Originally Posted by: faith83Wait, what's a folk acoustic? That sounds like what I should be playing, but I've not heard of it. ????

Hi faith83 ..this might help with an answer to whether a "folk" acoustic is what you should be playing.

The classification as assigned [u]today[/u] has nothing to do with distinguishing between a 6 or 12 string, tone or purpose per se. I suspect ambiguity and confusion stems from being any acoustic associated with the [u]folk music genre[/u] moving through the 1960s hippie culture and folk festivals rendered [u]any[/u] acoustic guitar used with that style a "Folk" guitar.

Time moves on, vocalbulary evolves. Today the assignation "Folk" to an acoustic by both manufacturers and observed convention generally but not exclusively appears to be an unofficial synonym for a Concert body sized acoustic. Here's an example. Scroll down to the Features sub-heading at the page that hotlinked loads for an example where the manufacturer mentions that in the text specifically. Prefix for that instrument in particular is AF for Acoustic Folk. Similarly their base Dreadnought follows a similiar nomenclatural convention with ...AD.

Concert bodied acoustics have become increasingly popular today, favoured over the Dreadnought by many for use either in the home/studio or easily amplified in larger venues for reasons which should be self apparent. I'm a Folk/Concert body acoustic fan and user.

They come in full body, cutaway body, slimline body which is usually coincidentially a cutaway, optionally with or without a preinstalled onboard preamplification & pickup system.

In recent years Ed Sheeran's popularity and high profile stage use of 3/4 size guitars has raised both the profile and staus of smaller bodied guitars such as the Parlor and Folk/Concert body leading to their greater popularity and adoption.