I'm starting to get into electric more though even on acoustic I tended toward classic rock and blues. Another site suggests that a tone like an archtop acoustic is best for rhythm guitar. I have a Les Paul and a Fender Mustang III amp. What settings or model (of the 100 choices, most of which are distorted) would best approximate the archtop acoustic setting? You don't have to agree that that would be a good tone, I just want to know how to get it so I can evaluate it for myself. But I am open to other tonal ideas.

Since I have during practice inadvertently fallen back into acoustic strums on electric (which are too much and sound horrible to boot), where can I find some material on playing electric rhythm in a praise band? I'm not getting any particularly great ideas from listening to the original artists' renditions. I'm most interested in adding rhythm to some of these songs but not being too much. I can default to rakes on the really meditative stuff. And I can shuffle and gallop but there must be some other options? Stab chords and power chords on beats one and two aren't bad either. Ideas on tone and styles? Thanks.

Hey pal, welcome to the forum.

In my opinion you are far better off with your Les Paul for rhythm than an arch top acoustic. The arch top idea is from the 1930's and 40's. There are some fine (and advanced) players that play arch tops today, but in general terms, the arch tops are more trouble than they are worth for anything but a devoted player.

lesh,welcome to the Forum. It sounds like you know a little about guitar. The things you mentioned about rhythm guitar, do those things. As a rhythm guitarist you pretty much are the songs foundation, consistently playing the song. You will play the songs great. A Stratocaster would be an excellent rhythm guitar.

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you can save the world with your guitar one love song at a time it's just better, more fun, easier with a fender solid body electric guitar or electric bass guitar.

Obviously don't take what I say as gospel, this is just what works for me with my guitar and how I play.

Even when the song calls for strumming a full chord I tend to minimise actually strumming the bass strings (low E and A) on each strum. I find that they will sustain through quite nicely and then I can use the next 2 or 3 strums to keep the volume on the higher strings to stop the chord sounding a little muddy.

I also turn the distortion up a little so that normal heavier strumming sounded a bit of a mess, then I would try to strum lighter to prevent it from actually distorting, which helped me get a bit of a more delicate touch when playing. Plus that way I could play the rhythm nicely but then if I needed a bit more crunch through chorus' or solos you have it at the ready by just playing a little harder.


But like I said, this is just what I have done and I'm aware that this is probably not an ideal way to play, we'll let a more experienced player be the judge of that