Choosing a Guitar
There are numerous concerns you should have when choosing a guitar, such as...
Contents
A Note on Warranties
Most guitars come with a 3 month or 1 year warranty from the manufacturer; however, like most products, this warranty can be voided quite easily. Opening up the guitar and mucking around might be one. Even having a professional luthier change the setup can void the warranty. Be sure to research what you can or can't do to void it, then determine if whatever you want to do is worth it.
Stores often have 30 day return policies, but these often don't apply to used instruments and may even not apply to certain floor models. If concerned, ask in advance. Also, make sure it's a no-questions-asked policy. If not, make sure you know exactly what can void your ability to return it if unsatisfied.
Build Quality
Build quality is everything. Consider a guitar with a warped neck. It will not intonate properly - after tuning the open strings you'll find the fretted notes are out-of-tune. Or consider a guitar whose neck is not firmly connected to the body. It will move and keep going out of tune. Build quality relates to the guitar's durability as well.
Usually, the build quality should be apparent based on the other aspects below. It would be rare to find a guitar that looks, sounds, and feels great but has a poor build quality.
Guitar manufacturers stake their reputation on their build quality. The bigger companies usually use a different brand name to market their cheaper, generally-lower-quality lines. For example, the big names like Fender and Gibson have Squier and Epiphone lines, respectively. That said, even the big names can produce duds. Most guitars are factory-built, many in foreign factories. Quality assurance is lacking. It's best to give any guitar you want to buy a good look over - make sure there are no chips, warping, glaring knots in the wood grain, loose parts, rattling, or any other defects.
Play the guitar all over the neck - make sure no frets produce rattling or mysteriously fade out instead of sustaining. A guitar's build quality will determine if the guitar itself has strange resonances or nulls that cause some notes to ring into overtones or fade out prematurely.
Used guitars can make for good bargains; but if you're not sure how to check if the guitar has any defects, you may want to buy a new guitar. These will have a better return policy with the store you purchased it from, plus have a 3 month - 1 year manufacturer's warranty you can honor if you later discover some non-obvious defect.
Playability
A guitar is no good if you can't play it. Unfortunately, this is not the easiest thing to test, especially in a store. Stores are often notorious for allowing guitars to sit in the demo room without being properly set up and/or being out-of-tune. So if you grab it off the shelf, it may be impossible or difficult to play, or it may get lots of fret buzz or even have strings that are fretting out. Sometimes they'll even have broken or missing strings. If you are seriously interested in buying that guitar, take it to a salesperson, tell them you are really interested in it but not in its current condition. They usually work on commission and will try to help you as best they can, provided you convince them you are serious about making a purchase. They can definitely tune it up for you (which is often near-impossible to do in a noisy guitar store) and maybe even give it a setup job. Even if they don't give it a full setup, they should be willing to at least adjust the action.
Fretting Out
A good guitar should not fret out anywhere - this is where the string literally cannot sustain due to hitting a higher fret. A little fret buzz is expected, depending on string gauge and action; but it shouldn't sustain over the life of the note. Test notes on the entire fretboard - low and high frets, low and high strings. It's common for frets around 2-6 to get more fret buzz than higher frets - this can usually be evened out by adjusting the truss rod.
Don't just check each fret. Try bends as well - depending on the instrument's setup and fretboard radius, some notes may fret out on bends, revealing fret leveling issues. Of course, if all the bends are fretting out, it may simply be a setup issue, requiring a truss rod or bridge height adjustment.
Fret Finish
The frets should be smooth - you should be able to bend the strings up and down against the frets smoothly. If the frets aren't properly sanded down and finished, they may be a bit rough. This makes for difficult and possibly jerky bends, which is no good. Having a neck properly finished is not cheap - my advice is to avoid purchasing a guitar in such state. Maybe the store will offer to do the work for you - make them do it first, or make it contingent on a no-questions-asked return policy. They might try to cut corners just to make the sale and leave you stuck with a barely playable guitar.
I bought an Ibanez RGA8 that had to be special ordered and arrived with cuts in the frets - literally looked and felt like knife cuts. Bending through them felt nasty and was completely unacceptable. I used my warranty to get a new one - anything like that should be considered a manufacturer defect, not a setup issue.
Nut Action
Another common issue is the nut action. Just as the bridge can be adjusted upwards or downwards to help playability and tone, the nut can be modified or replaced to raise or lower the height of the strings relative to the fretboard, particularly the first few frets close to the nut. Usually, cheap guitars have the nut action too high, which makes it difficult to fret the first 3 or 4 frets, and throws the intonation off. Filing the nut is not something a store is going to be willing to do to try to make the sale. You'll have to use your judgment, but first try to find better guitars without this issue.
