Difference Between Electric and Acoustic Guitar

Electric vs Acoustic Guitar

Electric and acoustic guitars are both stringed musical instruments with 6 strings. They are both the same size and produce nearly same sounds. Despite these similarities, there are many differences between these two types of guitars. Acoustic guitar produces sounds on its own while electric guitars have pickups that are used to pick up vibrations and convert into electric signals, to produce sounds later. This article attempts to find the differences between acoustic and electric guitars.

Acoustic Guitar

An acoustic guitar is acoustic which means that it produces sound on its own as it has a hollow body and the vibrations of the strings are amplified inside the body. The acoustic guitar does not require to be plugged into a PA system, to produce a sound. The noise produced by the strings is in itself the sound made by the guitar that gets amplified by the hollow body of the guitar. The string in an acoustic guitar is plucked by the player with his fingers or a steel instrument that vibrates the strings to produce sounds.

Electric Guitar

The body of an electric guitar is solid and not hollow as an acoustic guitar. This is because the strings of the guitar, when plucked, are converted into electric signals and later into sounds through a soundboard. If the guitar is not plugged into a soundboard, the sound produced by the vibrating strings is barely audible. The sound of an electric guitar is the result of a pickup device that picks up the vibrations and converts them into electric signals, which are fed into a speaker, to be heard.

What is the difference between Electric Guitar and Acoustic Guitar?

• Acoustic guitar is older than electric guitar that came into being in 1931.

• Acoustic guitar produces sound on its own inside the hollow body, whereas sound in an electric guitar is the result of vibrations picked up by a pickup device and converted into electrical signals that later fed into a speaker.

• If you are playing in front of a small audience, acoustic guitar is wonderful but when playing in front of a large audience in a large area, electric guitar is always preferred.

• The vibrating string in case of electric guitar send them to a bar magnet that converts these vibrations into electrical energy.

• Acoustic guitars sound pretty but lack the technical complexities of electric guitars.