Acoustic Guitar Simulator

[Lee Baucum]

A friend of mine injured a couple of fingers on his left hand a few years ago. They are as healed as much as they will; but, it's getting harder and harder for him to play his acoustic guitars.

I'm wondering if maybe he should switch over to a solid body electric guitar, with lighter strings/action, and use an acoustic guitar simulator.

I was just looking at a simulator made by NUX. It is way over complicated for this guy.

Any thoughts?

By the way, this is strictly for chord strumming.

~Lee

[Lee Baucum]

Perhaps there are acoustic/ electric guitars with an electric guitar neck?

[Mike Auman]

It's not so much the neck as the action, since acoustic guitars often have higher actions than electrics.
For a left hand injury, there are some possible ways to make his current acoustic guitars easier to fret:

1. Tune down one fret and put a capo on the 1st fret. Some acoustic guitars have an excessively high nut to prevent buzz, requiring more finger strength unless you add a capo.
2. Have a luthier set up the guitar for the lowest possible action, including nut height, saddle height, neck relief, and string gauge.
3. Replace the nut with a Zero Glide nut, which is a zero-fret, giving you the same lower action as a capo. Best done by a luthier for acoustic guitars, there are different models and sizes for different guitar brands. Neck relief may need to be adjusted, but not usually.

[Chris Templeton]

Nylon string guitar?

[Darvin Willhoite]

I have a Godin Multiac steel string acoustic electric. It has a thin chambered body and plays as good as most electrics. It has a nice acoustic electric sound. They pop up pretty often on Ebay and Reverb.

[John Larson]

Taylor T5

[Darvin Willhoite]

I’ve had two Taylor T5’s and I never could get an acoustic sound I liked, the Godin gave me that sound right out of the box. I’ve had a couple of Taylor acoustics with the new, three knob preamp (I forget what they call it) and I never cared for them either. I like Taylor’s old Fishman preamp/EQ system much better.

[Walter Killam]

I love my Zager ZAD50 ez play guitar. It doesn't project like a Martin, but with decent pickup installed all I have to do is turn up the volume.

In addendum, I use a boss acoustic simulator on my pedalboard, in conjunction with splitting the neck coil, and trying to remember to play like an acoustic rhythm guitar it does a passable job, but it's not the same as my Zager, I can tell it's a simulator.

YMMV