The car was too overfilled to bring my acoustic from Michigan to our winter home in south Texas. (BTW is drove 19 hours straight to get there)
I only have a mini luna acoustic here. Two things wrong with that: bad memory finger placement when switching to a full size and a poor sound. Oh yeah I left my AKG mic home too by accident. Only have a 58 here.
Anyway I am looking for another guitar for my mini studio. I had saved up about $3,500 mad money for a really good one, but gave it to my daughter for a surprise Christmas carpeting job in her home. ha ha Money well spent.
I canāt and wonāt use midi, so what is your first choice?
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My baby Martin records pretty well, although it wonāt give you the body of a full sized dreadnought.
Both Martin and Taylor have newer models that are reasonably priced, and Epiphone probably makes a good Gibson knockoff too.
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Hey Bob It has been a very long time since I bought a new guitar. I brought my PRS along, but after I play the Luna mini I have trouble with the full size again. I can close my eyes and play the Beatles blackbird on the luna now and it is a disaster going back to full scale. I have to ditch the Luna altogether.
Ok, thanks for the ideas and i will hit marketplace this aft. best to you
I have a Baby Taylor which I only really use when on holiday. It takes a few days of getting used to it. I usually play too heavy handed first few days! But after a couple of days I start to love the sound. My wife says it makes me sing softer (and therefore better in her opinion). Wrote quite a few songs on that little baby! I donāt know the mini Luna, but Iād say: donāt ditch it, but use it effectively. You might want to experiment with mic placement and such to get a reasonably full sound (maybe more towards the soundhole instead of the 12th fret?). Anyway, if youāre recording bass and drums, you donāt need all that much low mids or basses anyway, so it might just sound fine in the mix. I donāt know if youāre a hard hitter like me, if so, you know what to try 
And when you buy a full sided acoustic again, it itāll be a wonderful revelation to have that full sound. A bit of change is good for you, even at your age Paul 
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I bought a Luna for my granddaughter. I played it for a couple of weeks just before Christmas. It has a really nice sound. I get down here to Texas and this one does not sound half as good. I might try some strings? I know guitars differ alot in sound. I had this one mailed to me.
I play the bass direct. I actually tune it on my Boss 770 and donāt even run it through. Amplify only.
I have EZ drummer and it is easy to tweak, but Iām not happy with the lack of choices in there.
BTW, my age is finally take itās toll on me. I am down to only 11 military push ups:)
I may be out of my league here for guitar pundits but my vintage Yamaha 335 II Dreadnaught is worth a mention here. It does surprisingly well on recordings when paired with a ribbon mic. For sound it rivals many expensive models out there when comparing recordings. There is just something about this model.
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Ah vintage Yamahaāsā¦ My first love was an FG 300. Bought it in 1972 in Manchester England. It finally died when my son sat on it during a camping trip about 10 years ago. It was my faithfull companion during all my early years of busking bars and cafeās (and streets sometimes too).
Iāve heard this argument quite often: these guitars were well made but made out of laminated woods none the less (not sure about the top). So they donāt have the BIG sound of a Martin or Gibson dreadnought, i.e. less bass, less resonances. Which is often just what you need for recording or - in my case for amplifying with a pickup.
Thatās bad news. But then I doubt if I can survive 11. The military push up: is that the one where you clap your hands before coming down again 
?
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Top is spruce I think.
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I guess so, just canāt remember. The FG 300 was a pretty solid thing, even had Gibson- like ātunomaticā like bridge (tunable per string).
Oh, I just found a link to a guitar just like my old FG 300. It confirms my suspicion it was a laminated top.
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I have a Tanglewood solid spruce that records nice
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My Martin D-28, although very un-original, provides great results. There are hundreds of great guitars out there and all of them will work as long as you play them well and record them in a decent sounding room with a proper mic position.
Rhythmic stuff in a pop/rock production will tolerate a lot of different combinations but as the guitar gets more exposed in the mix, the guitar and mic choices become more important. My worst experience was recording an artist who was soloing on an acoustic without a pick, with just the soft tip of his index finger. You could hear finger and fret noises twice as loud as the notes themselves.
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Glad you said that about thumb picking. I have always not used a pick, but could hear āthoseā noises as well. I am going to try and get a little farther away and try using a pick again. It does sound sweet tho sitting in your lazy boy. ha ha thanks for you thouhts
Tanglewood sound like wood laminating gone bad. have to look that one up. cheers
I play a Takamine P3DC which I absolutely love. I do wish I had a Martin tho! 
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Iāve got a cheap Yamaha F-310 with a bad neck (strings are high off the neck. I hardly ever play that guitar. Iāve also got a Tradition (6 string acoustic) that has issues with the high E string popping off the neck and getting stuck in the twelfth fret. I bought it for $50ā¦Itās probably about $100 brand new. Thatās my main 6 string acoustic.
Iāve been wanting a 12 string acoustic and an electric acoustic for years, so I finally pulled the trigger and bought the cheapest one I could find on Amazon ($220 Canadian dollars which equals $173 USD). Itāll be hard to find a cheaper 12 string, electric-acoustic guitar than that. Itās a Vangoa VA20CE BKM12.
Thereās loads and loads of cheap acoustic thatāll play well, sound good and record well. Some cheap guitars sound and play just as well as the expensive models. Now days you can get a much better inexpensive guitar than you could in the 70ās , 80ās and 90ās. Itās the same with many other instrumentsā¦Mics, basses, drums, RECORDING equipment, etc.
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Some of of them are very nice, mine has a AAA top too
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I almost always go to my Martin DCPA-1 when recording acoustic. Youāve heard it in the vast majority of everything Iāve posted. The other one I use a lot is the custom Pimentel steel string, which I leave strung with āNashvilleā strings (the E-A-D-G strings are an octave higher than normal). But that one is always used to add texture and rarely is heard by itselfā¦
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Gonna check out that Martin. Your stuff has been like flawless, so I am a believer.
Wait a minute you canāt string those stings and octave higher. What? Something will break. I feel bad when I am winding up new strings to go a not too high. I have to google this. ha ha Hi Dave
ps I googled that number and no answersā¦it shows a D1?