The acoustic guitar comes as it is: Strings, bodyshape and neck. The tone of your acoustic guitar will depend very much on the type of wood, the bodysize and the kind of strings you use. Experimenting with different type of strings can give you a brighter or duller sound. The Elixer type of strings are very bright whereas some other brands may give you a less brighter sound.
Once you have explored the options of various string types to alter the tone of your acoustic guitar there is one more thing you can do to change its tone: Amplify the guitar.
By amplifying the acoustic guitar you can explore the sound of the pick-up  and the amp combined with the natural sound of your acoustic guitar.

Straight Into Mixer or……………….

Often you see people going straight into the mixer of the P.A  This may be the easiest and quickest option to amplify the acoustic guitar but what about using an amp? When you use an amp you can mix the tone of your guitar with the sound of the amp and its speaker.
Does going straight into the mixer not do the same thing? No, because the mixer only works with your pick-up of your guitar and then sends that signal to the P.A  The mixer does have some toneshaping capabilities, but a guitar amp does add more character to your acoustic guitar.
You can use a guitar amp, then send this signal to a mixer and then to the P.A. This kind of set-up will certainly give you an inspiring sound since you combine the amp, ampspeaker and mixer.

If you can try any of the above set-ups for yourself: First go straight into your mixer and see what your guitar sounds like, then use amp combined with mixer. Use the line-out of your amp to go into the mixer to get the best results.

In my above observation I did not go into detail about what kind of pick-up to choose. There are different type of pick-ups available and all of them have their own sound. A lot of people may prefer to get an acoustic guitar which already does have its own build-in pick-up. With guitars like this you can still experiment to see if you like the sound of the pick-up: Simply install another pick-up on the guitar and see what your guitar sounds like now. Sometimes it may be better to get an acoustic guitar of which  you like its acoustic tone and add a pick-up at a later stage.

Pick-ups on an acoustic guitar are a convenient option to amplify the guitar. Miking up the guitar is often not an option when you play live, since the extra microphones may get in the way and may also cause extra, unwanted feedback.

Experiment to see what is good for you.
Enjoy and hope to catch you soon again.
Eddie