Semi Acoustic Guitars
Essentially, semi acoustic guitars play like an electric guitar while also lending your playing an acoustic guitar sound. They use the thinner strings of electric models.
Semi acoustic guitars have a sound box, and also come with one or more electric pickups. Because of this, semi acoustic guitars can be used for acoustic and electronic playing.
With some semi acoustic guitars, the role of pickups is largely that of alternative microphones, with a sound box meaning no further amplification is needed. But some semi acoustic guitars are meant to be used with amplifiers, and the sound box then plays amplified tones not achievable by the amplifier.
Some semi acoustic guitars have hollow bodies, others solid bodies. Some semi acoustic guitars lie in between the extremes, and can be used in electronic and acoustic roles.
Semi acoustic guitars produce a fuller and richer tone than their solid-bodied electric counterparts, but are prone to feedback when played through an amplifier. Because semi acoustic guitars can be amplified, they are much louder than acoustic models.
Although semis lend themselves to a variety of musical styles, they are particular favourites of big band guitarists and jazz players, because even cheap acoustic guitars sound warm, with bluesy and jazzy tones. A variety of manufacturers now produce semi acoustic guitars, ranging from relatively cheap acoustic guitars to much pricier ones. Though there is a growing number of semi acoustic guitar manufacturing firms, perhaps the best known are Rickenbacker, Gretsch and Gibson. The Beatles made Rickenbacker semi acoustic guitars famous in the 1960s.
BB King also made the music of semi acoustic guitars famous, with his trademark model, the Epiphone Lucille.
Cheap Acoustic Guitars
If you are looking for cheap acoustic guitars, it can seem tough, as certainly no-one is giving them away. You could trawl Ebay or look in the classified ads of music magazines if you are truly set on only looking at cheap semi acoustic guitars. But some cheap acoustic guitars to be found this way are not always of the best quality, especially for beginner players who need good instruments to learn on. The Internet is awash with cheap acoustic guitars precisely because so many students have given up playing them after a six-month struggle.
In the worst case scenarios, buying very cheap acoustic guitars could leave you with an instrument so frustratingly poor that you stop playing.
Whether you are looking only at cheap acoustic guitars, or at all kinds of semi acoustic guitars, here are few tips. It may sound obvious, but you must buy the correct size of instrument, especially when buying a beginner's guitar. So don't be tempted to consider instruments in the wrong size just because they happen to be cheap acoustic guitars.
Equally, don't look twice at cheap
semi acoustic guitars whose neck is not straight.
The 'action' in semi acoustic guitars is the distance between the strings and the frets. A low action (strings close to the frets) allows for faster and easier playing. A high action requires more force in your left hand and will slow down the accuracy of your left hand. Keep this in mind whether looking at cheap acoustic guitars or pricier models.
Even cheap acoustic guitars must allow you to press the strings easily, stay in tune and play in tune. Such factors are more important than the instrument's appearance, whatever kinds of semi acoustic guitars you are considering, but don't be put off in your hunt for cheap acoustic guitars. It's still perfectly possible to find good quality, affordable or
cheap acoustic guitars. Some manufacturers such as Vintage and Ibanez produce quality imitations of their more expensive counterparts and these are great yet cheap acoustic guitars.
If you shop around, proceed carefully and take good advice from a reputable dealer or seller, you'll be surprised at what you can find.
