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I currently have an acoustic guitar that I completely insert a lavalier microphone into the sound hole which is then connected to a zoom h2n recorder and from there to my various pedals (reverb, delay, etc). It works good but I was wondering if an electric guitar would work better especially when it comes to effects. Or would my setup work just as well?

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    An acoustic instrument naturally has “room” in it even when miced. Tap the body of your guitar, it’s a bit like a drum, it goes “boom” at least a little bit. A solid-body electric guitar has less of that. Are your effects just delay and reverb?
    – piiperi Reinstate Monica
    Apr 6, 2020 at 23:53
  • @piiperiReinstateMonica primarily but I may add more in the future
    – user34288
    Apr 6, 2020 at 23:56
  • Depends on intended use, I suppose. The microphone would still pick up additional noise. The other problem is that a piece of something inside the body will affect the instrument too. I am not sure how much of a difference it makes on acoustic guitars, but with woodwind instruments it does.
    – Pyromonk
    Apr 7, 2020 at 0:47

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I assume you’re using the Zoom as a preamp/phantom power source since you’re using a mic and going there before your effects.

Certain effects are well suited to both acoustic and electric such as reverbs, delays, compressors but some are suited more specifically for electric like distortion, overdrive, wah wah, etc.

The bottom line is acoustic and electric guitars have completely different characters. You should play whichever instrument serves the music you’re playing better, or better yet even switch back and forth between the two as you see fit. Effects are secondary, the effects serve the instrument, not the other way around.

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  • yes using zoom as you described. as for electric vs acoustic, it doesn't matter as I'm mainly doing post-rock stuff so they'd both work. up until now I've been using an acoustic but I have my eye on electric bc I've been experimenting with pedals lately.
    – user34288
    Apr 7, 2020 at 3:23
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Even on solid body guitars, there are sometimes feedback problems when using overdrive, distortion, etc. A mic inside an acoustic will surely exacerbate those problems.

Using reverb, echo, and such like won't cause too many problems from that point of view, although the volume control on electrics is often used as a control for the effect, which may be problematic in your set-up.

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  • thanks for calling it echo and not delay. I agree we should rename it.
    – user34288
    Apr 7, 2020 at 13:25

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