Setup or Quality?
Unfortunately, it's often difficult to tell whether the problem with a guitar can be cured with a proper setup or if it's a defect/poor craftsmanship. Many vendors have a no questions asked return policy. So you could buy it, make adjustments, then determine whether to keep or return it. Unfortunately, if you pay a professional to set it up, then return it, you have to eat the cost of the setup. Sometimes a little setup is all a guitar needs, and you can't write them all off based on their state at the store. But other times a guitar is well-setup and well-crafted, and the quality is clearly superb. It's always best to work off of knowledge rather than assumptions. IE, if you have to pay a little more to get a guitar you know has good playability vs. a guitar that might have good playability, it's probably worth the extra money.
Comfort
Playability above refers to the ease of playing the guitar (action, fretwork) and tonal issues (fretting out, buzz). Comfort is more about the irritations you will experience when playing.
Bridge
A common complaint about a guitar is the bridge. Some bridges have protruding metal that can irritate or even cut your hand. Some are oddly shaped and feel strange when resting the side of your palm against it. Companies that specialize in bridges definitely take this concern into account in their design process. Cheap knock-off companies that produce every part in the guitar in-house don't. It may not seem like a big deal when playing for 5 minutes in a store, but it definitely is a huge concern when you play for an hour or more, day after day.
Shape
Body shape definitely has a huge impact on comfort. It affects the ease of balancing the guitar when sitting down and whether the neck will dip or not when standing up. The Fender Stratocaster is really the archetype of 80-90% of all electric guitars. Its curves are shaped to easily rest on your right thigh, but can also rest in between both thighs comfortably. The next-most iconic shape, the Gibson Les Paul I find a little less comfortable - it's curves are a little sharper and its body a bit thicker. Then there are the crazier shapes like Explorers, Flying V's, Warlocks, etc. I suggest you try these out and gauge if that special look is worth any discomfort associated with the shape.
Weight
Another concern is weight. Some guitars feel like a sheet of paper, while others feel like a log. This depends not only on the thickness of the body, but the wood type. Some guitars are even made of plastic or carbon fiber and are super light. Super heavy can be a concern when you have to gig or practice standing up - imagine holding up a dumbbell tied to a rope around your neck for an hour! Similarly, super light can also be an issue, if for any other reason than it feeling wimpy.
Fretboard Radius
Neck radius is the curvature of the frets and fretboard. The fretboard is not completely flat, but has a slight curve to it. The more curve it has, the easier it is to make barre chords; but it can be more difficult to play fast leads. Many electrics use a compound radius where the radius is lower (more curve) on the low frets by the nut and gets larger (less curve) as the fretboard gets closer to the bridge.
One thing to note about the radius is that necks with a smaller radius and low action can be prone to fretting out (choking) on bends, particularly in the middle of the fretboard. A guitar built for shredding with low action tends to have large radius (flat fretboard).
Neck Size/Shape
If you cut the neck in half right at the 12th fret and look at the cross section, you'll notice a particular shape to the back of the neck, as well as its size from side to side and top (face) to bottom (back). Floyd-Rose or Floyd-Rose-style bridges are typically wider than other bridges, which gives a little more space in between each string. This can make playing leads easier, but may make it more difficult to reach notes on the low E string. The shape of the neck is also a factor. Some are nice and round, some are more flat, and some are kind of odd. I like a round neck - too flat feels awkward, especially on chords. But I don't want the neck to be too thick either.
Next time you're in a guitar store, try a bunch of different guitars out with these factors in mind. You'll quickly see what I'm talking about and can hone in on the neck size/shape that feels most comfortable to you.
Body Sides/Horns
Often the guitar's body is contoured so it naturally fits against your body comfortably. But some guitars aren't contoured at all, or it doesn't work for the way you want to hold it. Or the horn might have a sharp edge that presses into your ribs or something like that. It's something to be aware of when buying a guitar because you can't really change it without some major work. I find the Gibson Les Paul is a big culprit in this regard. Also, as much as I like the Parker Fly series, those top horns seem to dig into my windpipe.
Neck Finish
Luckily this is something you can change if you need to, but given the option it's easier to buy the guitar that needs no modifications. The neck finish is important because it affects easily you shift positions up and down the neck. I like an unfinished neck, sanded with increasing grits to be as smooth as a baby's butt. Often guitar manufacturers will paint the neck or finish it with a clear-coat. This leaves the neck with higher friction and a little sticky (it's subtle but enough to affect your play). You can always sand it down yourself, but it's quite difficult to completely remove the finish, and this can look ugly especially if painted a color that stands out against the wood's natural color.
