often thinner, which makes it easier to access extreme thresholds on low strings.
String fastening system
Also, an acoustic guitar differs from an electric guitar in that it has a different string fastening system. On the acoustic guitar there is a tailpiece in which the strings are fixed. In the electric guitar, in addition to the tailpiece, there is often a bridge that allows fine tuning of the height, and in some types, string tension. In addition, many breeches have an integrated tremolo lever system, which is used to extract a vibrating sound.
Game tricks
The differences do not end on the device of the guitar, they relate to the methods of playing on it. For example, vibrato is extracted on an electric guitar and acoustics using various methods. If on an electric guitar, vibrato is extracted mainly by small movements of a finger, then on an acoustic guitar, by a movement of the whole hand. Such a difference is present, because the strings on an acoustic guitar are strung more tightly, which means that it is much more difficult to make such small movements. In addition, there are techniques that are generally impossible to perform on an acoustic guitar. It is impossible to play on acoustics by tapping, because in order to get a loud enough sound when performed, you need to significantly increase the volume, and this is possible only on an electric guitar.
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