It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Subscribe to our Patreon, and get image uploads with no ads on the site!
Base theme by DesignModo & ported to Powered by Vanilla by Chris Ireland, modified by the "theFB" team.
Comments
Mainly because - before I started experimenting a lot, reading up stuff, talking to folks, modding, started building electrics, basses and acoustics - I wasted a lot of money buying, trying and quickly ditching acoustic guitars and deciding that acoustics were not for me...for exactly the reasons you state @rockmonster . And yes - I asked exactly the same questions as you are here.
I've cut and pasted your original questions in italics. My personal take on the answers are in bold.
How come so many people play acoustic guitars given that they (for me) are f@ckin impossible to play? More like a torture device than an instrument of pleasure!
I find many acoustics, especially low to mid range, in a typical store impossible to play. It is, as you say, torture.
I find: the nuts cut too high; the strings too high gauge; the action too high
The bridge height is miles from the top of the guitar and the strings are so far away from the fretboard why?
That is actually two questions...and I would add another category. There are, in come cases, some sonic advantages for the bridge and saddle to be quite high. There is, however, no excuse for the action to be too high. If the player is a hard strummer, then maybe 0.5mm higher than an electric action. I build/set up mine to average or low electric heights.
The category I would add is nut slot height. There is a reason, if you don't know the player's style, that the height of the nut slots might be marginally (we are talking tenths of a mm) higher than an electric. A nut custom cut for a hard strummer needs a teeny bit more clearance from the first fret. There is no excuse, in my mind, whether it is a factory built or 'hand crafted' for the slots to be cut as high as they often are
Is it the sound that decides this?
No - the saddle height above the guitar top can, in some circumstances, affect the sound. The action height above the fretboard doesn't.
Then the strings are the thickness of drain pipes. Impossible for me to play!
Broadly, for those for whom it matters, the thicker the gauge, the fuller will be the sound. Also, in my experiments, below 10 gauge most players and listeners will hear a tangible difference. However, if the rest of the set up is right, I would defy your average audience member to hear the difference between, say 10 gauge set and 12 gauge set. I personally fit a 10 gauge set for the three treble strings and an 11 gauge set for the three bass strings but, failing that, fit a set of 10's
Am I missing something?
why don’t the factories angle the necks so you have a chance to play up the dusty end?
They do. I don't know of any steel-string acoustic that doesn't have a neck angle. However, the angle isn't always right...and it's quite difficult (and sometimes not possible) to adjust it
They shouldn't be. You can't 'factory set up' an acoustic and, to get it right, it takes quite a bit of time. While I still can forgive a hand-built 'off the shelf' being set up for the worst case (pub hard strummer) it should still be well set up.
I know tone is important but Christ on a bike to what cost? I hear people saying that a setup makes all the difference but really are you acoustic players just super human? When I play acoustic guitar it sounds like I’ve just learning to play!
A good set up makes all the difference. And there are further tweaks that can - in many cases - make a HUGE difference to the tone
My take. Feel free to agree or not as you wish
It's maybe surprising though, to some, just how high that is.
Dead low might work if you have a really gentle touch, but what's rocknroll about that?!
Ian
Lowering my expectations has succeeded beyond my wildest dreams.
And which saddle is easier to adjust, an acoustic or electric? Most would say the latter.
But no matter. I’m feeling pretty lucky right now, as I’ve always been an acoustic player first and foremost. I’m not great at it or anything — no Mike Dawes or anything approximating that. I can play a lot of Elliott Smith songs, unplugged 90s stuff, the usual Beatles and Zeppelin stuff. And most importantly, I never found an acoustic guitar anything other than fun to play.
I did already mention that everybody's ideal set up is different and no two are exactly the same therefore how do manufacturers set up for everybody? Answer is that they don't.
You could also try lighter strings but I think its been mentioned anyway.
As much as I loved the sound I found it difficult to play cleanly - it seemed to magnify mistakes like sloppy fingering when fretting.
Eventually I had it set up, the ease of playing increased drastically. The sound I enjoyed is now accessable without anywhere near the effort before a setup.
You'll never get the strings to bend like on an electric, but then that's not what you want is it? Otherwise you'd stay with electrics.
My strings are Elixir 12s, so bending them significantly would require a few weeks practice in lifting 10kg weights by your fingertips first!
Get a set up and stick with it, the pleasure gained is worth it.
just because you do, doesn't mean you should.
Hammer ons & bends are easier, less tension on the cedar top and it sounds the best it ever has done. Sticking with these now for this guitar.
Just goes to show the journey never ends - 38 years to find that sound! Lol.
Some of it depends on what you are going to play. If you're never going past the fifth fret and doing campfire songs with mostly open chords, the action doesn't have to be that low to be easy to play. If on the other hand you are hammering on all over the dusty end, a lower action will help somewhat, then again, if you are playing slide, a low action risks fret clattering noises. Adjust it accordingly and you will find it is the easiest it can be for the style in which you play, and if there is more than one style in which that is, then get more than one acoustic and set them up accordingly.
For example, I have a Fender MA10 acoustic which I use for blues slide playing, to which I added a PAF to over the soundhole, so it can get a bit of a growl if necessary with that amped up, but the main reason I use that for slide, is because, fairly unusually for a steel-strung acoustic, it has a neck to body join at the twelfth fret, which makes it ideal for sliding up to the octave and that being nailed on when you do so because the body stops you from passing it. I wouldn't use it for any other style of playing, so I'm happy for it to have a fairly high action.
Likewise I have a big Epiphone acoustic for a much more boomy sound, a smaller Silvertone one for all round use which has one of those add-on spring reverb units, plus a few electro-acoustics and some other odds and sods for various things, including a ten string Cuatro and a twelve string which I use for specific songs. They all find a use for different playing and they are set up differently to suit those styles.
Easy play | Zager Guitars
Personally I've seen too many 10 year old kids rip through bluegrass leads on dreads with 13's to think it's down to anything other than practice, technique and above all playing an acoustic like an acoustic (so lots of open strings, slides not bends, not holding down strings you're not actually playing etc)
I play with 11s on 25.5" scale
My YouTube Channel