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When I say "shallow" in this context I don't mean "thin" or "lacking in depth and roundness", I mean lacking in subtlety and variety.
Electric guitars (well, actually pickups and pedals and amps, mostly) have a huge variety of tones available, they can do so many, many different things. Acoustics are far narrower in their range of abilities. Against this, no electric can match the extraordinary breadth and subtlety of tone an acoustic can deliver. I would not for one moment claim that either instrument is "superior" to the other, they are just different.
Otherwise why bother. We are talking about making music here, or I thought we where.
just because you do, doesn't mean you should.
I love playing the guitar. Any guitar. Some I like playing more than others. They are all built to bring pleasure but some are way more pleasurable to play than others. I just hoped someone would actually have some wisdom to pass down rather than the usual you need to build up your strength in your fingers bollocks in order to play a proper guitar. I did that over 30 years ago. This thread merely confirms to me what I already knew!
A manufacturer might try and put a tunamatic Bridge on an acoustic (some have) but my guess is that neither Bert or Ed want one for their style of playing
just because you do, doesn't mean you should.
Electrics have a far greater variety of tonal possibilities. (Largely because of pedals, but amps also help with this.) Acoustics have greater depth of tonal colour within a narrower palette. Both statements are straightforward and I should not have thought they were difficult to understand, or indeed verify.
1: You need to put more physical energy into an acoustic guitar to get it to make a decent amount of noise. This isn't design or manufacture or even setup, it's physics. The energy to make sound from an electric guitar comes out of a 240 volt plug. That energy, passed through some electronics, makes a speaker cone vibrate, which is what we hear. The energy to make an acoustic guitar top vibrate, in contrast, is entirely provided by your fingers (passed through the strings, the saddle, and the bridge). To make the instrument work at all well, you need heavier strings and a higher action. It doesn't have to be a lot harder to play, but it does require more muscle and there is absolutely nothing anyone can do about that without turning it into an electric instead. To get the energy out you have to put the energy in.
2: Acoustic guitars are vastly easier to play than they were in (say) 1975. Even a dirt cheap one today will usually be more-or-less playable at a pinch. That was certainly not true 50 years ago.
3: Acoustic guitars don't have two-way adjustable action like most electrics because it is generally believed that a mechanism designed to provide that would kill the tone. Now and again companies have fitted acoustic guitars with adjustable bridges similar to those on electric guitars. These models have never become popular and the majority of instruments so equipped end up getting retrofitted with a conventional acoustic saddle. So far as I know, no-one even makes them anymore. (I've never played one so I can't comment on what it does to tone from first-hand knowledge. But a basic understanding of the physics of the flat-top acoustic guitar suggests that it would be very difficult indeed to make the idea work. I see no reason, however, why it shouldn't be worth a try on an arch top, which has different physics.)
4: For these reasons, acoustic guitars almost always use a traditional saddle made from bone or a similar material. It is a simple matter to adjust a saddle downwards by sanding a little off the bottom of it. It is non-trivial to adjust it upwards. You have to either shim it (not always a great idea) or else replace it with a taller one. Now you can see why acoustic guitars usually ship with a saddle adjusted to be a little on the high side of what most people would consider perfect. Manufacturers know that every player has different requirements, uses different strings, plays with a different technique. So they ship guitars with the action slightly higher than ideal, knowing that the user will adjust it to suit him or herself. It costs very little to have that done. Many shops will do it on a new guitar free of charge.
Another life changer was discovering Newtone Heritage strings, for the past couple of years the Torridge has worn 11’s, I’ve just restrung it this afternoon with 12’s, same as my Martin and old Tak, if you’re ever down this way, look me up and come and have a play, good luck in your quest, Mike.
Nice one Mike, if I am I will!