Neck Heel/Joint
There are a variety of neck heel designs. The most comfortable depends on the player, but is more than likely a neck-through design, which has no joint at all, as the neck and center of the body are made of the same piece of wood. Others can sometimes interfere with playing the higher frets. Most manufacturers now use some kind of low-profile heel designed to be smaller and rounder than early guitar designs.
Tone
Build quality and setup clearly have an impact on tone. But even high quality guitars with perfect and identical setups can sound quite a bit different. The weight of the guitar; the type of wood used; the way the neck is connected to the body; and the hardware type, quality, and material all affect tone. This isn't necessarily a good-bad scale, although that should be your main consideration. Typically, some woods/materials provide a darker tone (less high-frequency overtones) than others.
Pickups play heavily into tone, which is covered below. They can offset some aspects of the guitar that can't be changed. For example, they may brighten up a dark tone. You should try to play the guitar while plugged in to get a realistic opinion of what it sounds like.
That said, cheaper stock guitars often have absolutely horrid pickups. Swapping the pickups for high-grade models is often the first modification to do on a guitar. This makes gauging the tone of a stock guitar rather difficult. Maybe it sounds too dark or bright, but is that because of the guitar or because of the stock pickups? This is where a little internet research comes in handy. Pickups cover a wide range, and I would expect most guitars can be made to sound how you like them given a carefully-thought-out pickup swap.
Electronics
Most guitars come with 2 knobs for volume and tone. Note that turning down the Volume knob actually affects tone as well usually - without a "treble-bleed" circuit in the electronics, turning down volume actually rolls off some high-frequencies, similar to turning the Tone knob down slightly. To get an accurate gauge of the guitar's sound, make sure you turn both of these all the way up. Try adjusting them when you play as well to make sure nothing fishy is happening. Sometimes dust can get in there, which sounds scratchy as you turn the knob - this can be alleviated by turning the knob vigorously back and forth about 20-40 times, blowing it out with compressed air, or simply replacing the potentiometer.
Some guitars have more knobs - sometimes this is for independent volume/tone control of each pickup. If unsure what the controls do, consult a salesperson or the internet. Sometimes a guitar will sound horrible, but it's because it has some special electronics that really should never be used because it was designed by an idiot.
Be sure to give the pickup selector switch a good workout. Make sure it is easy to use and doesn't slip off the desired setting or stick in dead-zones between settings.
Sometimes a guitar will have pops and crackles, or the signal just sounds weak or noisy. Sounds like a bad soldering job in the electronics. But before blaming the guitar, try a different cable, or the same cable on another guitar. Cables tend not to last and are usually the problem. Beyond that, it's probably just a bad solder joint. Unfortunately that's something you can't fix in the store before making a purchase. You'd likely have to purchase then fix, but there's no guarantees on it being easily fixable. Best to find a different guitar if possible.
Cheap guitars are often not shielded properly. All the cavities where the pickups and electronics reside should be covered in conductive tape or paint to shield them from external interference. This is most clearly heard as noise, loud hum, and out-of-tune radio noises. If you can hear actual radio stations or phone calls, that sucker ain't shielded properly. It is particularly evident as hum when near flourescent lights. It's not too complex to shield an unshielded guitar, but it can be a pain in the ass. If there's a better option on the shelves, just go with that. Note, single coil pickups tend to hum by nature, so a little hum on single coils doesn't necessarily reflect a shielding issue.
Some guitar use active pickups or other electronics, which require battery power. As this battery becomes weak, the electronics will begin to malfunction. I can assure you very few music stores actually replace these batteries. I recommend avoiding active pickups or other such electronics anyway. However, if you have done some research and are dead-set on actives, make sure the guitar has a fresh battery for a serious demo. Again, if the tone sounds problematic and you are intent on a purchase, a salesperson should be happy to replace the battery, which takes about 5 minutes tops.
Aesthetics
Aesthetics typically refers to the body/headstock shape, fretboard wood, inlays, finish, hardware color/finish, control layout, and binding.
Body/Headstock Shape
This is the main thing you see when you first see a guitar, besides the finish color. Guitars come in all kinds of different shapes, with various pickguard and face designs. Here's a list of the most common shapes/styles:
- B.C. Rich
- Warlock
- Mockingbird
- Dean
- Ernie Ball/Music Man
- ESP
- EVH
- Fender
- Gibson
- Ibanez
- Jackson
- Peavey
- Paul Reed Smith
Besides the sillouhette, also pay attention to the "top". This is really the face of the body - the part facing the audience. Some bodies use a rounded top to give the guitar a more 3-D look, which I find appealing.
