All About Guitars

Archive for the ‘Guitars -Equipment’ Category

The electric guitar was invented by a very talented man who when by the name of Adolph Rickenbacker. The first complete setup was back in the 1930’s, which was only a mere 70 years ago. On the other hand, the Classical guitar and the acoustic guitar have been around for many centuries. There is evidence that dates back to 1800 B.C., that shows the presents of guitars, or similar instruments. There is really no comparison between todays electric guitars and the past. The evolution of electric guitars has been nothing short of amazing. This article will give you a brief history of the electric guitar.

Adolph Rickenbacker manufactured his fist electric guitar in the early 1930’s, and equipped it with tungsten pickups. These pickups would sense the vibrations from the strings and convert them into electrical currents. The currents are relayed into the amp and produces sound.

Semi-hollow body are what the older guitars were know as. They were called this because they had sound holes in the body of the guitar. This style of guitar is still very popular today.

As the Big Band era approached in the 30’s and 40’s, the use of electric guitars became more popular. Plugging the guitar into an amplifier would give the much needed sound levels to be heard over the loud surroundings of the bands.

A guy by the name of Les Paul is an excellent musician, but if for some reason you don’t know this name, he is the inventor of the solid body electric guitar. Les Paul invented the fist solid body in 1941.

This type of guitar is made of one piece of wood and has no sound holes. You are able to simply plug into an amplifier and start thrashing. Paul’s first original guitar he made was nothing to brag about. It consisted of nothing more than a rectangular body attached to the neck and six steel strings. However, a modern day Les Paul is simply a thing of beauty.

It was in the 50’s that Gibson hooked up with Les Paul and presented the Gibson Les Paul to the world. From that day there was no turning back. The Gibson Les Paul has been a major success for over 50 years, and is considered the most popular selling electric guitar on the market. One guy very partial to the Gibson is Slash from Guns n’ Roses.

Leo Fender soon became the next big thing in solid-body guitars. Leo invented the Fender Broadcaster in the late 40’s. The Broadcaster was introduced to the public in 1954, but instead of Broadcaster, it was named the Fender Stratocaster or Fender “Strat”. The Fender Strat guitar was very different from the Gibson in the fact the the Strat had a different body shape, used different hardware, and was much lighter. Despite these differences, the Fender has become the second favorite guitar among musicians. Musicians such as Eric Clapton, Stevie Ray Vaughn, and many others play the Fender Stratocaster.

Today, there are many other guitar manufactures that produce solid-body guitars. Here are a few:

1. Washburn
2. Ibanez
3. ESP
4 .Jackson
5. Paul Reed Smith
6. Kramer
7. Dean
8. Epiphone
9. Peavy
10. Schecter

Josh Scalf

When choosing an electric guitar online you will often be faced with quite a lot of information about the guitars you are looking at. I have written this article to try and help explain a few of these details in the hope that it will make your decision an easier and more confident one.

 I will start by briefly describing some of the more commonly used timbers. The main body of the guitar will usually be made of agathis, alder, basswood, mahogany, or more recently paulownia. Mahogany is used for a wide variety of guitars known for its dark properties as well as its light weight both of these combining to create a warm, rounded, hugely sustainable tone. Alder is used on top quality guitars and produces a brighter tone than other woods (like mahogany) and provides a resonant, well rounded tone with excellent sustain. Agathis is a good quality timber and is used for its good resonating qualities and low price of production. In the past basswood was usually used for less expensive models but due to its better resonance at mid and high frequency, and better sustain than alder it is now more commonly in use for higher quality guitars. Paulownia is a soft, light and warp resistant wood that is commonly used as a body material in high end custom guitars, it is used for its light weight, pale appearance, and its good resonance, it is highly sought after.

 The neck of the guitar will usually be made of mahogany, sometimes basswood, or maple. A neck made from maple would give a harder and brighter sound than one made from mahogany, and a maple fingerboard would have a brighter sound than a rosewood one.

 Finger boards are normally made of rosewood, maple and in some cases ebony. Rosewood is a term that refers to any of a number of richly hued timbers, often brownish with darker veining and usually of good quality. Ebony is a dense black wood and is used on some of the more expensive guitars.

