Do not buy a Dreadnought. This type of acoustic guitar tends to produce a boomy bottom end but lacks volume and definition in the top end. The Dreadnought is a great strumming and flat picking guitar.
Do buy an Auditorium, OM (orchestra model), triple O (OOO) or double O (OO) style guitar. These guitars produce an even or balanced response across all six strings. This is preferable for finger picking and slide playing. Obviously we would not want the bass part of the alternating or monotonic bass style to overshadow and drown out the melody part on the treble strings. The dreadnought would have a bass response that would need serious attenuation by heavily muting with the heel of the right hand. The guitars used in all the videos on this site are triple O (OOO) style guitars made by Gerard Gilet at Gilet Guitars in Sydney Australia.
The top of your new guitar must be made of solid timber, usually spruce. It must have grain lines that are tight and straight and run parallel to the strings.
