lessen the sound

I would like to lessen the volume of my acoustic to avoid offending the nice people who live in the apartment next door. Can I muffle the sound so I can practice??

An acoustic is too loud? Geez. I understand your issue though...apartments are not guitar friendly places by any means.
Obviously you could play softer (or just with your fingers if yer using picks). But that only goes so far. Perhaps you could fill the body cavity with something like newspaper, or even just something to cover the soundhole.

Originally Posted by: R. ShackleferdAn acoustic is too loud? Geez. I understand your issue though...apartments are not guitar friendly places by any means.
Obviously you could play softer (or just with your fingers if yer using picks). But that only goes so far. Perhaps you could fill the body cavity with something like newspaper, or even just something to cover the soundhole.

Maybe that is why my neighbors were mad at me! I lived in a apartment building. I never talked to them or seen them actually until one day they were moving. I said "oh your moving huh?" and they were like yes and gave me the evil eye. I was like what the heck did I do. Now I'm guessing it might of been my electric guitar. I always played really low though(which really sucked!) but I guess that didn't help. I always use to think it was cause when me and my ex were.......nevermind, a little bite to much information!

the newspaper in the soundhole sounds interesting.. if not, you could always just play an electric unplugged..

Good idea! In fact this was my original idea and this is what I did before. But, somehow I let the guitar shop guy talk me into buying a steel stringed acoustic. I had two requests 1) not too noisy 2) versitile. I said "I am buying a guitar today" which I ordinarily wouldn't do except, in this situation, tere are no less than 10 guitar shops with 3 blocks.

This guy likes me and so I took his suggestion to buy this beautiful black S.Yairi acoustic. I think the guitar is a nice one and I think he cut me a great deal except that I cannot see any advantage of a steel stringed acoustic over either a nylon stringed acoustic(classical) or an electric. Is there any? I have the lightest strings I can buy and I still am having trouble getting a decent pull-off without having to man-handle the strings.

there are plenty of advantages to each. nylon string guitars are not meant to be played with a pick, they are meant to be finger picked.. they are mostly used for playing classical music. a steel string has it's own very distinct tone, and can be loud enough for people in a small vicinity to hear you, without you having to plug in to anything. plus it's the guitar you would normally play with a pick.

then there is electric, there are obvious advantages to this over an acoustic.. for one, you could plug it into an amp that was taller then you and have enough volume to blow the windows out of a house. OR, play it into an amp, then listen with headphones. it is much more versatile in it's range of tones, able to play anything from jazz to death metal.

it's preference really.. if the acoustic is too loud, then you could try to quiet it, so you can still have your acoustic sound and feel. or you could get an electric, and play it unplugged, or with a headphone amp.

I've never found a really satisfactory way to quiet an acoustic guitar. Playing it quietly requires a degree of discipline I just don't have. Stuffing the body with a towel or two ruins the tone, reducing my motivation to play it.

You're left with trying to find times that you can play without bothering your neighbors, finding another place to live (different neighbors), or getting a different guitar.

A hollow-body electric has just enough acoustic properties to let you play it 'unplugged' without bothering anyone (unless your walls are paper thin). But it will sound very different to you when you get to plug into an amp. That means suddenly having to adjust your technique. A solid-body guitar, or a hollow-body guitar with a headphone amp may be a more peaceable solution. Something like a POD will give you a potentially confusing array of effects to experiment with, but you can pretend to play a raging stack, without anyone else hearing a thing.