 When choosing an electric guitar online you should pay attention to the pick ups, electric guitars commonly use two type of pick up, single coil and humbucker. One problem with single coil pick ups is that they pick up not just the sounds you are playing but a bit of mains hum as well. The humbucker was developed to over come this, a humbucker is basically two single coil pick ups of opposite magnetic polarity working together, the result is doubled output and a fatter, less trebly tone. Humbucker pickups can also be wired so that they are working in parallel, this produces a significantly cleaner sound but is fairly rare. When shopping for an electric guitar online information of the pick up configuration will usually be displayed like this: S-S-H , the S referring to a single coil pick up, and the H referring to a humbucker, the order of the letters from left to right is the order that the pick ups are on the guitar from the neck to the bridge.

 The last (and in my opinion the most important) thing you should consider when shopping for a guitar is the style – do you like the look of it?

J Weddell

When choosing an electric guitar online you will often be faced with quite a lot of information about the guitars you are looking at. I have written this article to try and help explain a few of these details in the hope that it will make your decision an easier and more confident one.

 I will start by briefly describing some of the more commonly used timbers. The main body of the guitar will usually be made of agathis, alder, basswood, mahogany, or more recently paulownia. Mahogany is used for a wide variety of guitars known for its dark properties as well as its light weight both of these combining to create a warm, rounded, hugely sustainable tone. Alder is used on top quality guitars and produces a brighter tone than other woods (like mahogany) and provides a resonant, well rounded tone with excellent sustain. Agathis is a good quality timber and is used for its good resonating qualities and low price of production. In the past basswood was usually used for less expensive models but due to its better resonance at mid and high frequency, and better sustain than alder it is now more commonly in use for higher quality guitars. Paulownia is a soft, light and warp resistant wood that is commonly used as a body material in high end custom guitars, it is used for its light weight, pale appearance, and its good resonance, it is highly sought after.

 The neck of the guitar will usually be made of mahogany, sometimes basswood, or maple. A neck made from maple would give a harder and brighter sound than one made from mahogany, and a maple fingerboard would have a brighter sound than a rosewood one.

 Finger boards are normally made of rosewood, maple and in some cases ebony. Rosewood is a term that refers to any of a number of richly hued timbers, often brownish with darker veining and usually of good quality. Ebony is a dense black wood and is used on some of the more expensive guitars.

 When choosing an electric guitar online you should pay attention to the pick ups, electric guitars commonly use two type of pick up, single coil and humbucker. One problem with single coil pick ups is that they pick up not just the sounds you are playing but a bit of mains hum as well. The humbucker was developed to over come this, a humbucker is basically two single coil pick ups of opposite magnetic polarity working together, the result is doubled output and a fatter, less trebly tone. Humbucker pickups can also be wired so that they are working in parallel, this produces a significantly cleaner sound but is fairly rare. When shopping for an electric guitar online information of the pick up configuration will usually be displayed like this: S-S-H , the S referring to a single coil pick up, and the H referring to a humbucker, the order of the letters from left to right is the order that the pick ups are on the guitar from the neck to the bridge.

 The last (and in my opinion the most important) thing you should consider when shopping for a guitar is the style – do you like the look of it?

J Weddell

acoustic guitars use the hollow resonating chamber of the body of the guitar to amplify and resonate the sound of the strings being plucked, but on an electric guitar, this isn’t the case. The body of an electric guitar is usually entirely solid, and the sound of the strings being struck is picked up by something called a pickup, which basically measures the amount of vibration of a particular string, and transmits this frequency to an amplifier. The amplifier then magnifies this frequency to create a sound which is not only audible, but also usually modified or distorted in some way to create the distinctive sound of an electric guitar. Without a pickup or an amplifier, the sound of an electric guitar is less than impressive, and is by no means merely a quieter version of what you would hear with an amplifier.

The pickups work by detecting the amount of vibration of a string, because the amount of vibration is directly equivalent to the frequency, and it is the frequency of a string’s vibration that generates the note. By holding a string down against one of the frets on the fret board or neck of the guitar, the length of the string is reduced, and as a result, the string’s natural vibration of frequency is changed, and this in turn affects the note. There are different types of pickup that work in slightly different ways, but the most commonly found variety is an electromagnet. The electromagnetic pickups are bundles of copper wire wound very tightly into a small coil, and these are then positioned right underneath the strings. When the string is struck, it moves, and this generates a very small electric field measurable in volts, and this voltage is the signal which is sent to the amplifier.

