Some of the key factors that influence your electric guitar performance are body style, neck, intonation, length of scales and bridge.
So you are planning to buy your first electric guitar? Excellent! As you know by now, guitar is a great hobby, and you open up a new world of guitar playing when you go electric. Below are some of the things you need to be aware of when you buy your first electric guitar:
Body Style
These instruments can be bought with three sorts of styles: Semi-hollow, solid-body or hollow body.
If you need a lot of sustain or amplification, you should take a strong look at solid-body. Semi-hollow is a good choice if you need more of an acoustic sound with a lot of amplification. Hollow-body types are what you want for an acoustic sound, but you can get feedback if you try to do a lot of amplification.
Neck
The neck type should be chosen based upon how big your hand is. You can get your guitar neck in many shapes – thin, wide-thin, C-shaped, and others.
Intonation
This tells you if the notes are played in tune as you move your fingers up your guitar neck. If you have distances between your frets that are not right, you cannot play the instrument in tune. It’s then going to be fairly useless for recordings or performances.
Length of Scales
This will have a lot of influence on the tonal quality of your notes. Also it will have a lot of effect on the string tension at a certain pitch. Scale length is referring to the vibrating length of the guitar string. This is determined by how far it is between the nut and the bridge saddle. Placement of the fret is a ratio that is based upon your scale length. This means that a longer scale has a longer distance between the frets.
Bridge
You will find that there are two sorts of basic bridges for an electric guitar. These are the tremolo bridge and the stoptail bridge. The former lets you bend every string simultaneously. This is really good for heavy metal guitar styles. The stoptail is much more stable for your tunings. It is fixed on your guitar body, and many players say that it gives them more sustain than with a tremolo.
Tuning Machines
The sort of tuning machine you select for your electric guitar is critical. This lets you do fine tuning and to keep your pitch.
Wood
Wood type will change the weight and tone of your electric guitar. More pricey woods don’t always mean better sound.
There are many excellent electric guitars for beginners at www.asavings.com.
