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This is a question I get quite frequently. Here is everything you need to know before purchasing an electric guitar.

Determine your budget: How much are you looking to spend? Is this your first guitar or have you been playing for a while? These are the first questions you want to ask yourself. If this is your first guitar, or your new to playing guitar, you may not want to spend too much $. Your first guitar will get beat up and scratched no matter what – so please do yourself a favor and don’t buy your dream guitar as your first guitar. At the same time, you don’t want to buy the cheapest guitar in the store – in most cases, the cheapest model is more difficult to learn on as it doesn’t play that well.

If your completely new to playing guitar, I’d recommend trying to find a “guitar package” that comes with the amp, cables, tuner and everything else you will need all in one package. If you have been playing for a little while, I’d recommend pairing a guitar and amp yourself.

Once you’ve determined your budget, its time to start looking at electric guitars. Here are the basic differences between them:

Pickups: Pickups are the rectangle shaped boxes below the strings. They are responsible for transferring the sound from the strings into an electronic signal. There are two different pickup types:

1. Single coil: A single coil pickup is skinnier than a humbucker pickup. Its traditionally used on Fender Strat and Telecaster guitars. It has a very twangy thin sound that can also work great for screaming high gain solos…. think; SRV, Jimi hendrix, Mark Knofler, Bruce Springsteen and Eric Clapton. Single coil pickups naturally make a buzzing sound, so if you buy one and plug it in and it makes a buzzing sound – that’s a completely natural phenoma of single coil pickups (if this really bothers you, keep your eyes out for “noiseless single coil pickups”).

2. Humbucker: A humbucker pickup is essentially two single coil pickups side by side. Its traditionally used in Gibson guitars as well as many other brands and are commonly used in high-gain, or heavy rock applications. Because this pickup is comprised of two single coil pickups, there is no buzz generated by it hence its desire to be used in high gain applications.

Wood/Construction: Believe it or not the wood the guitar is made of and the construction of its body and neck have a lot to do with the way it sounds. The density of the wood used in the guitar will have a significant impact on the tone. For example, a mahogany guitar will have long sustain, heavy weight and a bold loud tone due to the dense nature of Mahogany. On the flip, An Ash guitar will have less sustain, light body weight and a thinner tone due to the less dense nature of Ash. The type of body the guitar has also plays a significant role in the tone of the guitar. There are several different body types to choose from:

1. Solid-Body: A solid-body guitar is by far the most popular electric guitar body style. It delivers a bold, loud and precise tone that can be amplified very easily. Its most popular in rock and other more aggressive and loud styles of music.

2. Semi-Hollow body: A semi-hollow guitar sometimes will have f-holes on the body. The center of the body (under the strings) is solid where the upper and lower parts of the body are hollow. This cuts down on weight and gives the guitar a very natural round sound. These hollow areas can also be chambered, or carved out with no f-holes. This is the kind of guitar I play today as I’m able to get a wide variety of tones in one single guitar. Its commonly used in blues, rock, jazz and many other styles.

3. Fully Hollow-body: A fully hollow-body guitar is completely hollow on the inside. Most common in Jazz, this guitar generates a very full tone and has a very natural sound. These types of guitars are not suitable in most rock, high-gain, or high-volume situations. They have a tendency to feed back if the volume is too loud.

Bolt-on neck vs. set neck: One more thing I want to mention in this section is how the neck of the guitar is attached to the body. A bolt-on neck is literally screwed to the body. Because the neck and body are two pieces, you loose a tiny bit of sustain with a bolt-on neck. A set neck is when the neck is glued into the body making them look like one piece of wood. You get much more sustain, however, keep in mind that not all guitar manufacturers give you an option. For example, as far as I know, Fender has only produced one guitar model that has a set neck – the TC-90 – all the others I’ve seen are bolt-on.

Bridge: The bridge is the piece on the body of the guitar that the strings go into. There are two main categories of bridge types:

1. Stop-tail bridge: A stop-tail bridge is most common on gibson models but its a basic bridge style that holds the strings in place and allows you to make basic adjustments to keep the guitars intonation in check (that’s just how in-tune the guitar plays as you move up the neck in pitch).

2. Tremolo: A tremolo bridge is much different. A tremolo bridge moves and usually has a “whammy bar”. Think of the tremolo as the center of a rope in a tug-of-war. On one side of the rope is the strings, on the other side of the rope are spring (located inside the guitar) that perfectly counter act the pressure of the strings. What you end up with is called a floating brige; by moving the whammy bar, it in turn moves the bridge back and forth which changes the pitch of the strings. Think Eddie Van Halen, Jeff Beck, or Jimi Hendrix.

Cosmetics: The look of the guitar is completely on you! Find one that speaks and resonates with your creative soul. Play as many as you can. Although the color of a guitar will not effect its sound, keep this in mind; Guitar manufacturers sort all the wood they get into two catagories: painted guitars and finished guitars (finished guitars are the ones where you can still see the wood grain – they are stained and finished with lacquer – not painted. Painted guitars usually get the wood that is blemished with knots and poor wood grain, where the finished guitars get the wood that is the most pristine. I’d recommend if you have the choice, get a finished guitar as the wood will be of higher quality.

Guitar Amps: If your new to guitar, focus on spending the big bucks on the guitar. When your starting out its better to have a decent guitar and a cheap amp than have a crappy guitar and a really nice amp. Eventually you can always upgrade your amp. Plus unless your playing gigs, you will not need that much volume to practice. Here are the two main categories of amps:

Solid State: Solid state amps are the most popular these days. They get a terrific clean sound an often come bundled with onboard effects or amp simulators allowing you to get multiple amp sounds out of one single amp. Generally these amps are high in watts (power consumption) and require virtually no maintenance.

Tube Amp: Tube amps are a more old-school type of amp. They are very good at generating exelent tone especially at high volumes. Tube amps get a very classic tone and generally sound “warmer” than solid state amps. There is usually less bells and whistles as these amps are usually very basic, low in watts and simple to use. Tube amps do require regular maintenance and replacement of tubes every 2 years or so.
I use both solid-state and tube amps regularly. I don’t believe one is better than the other – its all tonal preference. If I have a Jazz gig, I’ll usually pack up my solid-state amp for a loud clean sound. If I have a rock gig, I’ll pack up my tube amp for a warm, high-gain distortion reminiscent of the 1960’s.

Recommended brands: Here are the brands/models I recommend.
Electric Guitars: Gibson (Epiphone), Fender (Squire), Ibanez, Washburn and G&L.
Amps: Fender, Line6, Vox, Peavey, Epiphone, Orange, Blackheart, Roland and Mesa Boogie.

A great new practice amp that is tube but has built in effects is the Fender Super champ. I think it runs about $300 – great amp for the money.

Hope this helps!
~Drewski