How to choose an electric guitar?

How to choose an electric guitar? How to choose from a million guitar options and buy exactly what you need? What kind of guitar do you specifically need? Below I will try to answer these and other questions, perhaps thanks to this article you will be able to make your choice and buy a guitar that will serve you for a long time and delight the eye.

I will start by saying that a guitarist only begins to understand the difference in the sound of different guitars with experience, and the more experience one has playing and testing many guitars, the more difference is felt in playability, sound, and so on. But, nevertheless, the first thing to pay attention to is, banally, the budget. Of course, it is better to start playing immediately on a good guitar and good gear - a combo amp, a tube head with a cabinet.

What is a good guitar? Which guitar is best to buy to start with, for a beginner guitarist, if the budget is limited to 1000 $ +-? I have dedicated a separate article to this - read it at the link! 

Do you go into a guitar shop in the city or a showroom and your eyes wander?) This is a normal reaction)) The first thing you need to do is get a grip. When you already know your budget, the range of guitar choices will noticeably narrow; a person wishing to buy a guitar for 2000-5000 $ will not look in the direction of guitars for 1000 $, just as the other way around.

A guitar must be chosen based on what you will be playing on it and what kind of music you generally like the most. Remember your idols! First – the shape of the guitar.

How the guitar will lie in your hand depends on its shape. The most common shapes are superstrat and LP (Les Paul), as well as extreme shapes, like Explorers, Vs, etc. Musicians who play heavy music often choose extreme guitar shapes, but that doesn't mean an LP won't provide the necessary "meat". Now, metal guitars are not always suitable for clean (clean sound); stratocasters and telecasters sound much better, but again, you need to see what you need a guitar for? From experience, I will say that not all extreme shapes are convenient, especially when playing sitting down, you need to get used to it, while standard LPs and superstrats are versatile and convenient, for example, take the same PRS Custom – a sound-versatile and comfortable guitar. I have often heard questions like "does the neck dive?", "do the horns on the body get in the way?" - guys, any inconvenience on any guitar can be solved. So, once, I noticed, when playing standing up, a slight neck dive on a Jackson Kelly, the problem was simply in the strap – it was short for this guitar – I replaced the strap and everything became perfect!

When choosing to buy a guitar, you need to look at the comfort of your hand on the neck. Necks come in various thicknesses and widths, with radius and without. Again, first and foremost, the choice should be made towards musical tastes. If you are playing Yngwie Malmsteen or Steve Vai shredding, all kinds of passages and fast solos – you need a thin neck profile – Ibanez, Gibson 60 slim taper, PRS Pattern Thin, etc. If you want to play tasty long solos, fat riffs – these are medium and thick necks – PRS Pattern Regular, Gibson 50’s, Gibson 59’s, Fender C Shape,…. Since they are thicker, they have more sustain and, if you strike a chord with a good attack, you can feel the vibration of your own marbles down below))) When choosing the neck thickness, it is also important to pay attention to the grip of your hand; if your fingers are short, it will be more comfortable to play on thin necks; if they are long, the choice should be in the direction of thick necks. From experience, I will say that at first I liked thin necks more, but now for me there is nothing better than a manly thick neck – so that when you hit the strings, the guitar starts to resonate like the belly of a bear that hasn't eaten all winter.

It is worth paying attention to the type of body-to-neck joint on the guitar. There are 3 types – set-in neck, neck-through-body, and bolt-on neck. There is also a fourth type of Soviet guitar construction, used in the production of guitars like "Ural" - the neck is attached to the body with nails)))) The difference in the neck-to-body joint is in sustain and attack – also for different music.

Do you need a Floyd or a tremolo for vibrato? This will also narrow down the circle of guitars you are interested in. Guitars with a fixed bridge are more common, but there are charms and cons in a Floyd and a tremolo – if the guitar with a Floyd or tremolo is inexpensive, then with active use of the arm, the guitar's tuning may drift; on more expensive guitars, this problem is absent. And, of course, setting up a guitar with a fixed bridge takes much less time than a guitar with a Floyd, a tremolo is somewhere in the middle…

The most important factor when choosing a guitar is sound! Sound is electronics and wood. Let's start with electronics. Pickups on the guitar! Which are better? Here everyone chooses according to their own tastes. For a meaty sound, especially on overdrive – guitars with humbuckers are ideal, for a crystal clear one – single-coils. But what to do if you want both? Buy versatile guitars! I will say that having hands and an ear, you can make a delicious sound on any guitar, even a narrow-focused one, but there is progress and the versatility of a guitar is achieved by coil splitting on humbuckers or rail single-coils (humbuckers in the form of a single). In particular, coil splitting to singles on humbuckers are often found on PRS guitars, now Gibson is also making splits on their instruments, and on the Fender Stratocaster for example there are HSS (humbucker single single) or S-1 systems – which gives mega-versatility of sound. Considering my experience, I will say that the most versatile guitar for me remains the PRS P22, PRS P24, PRS 513. If the PRS 513 has 13 sounds due to 3- and 5-way switches and 5 pickups, two of which are paired into a humbucker, has 13 sounds, then the PRS P22 and PRS P24 also have a piezo acoustic sound and two inputs – in it there is a mix of pickups and piezo, i.e. it is impossible to count the number of sounds)) there are a lot of them and each sounds gorgeous! If you love Strats or Teles – buy a sustainer pedal – this will significantly boost your guitar and you can play wild meat with hellish attack on a non-metal guitar.

Wood in a guitar also plays a crucial role! Let's start with the guitar body. Guitars with a mahogany body have the most rounded, soft, and bass-heavy tone, then from soft to ringing and bright, it goes in order: basswood, alder and poplar, ash and walnut, and the most ringing – maple. Mahogany gives bass, so it is not always perfect for fast passages in terms of sound, while basswood, alder, etc. are ideal for this, but mahogany with a maple top is like merging two opposites into one, so they are the most common and give a golden mean in sound. Necks are most often made of maple – a classic, it will add high frequencies and sharpness to the sound and will well complement the sound of a body made of any wood. Less common are mahogany necks – a softer, rounded sound. The most velvet in sound and bass-heavy are rosewood necks! Their sound is velvety and just incredibly soft both on clean and on overdrive. Next, let's discuss the fretboard. Its types and sound from warm to sharp and ringing: the warmest and most velvety fretboard is rosewood, then comes a maple fretboard and a cold maple neck without a fretboard, the most ringing, bright, and sharp sound is given by an ebony fretboard. The greatest attack has, again, ebony, in the middle is rosewood, and the least is maple.

Having such theoretical knowledge, you are simply obliged to reinforce them with practice – come to my showroom LadkorGuitars – I will show everything in practice! Write to me – we will coordinate the time – after listening to my guitars, you are unlikely to leave empty-handed ))) I have in stock and you can buy even with shipping virtually any guitar! If desired, I can organize the delivery of the instrument you need, and you can listen to it in Kyiv, Lviv, Vinnytsia, Lutsk, Donetsk, Zhytomyr, Transcarpathia, Zaporizhzhia, Ivano-Frankivsk, Kirovohrad, Luhansk, Mykolaiv, Odesa, Poltava, Rivne, Sumy, Ternopil, Kharkiv, Kherson, Khmelnytskyi, Cherkasy, Chernihiv, Chernivtsi, Simferopol, Sevastopol, Crimea. Some of the guitars and musical equipment are also located in Russia – Moscow, and Belarus – Minsk, as well as in a warehouse in the USA.