Which should I choose?

From:  "Eloise"

What is a bass guitar? What is an electric guitar? What is an acoustic guitar? What is the difference between them? I'm trying to decide which to play, and I thought it would help if I knew what they were (ya think?). Please help me out!

TB helped out with this: 

First you must decide what kind of music you want to play. Then look at the musicians who play that kind of music and see what type of instruments they play. A bass guitar is a instrument that produces tones in a low register.
There is no one size fits all for guitars.
if you are looking for tech info, this web site has a ton of links: click here
This site has a lot of info on guitars click here also

Guitarist wrote this report for us: 

I'll start with the acoustic guitar question. All instruments that make musical sounds that you can easily hear are acoustic instruments. For example, a violin, drums, trumpet, and flute are all acoustic instruments. The sounds are created by the compression and rarefaction of waves of air molecules. These "pulses" in the air are usually created by passing air through a pipe (like a trumpet or a flute) or by forcing a string/surface to move (like a violin string or the drum skins). The sound is amplified through the body of the instrument as it resonates, generating louder and louder sounds, and this is what creates the pleasing musical acoustic sound.
In the case of the acoustic guitar, you pluck a string and you hear the guitar. The big hollow body amplifies the sound and this is what you hear as the body of the guitar is vibrating.
By nature, the acoustic guitar cannot get louder beyond a certain point. Bands were becoming louder and louder, and the guitarist could not keep up in volume. Many attempts were made to increase the volume and projection of the guitar. The first thing done was to increase the size of the guitar body. There's still a limit, though, which is imposed by the guitarist's comfort. Nobody wants to play a massive guitar the size of a grand piano.
Eventually, transducers (magnetic pickups) were fitted to guitars, which essentially "picked up" the string vibrations and turned them into electrical signals which could be amplified through an amplifier and loudspeaker. The magnetic pickups are coils of wire around a bobbin. When the metal strings of a guitar vibrate, there is a change in the magnetic field of the pickup, and the pickup sensed it and did the conversion. This signal may be processed in MANY ways, giving electric guitars almost limitless possibilities today in the digital age for creating new sounds.
There are also piezo pickups, which I won't discuss. The majority of electric guitars are fitted with magnetic pickups anyways. Piezos are a nice little extra toy, especially in the amplification of hollowbodied acoustic guitars.
The problem with hollow acoustic guitars fitted with pickups was the insane amounts of feedback that the large hollow bodies generated. Feedback is that loud, annoying howling or shrieking sound when noise from a speaker is picked up, sent through the amplifier and speaker, and repeated over and over. You're probably very familiar with feedback which always seems to happen when someone drops an amplified microphone to the ground. So, variations on the large hollow acoustic guitar were created in an attempt to eliminate annoying hum and feedback, such as the solidbody electric guitar, which eliminates feedback and excess noise since there's no large hollow body for the sound to keep bouncing back and forth inside.
So, you have your modern day electric guitar. It's still an acoustic instrument to a degree, since you can hear the strings being plucked even if you don't plug in the guitar, but they're much too quiet to hear on stage. Plug the guitar into an amp and piss off your neighbors.
A bass guitar is a [typically] four-stringed instrument designed to carry the low frequencies in a band, often working with the drummer to set the groove and the rhythm of the song. Bass guitars may be acoustic or electric, following similar principles as guitar.
Bass guitar is a totally different animal than the guitars. My brother is a bassist, and that's his thing... he loves to groove and lay down the funk. I myself am a guitarist and I play electric and acoustic styles.
Yes, it also depends on the styles of music you want to play. Want to play classical? Buy a nylon-stringed classical acoustic guitar. Want to play pop, pop-rock, country, and folk? Buy a modern-day steel-stringed acoustic guitar, which come in many body sizes. Want to play country, rock, heavy metal, and jazz? Get an electic guitar. Of course, there are always variations... sometimes I practice heavy metal on my acoustic guitars. Bass guitars fit anywhere, but the playing styles differ.
Alright, for you theoretical musicians and physicists, correct any of the above crap that I may have gotten wrong. I prefer playing the damn things than being super-correct in the theory behind sound production.
Typically, beginner acoustic guitars, electric guitars, and basses can run around as low as $100 American these days. For maybe a hundred more, you can get starter packs that include most of the stuff you need to start off playing and learning. This makes guitar and bass very easy to try out, because if you try it and end up hating learning to play, you won't have wasted a ton of money experimenting, compared to a $500 clarinet.

i know all responded with this: 

a bass guitar is sort of like a stringed bass (that big huge instrument in the back of an orchastra)a bass guitar is electric, and has a low pitch range (sounds lower); acoustic guitar is a guitar that you do not plug in to amps make sound (like what John Denver plays); an eletric guitar is like an acoustic but u plug it into amps for sound (this is what you ussaly see in bands); each is cool but each has their set backs. if you get any eletric guitar then you need amps and other stuff for it

Curt muttered this: 

Bass guitar is a guitar that has lesser strings and produces a depper sond. An electric guitar is a regular guitar that produces a high or normal sound and an Acoustic guitaer is a country music guitar. I would suggest Bas or electric

KJ shared these views: 

About which guitar to play, if you don't know the difference between a bass, electric, and acoustic, then you shouldn't play guitar ever. Too many idiots like you go and buy a guitar, play with it for a month, then either quit or form a lame band with your friends that lasts another month, then quit. My advice: save your money so you can go to college and learn to think for yourself so you wont go out and buy an expensive instrument just because everyone else has one and claims to actually know how to play it.
That or buy a bass if your fat, regular electric if your cool or you want to be (you poser), or a acoustic if you've ever listened to john denveron purpose, ever. Squire Strats are good beginners guitars, Fender makes them so they are ok quality wise.

Midknight believes this: 

An electric guitar is a stringed instrument that uses magnetic properties the pick up vibrations from the steel strings. a bass is the same thing only plays lower tones. an acoustic is just as the name implies it picks up the vibrations form the strings and resonates them in an acoustic chamber... all three have very diferent sounds.

Jakolan concluded with this: 

An acoustic guitar is a six stringed instrument.
An electric guitar is a six stringed instrument played exactly the same as an acoustic but you can plug it in to an amplifier and increase it's volume. Because it is electronic you have many more options as far as changing the sound with effects modules.
A bass guitar is a four stringed instrument and is most often electric, not always. The four strings are the same as the four lowest strings on an electric or acoustic guitar but for the fact they are tuned one octave lower to create a deeper sound. In general you will only play one note on one string at a time on a bass whereas on a guitar you may play two or more creating harmony.
Buy an acoustic. It's cheaper because of the lack of accessories and once learned you will be able to play them all.