Electric Guitar Buying Guide –Things To Consider Beforehand

1. Electric Guitar Buying Guide – Things To Consider Beforehand

2. How much you know about guitar parts? If not, first learn about the anatomy of the guitar. This guide and learning about the components will make decision-making easier for you. Introduction

3. Budget The best advice for a beginning guitarist is to put most of your money toward the guitar. Spending less on accessories like picks, tuners, straps, and amplifiers is advisable. There are many parts of a guitar where manufacturers can cut corners that the beginner won’t notice, but the advanced player can no longer tolerate. These include investing more money on more expensive, dependable hardware, such as tuning heads, bridges, and tailpieces, as well as switching from plastic nuts to ones made of bone or metal.

4. Additional Electric Guitar Accessories​

5. Guitar Strap: You must get a strap that’s adjustable and secures to your guitar correctly. Speaker Cable/Jacks: Since this is a factor in getting a strong signal from your guitar to your amplifier, don’t be cheap here. Speaker Amp: A 112-watt speaker amp is a sweet spot for amps. Its versatility works for everything from small venues to large stadiums. Tuner: If you’re a beginner, it’s essential to learn to tune your guitar by ear. An inexpensive electric tuner will put you on the right path, especially when playing with other musicians. Strings: Break and strings wear out, losing their tonal qualities. You’ll need spares. Picks: It’s more important to learn how to use one properly before trying to get tricky with your sound quality.

6. Neck

7. The neck of the is one of the most critical aspects of picking the right guitar. The basic construction of the neck hasn’t changed much from the days of the acoustic guitar. The neck of an electric guitar forms the head, the neck, and the heel. Most necks have a truss rod: a steel rod which runs through a groove or channel through the length of the wood and fixed securely through the heel. This feature allows for fine adjustments to help keep the neck straight when changing the gauges of the strings.

8. Neck Shape While the thickness of the neck can be a factor, it’s more likely that the actual shape of the neck will play a more prominent role in your buying decision. The profile, shape of the neck, is about personal comfort and the playing style of the guitarist. Let’s take a look at the three most common styles of today’s neck shapes.

9. C-shaped necks have a comfortable oval shape that’s suitable for most styles of performance. It’s the most common profile available. On Gibson guitars, you can find this shape quite quickly. U-shaped or D-shaped neck profiles are the chunkier necks. This type is suitable for players who like to place their thumb on the back or side of the neck and also for players who play more legato or fast styles. V-shaped necks are more of a retro style and found on many reissued models of guitars. Eric Clapton and Fender popularized a Soft V neck profile that flattens the point of the V.

10. Tonewoods • Mahogany is the darling wood of guitar manufacturing. Its uniform color and strength make it an ideal base for all parts of the guitar except for the bridges and fingerboards. • Rosewood is another popular choice for using as a fretboard on electric guitars. The weight of rosewood prevents it from being a popular choice for the body in solid body guitars.

11. Maple is exceptionally dense and brings out the high notes in the guitar which means you’ll find it laminated to the top of some high-end solid body guitars. Guitar necks commonly use maple as its base, and sometimes, as a fretboard. Ebony, as the name implies, is almost entirely black and is a sturdy wood. You’ll usually find this wood on the fretboards of more expensive guitars and for a good reason: both the smoothness and the hardness makes for a quicker finger reaction time. Alder and ash share many of the same bright, mid-range characteristics, but the grain of alder isn’t as intricate as that of ash. Its affordability makes it a popular choice when manufacturing solid body guitars. Ash is quite commonly used as a solid body wood because of the resonance and sustain that can be achieved. It’s harder than mahogany. The grain on this wood is quite attractive.

12. Pickups The pickup, together with the neck and body, is the third essential component of the guitar that contributes to sound production. When a string or strings vibrate, a pickup, which is a magnetic transducer, transforms that physical energy into electrical energy.

13. Single Coil pickups are magnets with fine wire wrapped around it several thousand times. They tend to sound very bright. One of the drawbacks is that there can be hum and, as they are a magnet themselves, are susceptible to outside magnetic interference. Double Coil (Humbucker) Pickups There’s a theory in which two coils are wired out of phase with each other, and the electric flow would cancel out rogue interference. Technically, it prevents the hum from passing on to the amplifier. Hence, the name Humbucker or Double Coil pickups.

14. Tuning Machines

15. Tuning devices typically mount on the guitar's headstock. To keep the strings in place, there are posts. The tension of the strings can be changed on each post, allowing the guitar to be tuned. Individual tuning heads are drilled into place on vintage guitars. Open tuning machinery is another name for these tuning heads. Given that the gearing is exposed to the environment, they require additional maintenance.

16. Bridge The bridge, located in the base of the body, holds the guitar strings. There are mechanisms set on top of the bridge where the strings set called a saddle. When it comes to stringing your guitar, you have a number of options.

17. String-through : Beginning at the back of the instrument and working up to the saddle and tuning machine, strings are strung. This setup is really stable. • Tune-O-Matic : To keep the strings steady, typical bridges have a saddle that resembles a V. They soon degrade, which leads to frequent tuning issues with the guitar. In other cases, it even results in the strings breaking. The Tune-O-Matic bridge maintains tuning while also reducing friction, which lowers the likelihood of string breaking. This bridge gave rise to an entirely new system of bridges, the most important of which was the floating bridge, which permitted mechanically bending notes.

18. You should be able to make some informed choices when buying your next electric guitar with this buying guide. Purchasing a guitar might be difficult. You ought to be able to select an instrument that suits your personality if you've done your research. Final Words