@sue: As usual, the 'slinger is right. Join the Wood Party and let the room rule the final mix.

That said, as GM says, we can't all afford the big toys. (The good news is in economic downturns, people who did but don't really use them e-bay them. Watch the skies!)

I use a Godin nylon-electric a lot. It's fret-squeaky if I let the strings get too old or don't set the gain up exactly right, but it's a fair compromise for nylon. I used it for "Cecile". I have a Takamine steel six from the time when they were buying good wood to bust the American market and it passes for ok. I use a Godin electric/simulated acoustic LZW in rock bands for convenience. They are beastly heavy but the logistics of swapping out an acoustic for an electric on small stages in tight quarters with a ton of PA gear around us made them preferable. Also, in a lot country rock, the thinner sound closer to a Nashville string set-up is often preferred. I have a Rickenbacker 12 string a la the Byrds for studio work. They are too touchy live but infinitely better than the old Ventures era electric 12 that was built like and played like a battleship. I need a really fine Martin and play my brother's when he comes to visit. I have a Lyons & Healy Troubadour harp for noodling on late at night when the dogs have gone to bed. I have a pretty standard church spinet for noodling the children out of bed in the morning. There are other instruments about but those are my favs. Of course I have a pre-CBS Strat. Everyone must.

The challenge for a songwriter these days is needing a lot of gear for home recording. I have way too much obsolete stuff now after bands and twenty five years of home recording. I've finally whittled that down to basics but... there is always more software. The Melodyne plug-in for example, is miraculous for vocalists working alone who like to compose harmonies. Being able to treat a wave file like a midi note is charming. In-authentic, but productive if working alone.

One decent (not cheap but not crown jewels) microphone overcomes many obstacles.

I do recommend the MamaBear from Q-Tar if you need lots of pretty good acoustic analog sounds for cheap. Rick Turner was the genius at Alembic, board man for the Dead, and now works with Dave Neely. The who's who of who uses their axes and electronics is whoier than most lists. I want to try one of Billy Asher's guitars some day because by rep he is very good and of course because I was/am nuts about his Mom.

I've got Martins. A 1937 Gibson L50 (flat-backed sunburst archtop with a round soundhole) a couple of handmade Vic Schwarz parlor sized, and some beaters I'll let anyone play. It's an illness. I love good musical instruments!
There's some more, but they're not guitars.

No emoticon conveys enough envy!

Talking abouth guitars remind me of this song :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d5begHSoQ1s

Great song Guitarman, gotta love it. By the way, I play a guitar handmade oldschool by my friend Larry Wettig. It's modeled on a D-28 Martin. In my dreams I play a D-45 and some nights a triple 0-18.....

Just so's ya know, my Big Blue uses a simple Fishman Transducer under the bridge, no EQ, no nothing, just the simple transducer itself. If we really want it to sound good, we'll power it with a Pendulum pre-amp (little box with a knob) by the end pin. It uses phantom power. Altho, most of the time will connect thru a fishman Aura box (using none of the presets), a it makes it easy to tune on stage while pretending to do something else.

The same Pendulum pre-amp goes into the other guitars as well, as does the connection to the Aura - depending on which system we're suing that night.

That makes sense. Simple, fewer moving parts and clean. Trust the board person to get the eq and foldback right. Smart strategy for live. I'm guessing the composite isn't as sensitive to feedback. I will look into the Aura.

So you're suing the system. Lots of that going around these days.

So long as he's suing the system and not the sound guy I'm ok with it. But maybe that's because I often happen to BE the sound guy at our local weekly concert series.As a matter of fact I will be working for/with Michael Smith( Author of "The Dutchman) tommorow night, why don't you all stop by? I ain't had nobody try and sue me yet. Not that I have not given them just cause on occasion....

But, back on topic.....I still like the sound of wood better!

A folksinging friend of mine , a bit of a purist, and my original sound guy mentor, never liked, or even used a pickup and prefers to mike his Martin. He describes a pickup as " A $350.00 device to make a $5000.00 guitar sound like a $350.00 guitar".

