I had not played the Fender for two years and got it out the other day and relearned " Honkey tonk women" an old Stones song . never listened to the lyrics but loved the tune . but I noticed a big really big difference in the sound as to the acoustic. The acoustic is natural and a sweet sound while the Fender is awake to the digital age . I like the acoustic better is why I am writing this . I wondered about everyone else’s opinion and would like to hear from as many as will reply. They both have their place in my opinion . I might mention noting the Fender was a breeze LOL http://www.smileycons.com/img/emotions/232.gif
Electric / acoustic?
ya Welder you gotta work for the acoustic sound!! :mrgreen: I played a jazz archt. the other day like I used to a few years ago and like you said absolutely effortless as compared to my acoustic. But the bluegrass didn’t sound right on it! 
Nothing like wood and steel .
Interesting topic Ken, thanks for the post.
It’s like you said:
— Begin quote from "welder4"
They both have their place in my opinion .
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I think it’s more than an opinion, it’s just how it is. There’s as many different kinds of guitars (or any instrument) as there are different kinds of music. There’s also many different applications within just one style of music.
Personally, I love flatpicking bluegrass more than anything… by far, but I like about anything. I love rockabilly and sometimes like to work on that for a change. I also love the sound of a nylon string guitar around Christmas time, not so much classical, but just the sound of nylon strings playing the right song. I love blues on a Strat as well as classic rock on a Les Paul. I like to hear a good jazz player. I even like the sound of the Ramones (I cringed as I typed that, but it’s true).
Mark Knopfler is one of my favorite guitar players ever, what a style he has. He does acoustic or electric equally as well. So it goes back to your original quote. Isn’t it great that we have so many choices.
Sorry, I got off track. Your original question was what do we like better, a Fender or an acoustic. At 51, I lean more and more towards the acoustic (most of the time…).
That is why I posted to get input and your input is great. I liked the way you explained your feelings on it . they all have their place and if they did not we would only have one type of instrument and that would be very sad . The main thing is keep at it and some day you will be gone and someone will say, “man I liked the way that guy played guitar” . thank you for the post I enjoyed reading it .
I am about 99% acoustic if you count when I am playing an acoustic/electric (which is 3 or 4 times a week). So, if I vote with what I play, I’m an acoustic guy.
Acoustic or electric, electric or acoustic? How about digital?
I recently cleared out about 10 guitars from the stable. Each guitar has a different reason for existence. Right now, I am mostly playing acoustic guitar because bluegrass has me focused. There was a time not long ago when all I played were archtops and classicals. Then there was the electric phase when I was playing mostly funk and fusion music. So there is the solidbody single coil electric and the solid body with humbuckers, the dreadnought steel strings (rosewood and hog) and the 000 steel string and the dreadnought 12 string, the acoustic nylon string and the thin body electric nylon string, and finally the digital electric and the archtop semi-hollowbody. Those are the guitars I kept as they all have different characteristics that make them appropriate for different gigs.
I’m definitely not a collector (or I would have kept the 1909 Gibson A mandolin, or the 1925 Gibson archtop or the Martin 1920 style B mandolin or any number of old beautiful instruments). I’m just a guy who plays the guitar for whomever pays me to play. And guitars are tools to me; wonderful tools that inspire me to practice for no reason and help me to smile when smiling is in short supply.
Electric or acoustic? I cannot say. My life is so intertwined with this silly instrument that I cannot see my life in any other way.
Many years ago (about thirty) I was jamming with a friend. We would jam for hours and hours on end week after week, month after month. At the end of one particularly long and amazing jam day (over 6 hours straight), my friend looked up and said, “I hate the guitar!”. I laughed and replied, “Me too!”.
The guitar, it owns me and maybe someday, I will own it, or maybe not. All I know is that there are only a handful of years that I have not been playing the guitar and acoustic or electric, they both own me… in fact, there are 11 guitars that own me. They live at my house and I pay all the bills. And what is even funnier is that I feel like the lucky one.
Dr you are the lucky one . You have got to play all kinds of guitars and you have done well in your playing . 6 hours or 6 minutes it is all good . the music touches the soul . I used to change guitars like I changed socks I was clearing over $1200 a week for two years and I just went nuts buying and of course I always traded in so I wound up with three over more than 25 years . I can count myself lucky also . Like I always say , keep playing and making that music . I have thoroughly enjoyed the posts from this thread thank you all …
That’s an interesting choice of song to A-B Welder. The Stones did just that. The original tune was called ‘Country Honk’ and Brian Jones was still in the picture. Acoustic guitar and somebody sawing away on fiddle, it was as down home as a bunch of Brits could possibly get. When Mick Taylor came along he rearranged it and added the Electric Guitar to it, they called it ‘Honky Tonk Woman’, and of course it became a big hit. I have funny associations with that song, when I was 10 we’d visit our Grandparents and head to Wildwood NJ. I can remember hearing the tune, on the beach on the cheesy AM transistor radios, over and over again. I liked it, but I couldn’t understand a word Jagger was singing. I wouldn’t have got it even if I could. It was pretty risque stuff for the times.
I still don’t know the lyrics. I sing phonetics with it.
— Begin quote from "Jim_G"
That’s an interesting choice of song to A-B Welder. The Stones did just that. The original tune was called ‘Country Honk’ and Brian Jones was still in the picture. Acoustic guitar and somebody sawing away on fiddle, it was as down home as a bunch of Brits could possibly get. When Mick Taylor came along he rearranged it and added the Electric Guitar to it, they called it ‘Honky Tonk Woman’, and of course it became a big hit. I have funny associations with that song, when I was 10 we’d visit our Grandparents and head to Wildwood NJ. I can remember hearing the tune, on the beach on the cheesy AM transistor radios, over and over again. I liked it, but I couldn’t understand a word Jagger was singing. I wouldn’t have got it even if I could. It was pretty risque stuff for the times.
— End quote
I was only using the song because it caused me to go to the electric to play it and I noticed the difference and wondered what every one thought about the two types of guitar . Of course I had to play apache and J be Goode before I put the Fender away in its case .