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Fender DG-41SCE guitar.

An acoustic-electric guitar is an acoustic guitar fitted with a magnetic pickup, a piezoelectric pickup, or a microphone. They are also referred to^{[citation needed]} as a "plug-in acoustic guitar", for being able to simply "plug in" to a sound board without the need for microphones. They are used in a variety of music genres, where the sound of an acoustic guitar is desired but more volume is required, especially during live performances. The design is distinct from a semi-acoustic guitar, which is an electric guitar with the addition of sound chambers within the guitar body.

Usually, acoustic-electric guitars are fitted with piezoelectric pickups, requiring a preamplifier incorporated into the guitar body to amplify the signal before it travels to the main guitar amplifier. These preamps may also come with tone controls of varying types; equalizers with up to six frequency bands may be used.

Acoustic-electric guitar with slotted headstock and an electric sound hole pickup.

Various experiments at electrically amplifying the vibrations of a string instrument date back to the early part of the twentieth century. Patents from the 1910s show telephone transmitters adapted and placed inside violins and banjos to amplify the sound. Hobbyists in the 1920s used carbon button microphones attached to the bridge, but these detected vibration from the bridge on top of the instrument, the resulting signal was weak.^[1] Commercially produced jazz guitars from the 1940s on were most commonly hollow body guitars with pickups.

See also

• Electric guitar


• Semi-acoustic guitar


• String instrument

References