An acoustic guitar with microphones, pick-ups and transducers is often referred to as an acoustic electric guitar. It is these acoustic electric guitars which gives the pleasure of acoustic tones along with the electric capabilities. While acoustic guitars prove to be the best in producing melodious tones, electric guitars are known for their high volume tones and rocking music. With acoustic electric guitars which have specially designed pick-ups, one can achieve the desired volume levels.
An acoustic electric guitar is also called electro-acoustic guitar. Most often these electro acoustic guitars are confused with semi-acoustic guitars. However, electro acoustic guitars and semi-acoustic guitars are not the same since electro acoustic guitars are acoustic guitars with electric capabilities like amplifiers and pick ups while semi-acoustic guitars are electric guitars with hollow acoustic bodies.
Acoustic electric guitars, when necessary can be used as pure acoustic guitars for producing acoustic tones or can be used with electric capabilities. The acoustic electric guitars have either the mass microphones in the guitar body or the piezoelectric pickups fitted under the bridge of the guitar. It is these pickups which convert the vibrations in the body of the guitar into electric signals. Before feeding these electric signals to the main amplifier, they are amplified by a preamplifier fitted in the guitar body.
Equalizers with up to six frequency bands are used as preamplifiers in the electro acoustic guitars. Some of the electro acoustic guitars also have preamplifiers with a number of tone controls. The major advantage of using preamplifiers in the electro acoustic guitars is that, the necessity of a microphone is eliminated and the guitars can be plugged directly into the speaker system. This is the reason the electro acoustic guitars are often called plug-in acoustic guitars.
The electro acoustic guitar can be considered more as an acoustic guitar rather than an electric guitar. Most of the techniques used in the electro acoustic guitars are that of acoustic guitars. The electric signals which produce the tones are generated due to the vibration of guitar body or the top and not due to the vibration of strings. Thus the acoustic body of the guitar is responsible for producing the tones and only the amplification of the tones is being done by the electric plug-ins. The guitar on the whole resembles an acoustic guitar and has a hollow body.
Acoustic electric guitars are used for various types of music including classical music, folk, rock, pop etc. Due to their hybrid nature, the acoustic electric guitars can be used for all types of songs, whether a melodious music or a rock song.
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