What to Look for When Buying an Electric Guitar

Old-style Les Paul-type guitar with "soap bar" pickups.

Just because a guitar may look great doesn’t mean it is. Just buying by name, however, doesn’t mean you are getting the best guitar for you, either. For example, Fender has American-made, Mexican-made and Japanese-made Stratocasters with the first being the most expensive. The cheapest, the Squier, may not have the same quality as the American-made, but it’s a good knock-around guitar that may suit your needs.There are a number of things to look for when buying an electric guitar.

Instructions

1. 

   Grab a guitar off the wall at your local guitar shop, sit down and play it. The first thing to look for is "feel." It is the “action,” in other words, how easy it is to finger the strings on the fretboard. While a lot of electric guitars have rosewood necks, the rosewood often makes the action tougher. A straight maple neck on a Strat often is the best for fast and easy playing. The neck should make it easy for you to finger chords and play without fatigue.

2. Plug it in. The next thing to look for, of course, is sound. While the sound of an electric guitar can be altered by use of effects pedals or the type amplification that is used, the guitar itself should have a clean tone. When you press the string above the fret, there should be no buzzing.

3. Decide whether you want single-coil or humbucker pickups. The pickups, along with the type of wood, control the sound. There are single-coil and double-coil or humbucker pickups. Single-coil give a sharper sound, but tend to give a hum through the amp. Humbucker as the name implies cut down this hum, but can give a more muffled sound. They will tend to increase the sustain of the notes. For a really sharp sound, the single-coils are better. For more atmospheric sustained notes, humbuckers are better.

4. 

   Check to see how the neck is joined to the body. If it has bolts in the back that join it, it is a two-piece configuration. Most electric guitars use this method. It is okay, but decreases sustain of notes. The traditional Gibson Les Paul—known for its sustain—had a neck that was part of the body. This meant the solid wood gave more sustain.

5. Check out different types of electric guitars. This doesn’t mean brand, necessarily. There are solid, semi-hollow and hollow-body electric guitars. Each produces a different type sound. For a really warm sound, try the semi-hollows. The advantage here over the full hollow is that the semi-hollow cuts down on feedback, but still gives the warmer sound. George Harrison usually used a semi-hollow body Gretsch for his early Beatles work.

6. Check out and try the machine heads or tuning knobs. These should be smooth and easy to use, yet lock in place to keep the strings in tune. Grover generally made the best, if most expensive tuners, but most these days on better guitars work well. It’s only on cheaper guitars you really have to test them before you buy. Tune the guitar, play a bit and check to see if you’re still in tune. If you are and the tuners are easy to use, they are fine.

Tips & Warnings

• Other things like looks—including color and price—are to personal taste. There are good guitars in most price ranges for most uses.

Resources

• Gibson Guitars
• Fender Guitars
• Ibanez Guitars