Acoustic Guitars and Amps

[banditguitarist1]

Im a total newbie when it comes to acoustic pickups and amps, being an electric player for a few years now I have all electric guitars and amps, but now me and my friend quit our post-hardcore band because we hated the music and we are going in a acoustic duo way. What I want to know if for shows would it be better to just have electrics with acoustic simulator pedals or to buy acoustic pickups and use regular amps?

Were still kids (16 and 17) and we are trying to avoid buying all new gear from the ground up especially me since I have a lot of high quality stuff, so my question is how can we get the best acoustic tone possible for live shows, without breaking the bank.

[stryker59]

i think you would be better off going the piezo pickup route(acoustic style pickups) instead of the acoustic simulator and running through a pa system. acoustic simulators can have tracking issues and can sound somewhat spikey imho!!

[banditguitarist1]

Thanks how much do you think it would cost? I have a fender DG-100 that sounds better then some Martin I have played and sound better to, would it be hard to do myself or no?

[stryker59]

i may have misunderstood......i thought you were adding acoustic pickups to an electric guitar.
for the dg-100 i would get an acoustic pickup for the soundhole.....there are several options available depending on how fancy you wanna get. another option would be to mic the guitar by placing an instrument mic such as a shure sm-57 in front of the soundhole when playing live

[banditguitarist1]

we want to go with the most cost effective way possible, wether its installing new pickups in our electrics, like a Piezo in my LP Studio, or getting soundhole pickups or acoustic simulators.

What i dont get is whats the difference of an Acoustic Amp to a regular tube guitar amp? Obviously there more tailored for acoustic guitars but what is the difference tone wise? If say I had a soundhole pickup in my acoustic and plugged into my Orange Rockerverb combo, would it sound the same as if I plugged into a acoustic amp?

Also how does the piezo system work in electric guitars? I have seen it on the Slash model but never understood how it worked. Thanks I know its kinda confusing were just looking for options money and soundwise for getting a great acoustic tone live however that is.