True, Larry. You know when the stage is 'lively' with lots of mics and foldback as is typical of vocal bands, those extra guitar mics are point sources of trouble. It's more a problem when one is in a club or small room without good professional support and not enough time to do good soundchecks. It's nothing expertise and time with good gear can't get around. My point is a big percentage of trouble starts with complex toys that don't add enough bang to be worth the hassle. Once upon a time I would go on stage with four axes, a mandolin, harmonicas, keyboards, synth axes and so on just so we could play a few Beatles and Floyd tunes *right*. For a $400 gig, that's sort of ... crazy.

Now, one axe or at most two, a good mic, amp only if I have to and let the board man do what he does best. If I understand Arlo, he has the right stuff, he has the power, he keeps it simple to keep it clean... just guessing here. It's a philosophy.

I feel smal with my little amp

Well, I've been at it for a few years now, and I'm no expert.We are run by volunteers. Our place is a small room that can fit 200 or so folks, though we often only have around 100 give or take. I don't get too challenged most of the time since we are largely acoustic. But sometimes in a small room when we get a drum kit or use the piano(as opposed to an electronic keyboard) it can get "fun". We run a simple mono system and I do more with my ears than my brains it would seem.
Soundchecks are important, and with many people I'm done in 5 minutes, with some others or groups with lots of various toys it can take alot longer. And then of course once the room fills up and all those midranges get soaked up by the humans, sometimes things change on you more than you might expect. Am I rambling?
It's good to hear from people on both sides of the sound board, I'm always looking to pick up on stuff.
The sound guy should be like the referee at a sporting event......it's best when you don't know he's there.

Oh, having rambled on semi off-topic, I do wanna mention that the sound at Arlo's gigs is good . I did ask Bruce once how he kept up with Arlo changing guitars all the time through the same channel. Bruce explained that Arlo's guitars run through some kinda box where he can switch over to the balance for that particular guitar. Don't know what that toy might be called, but it's a nice one I assume. I often set people up with various guitars on seperate channels if they are very different so as not being required to ride herd over them.

I looked up the Fishman Aura and Transducer.

www.fishmanaura.com

This is similar to the Mama Bear. It is a signal processor that slices and dices the frequency and phase domains and tweaks these until the sound is like the room/mic/pickup combination in the studio. By shifting those domains, it is like having paramatric eq on each itty bitty piece of the specturm altering it until in combination, one gets a fat warm sound if so desired or other combination. That gets rid of a lot of electronic junk in the axe that has to be set per gig, keeps the tuning offline but accessible, and is just a whole lot simpler to work with live. It will also help someone like me with a semi-pro set up get a better more professional sound.

At Musician's Friend, the models vary but the price is definitely in the home hacker's price range.

Thanks 'slinger. Good pointer!

" A $350.00 device to make a $5000.00 guitar sound like a $350.00 guitar".

Hahaha that's good. Purists are, well.... purists. Using a $350.00 mic can make your $5,000 guitar sound like a $35.00 guitar too. That cuts both ways. We hardly ever EQ from the board as it's almost never necessary. If there are problems with a room we can adjust for it, but most times what you hear is flat... Nada else. No matter how you do it, the sound of the guitar has to go thru some electronic medium to be heard in the back of the room, especially with other instruments on stage. We've recorded dozens of records at this point always using mics as well as the transducer simultaneously on the guitar. Sometimes we've had half a dozen mics on the guitar at once. When it comes time to mix, almost every engineer over the past 20 years has used the transducer as the main component. A lousy guitar is the one you can't hear. The uniqueness of any instrument can be used to create wonderful music whether it's a 20 buck special at the hock shop, or a 50K wonder from a collector. But if you don't hear - it's a moot point.

And oh: If the sound of the instrument coming out of the speakers in a hall is the same as what you hear with your ear in front of the instrument, however you did it - It's Freaking Great.

Point taken, ADG.

When I was 19, a restaurant manager just out of country and sporting fresh long hair gave me $200 to buy two shures, two stands, an old 200 watt mono peavey PA head, and two columns with three tens a piece. I'd sit right between them about six or eight feet apart with a nylon I bought for $100 from the tall blonde in class and play for the steak eaters and salad munchers at Ireland's.

I miss that kid. He had a good sound. Filled the room for $50 a week.

I miss the blonde too.