Effectively such electromagnetic pickups work in the same way as an electric generator. These coils of copper wires are either found as single coils or as doubles, with the advantage being that double coil pickups are less likely to pick up noise from other nearby electric fields. In the 1950s the double coil humbucker was developed, and this used two separate copper coils, with one placed in the opposite polarity of the other, and this effectively cancelled out any problem as far as stray electrical field noise was concerned. These double coil humbuckers do create a different sound and tone to the single coil pickups, generally considered to be a much heavier sound, whereas the single coil pickups are used by those players looking for a much brighter sound, and usually with a much broader range.

Today the style of pickup is generally tailored to suit the type of sound that the player wants to try to achieve, and the general rule of thumb is that the smaller the amount of copper wire used in the coil, the brighter the sound, whereas the more coils used, and the more wire used in the pickup, the heavier the overall sound will be. There are also sometimes options to have the coil wired for extra switching, so that effects can be achieved by altering the way the coil works, and thereby changing the sound of the note dynamically. These effects usually require the guitar to have battery power to achieve the changes.

Although double coil pickups are usually the maximum, there are exceptions, and the Fender Stratocaster is one very well known example. The Fender Stratocaster actually uses three coil pickups, and this is what gives this particular model of guitar such a distinctive tone. In complete contrast, there are also piezoelectric pickups which use crystals positioned under each string, and when the string is struck, its vibrations very slightly alter the shape of the crystal. As the crystal changes shape, a very small voltage of electricity is produced, and by amplifying this, the sound is achieved.

Victor Epand

Acoustic guitars use the hollow resonating chamber of the body of the guitar to amplify and resonate the sound of the strings being plucked, but on an electric guitar, this isn’t the case. The body of an electric guitar is usually entirely solid, and the sound of the strings being struck is picked up by something called a pickup, which basically measures the amount of vibration of a particular string, and transmits this frequency to an amplifier. The amplifier then magnifies this frequency to create a sound which is not only audible, but also usually modified or distorted in some way to create the distinctive sound of an electric guitar. Without a pickup or an amplifier, the sound of an electric guitar is less than impressive, and is by no means merely a quieter version of what you would hear with an amplifier.

The pickups work by detecting the amount of vibration of a string, because the amount of vibration is directly equivalent to the frequency, and it is the frequency of a string’s vibration that generates the note. By holding a string down against one of the frets on the fret board or neck of the guitar, the length of the string is reduced, and as a result, the string’s natural vibration of frequency is changed, and this in turn affects the note. There are different types of pickup that work in slightly different ways, but the most commonly found variety is an electromagnet. The electromagnetic pickups are bundles of copper wire wound very tightly into a small coil, and these are then positioned right underneath the strings. When the string is struck, it moves, and this generates a very small electric field measurable in volts, and this voltage is the signal which is sent to the amplifier.

Effectively such electromagnetic pickups work in the same way as an electric generator. These coils of copper wires are either found as single coils or as doubles, with the advantage being that double coil pickups are less likely to pick up noise from other nearby electric fields. In the 1950s the double coil humbucker was developed, and this used two separate copper coils, with one placed in the opposite polarity of the other, and this effectively cancelled out any problem as far as stray electrical field noise was concerned. These double coil humbuckers do create a different sound and tone to the single coil pickups, generally considered to be a much heavier sound, whereas the single coil pickups are used by those players looking for a much brighter sound, and usually with a much broader range.

Today the style of pickup is generally tailored to suit the type of sound that the player wants to try to achieve, and the general rule of thumb is that the smaller the amount of copper wire used in the coil, the brighter the sound, whereas the more coils used, and the more wire used in the pickup, the heavier the overall sound will be. There are also sometimes options to have the coil wired for extra switching, so that effects can be achieved by altering the way the coil works, and thereby changing the sound of the note dynamically. These effects usually require the guitar to have battery power to achieve the changes.

Although double coil pickups are usually the maximum, there are exceptions, and the Fender Stratocaster is one very well known example. The Fender Stratocaster actually uses three coil pickups, and this is what gives this particular model of guitar such a distinctive tone. In complete contrast, there are also piezoelectric pickups which use crystals positioned under each string, and when the string is struck, its vibrations very slightly alter the shape of the crystal. As the crystal changes shape, a very small voltage of electricity is produced, and by amplifying this, the sound is achieved.

Victor Epand