Fretboard Wood
Fretboards typically come in 3 types of wood:
- Maple (Tan)
- Rosewood (Dark Red/Brown)
- Ebony (Black)
Maple can also be quilted, birdseye, or some other special kind of maple, where the woodgrain presents different patterns.
Rosewood has various shades of color and woodgrain patterns depending on the exact kind of rosewood used.
Ebony typically has no noticeable woodgrain pattern that is visible at a distance. It just looks black.
Inlays
The fretboard typically has mother of pearl or black (for maple fretboards) inlays. Usually these are simple dots; however, some manufacturers use different designs such as shark tooth, shark fin, skull & crossbones, rectangles, trapezoids, or custom shapes/designs. Some even use no inlays for a very clean look, or only put one inlay on the 12th fret. It's worth taking the time to view the different variations to determine if one really strikes a chord with you.
Finish
Most finishes are glossy - they reflect light very well and tend to shine, like a new car. The finish might be a simple clear-coat, so the natural color and wood-grain of the body wood is visible. Or the wood may be stained and then clear-coated. Traditionally, this is a hot color like red that still has a natural wood feel; but it doesn't have to be - there are blue, green, purple, and other staining options available. Another option is a flat color. And yet another is a sparkle option, which can range from an exorbitant glittery look to a suble sandy look.
Within all these options, the guitar may be sunbursted, where the color fades darker towards the edges. Or the guitar may have two colors, with one color masked, so there's stripes or a similar pattern from one color on top the other.
Some finishes are flat - as in, not glossy.
Features
Here some various "extra" features you may want.
- Piezo Pickup - Uses vibrational, not magnetic, sensors in the bridge to get a more acoustic-sounding output.
- Hexaphonic Pickup - Independent sensor for each string. This is usually for a pickup to output MIDI data, so you can have different strings trigger different MIDI instruments.
- Sustainiac - This is a special kind of pickup that actually works in reverse - inducing the signal in the string for infinite sustain and musical-sounding (harmonic) feedback.
- LED Inlays - There are just inlays that can be switched on to light up in the dark.
- Luminescent Paint - Glow in the dark paint
- Swirl Paint - Uses techniques to separate different colors of paints and apply them to create a swirling, random pattern. See this video for an example.
- Evertune Bridge - A complex bridge that can prevent your guitar from going out of tune and quickly switch to alternate tunings
- Fanned Frets - Some guitars are built with different scales for all the strings, where the thicker strings have a longer distance from nut to bridge than the thinner strings. Usually found on 7/8 string or baritone guitars, they get the longer scale which is associated with better pitch and tonal properties for the thicker strings, but the shorter scale which allows for better bending on the thinner strings.
- Scalloped Fretboard - Some fretboards feature what looks like dremeled out parts of the fretboard between higher frets - this ensures your fingers don't hit the fretboard during bends.
- All Access Neck Joints - There are various methods to improve the comfort and ease of playing higher frets. Neck joints were originally just rectangular blocks of wood that were not too comfortable. New designs reduce the size of the neck joint wood, smooth it, and/or angle it, all to increase comfort.
- Floating Bridge - A floating bridge does not press against the body, but "floats" against a set of posts. The tension between the strings and the bear claw springs keeps it balanced and pressed against the posts. This allows you to pull the whammy bar up to raise the pitch in addition to diving, and let's you seamlessly transition from pulling up to pushing down. Very useful for vibrato on chords, flutters, and other whammy bar techniques.
- Trem Stabilizers - These are usually double-hinge type devices that go in the bear claw cavity. They are designed to help force a guitar with a floating bridge to stay in tune better; however, they often hurt the seamless transition of moving the whammy bar through the "zero" (resting) position.
Pickups
This is a big topic, so I've devoted a whole page to it!
Hardware
Tuners
Material
Some claim the material the tuners are made of (brass, aluminum, etc.) have an impact on tone, but I've heard contrary opinions. I'd be more concerned about durability, although I think most modern tuners should be pretty reliable.
Quality
Cheap guitars often have cheap hardware, including tuners, pickups, and bridges. With cheap tuners, you may not stay in tune as well as with quality tuners.
Locking
Locking tuners (or a locking nut) are essential for guitars with tremelo systems that allow whammy bar dive-bombs until the strings are completely slacked. They prevent the loose strings from unwinding around the tuning peg, which can cause the string to slip off the peg completely or rewind differently than before changing the tuning.
Beyond that, locking tuners are not essential, although they may be preferable. They have a lower profile than regular tuners and make changing strings quicker and easier.