What Are Some Stats/specs To Look For When Buying An Electric Guitar?
Tuesday, January 5th, 2010 at
4:34 pm
I want to play an electric guitar, but I don’t know much yet.
What are some good things to look for for a beginners guitar?
Also, I like death metal and power metal so what do I need to look for to find one that would be good at that?
Tagged with: Buying • Electric • Guitar • Look • Some • Stats/specs • What • When
Filed under: Q&A
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b.c. rich is probably a kind of guitar you’re looking for
kerry king (slayer) uses that brand
normally in metal you hear a lot of solos getting really high so you preferibly would want 24 frets
also, deans and jacksons have a double whammy bar (you can make that guitar squeel like a mother f***er) which can either make things lower as you play or higher but you can do a lot more cool things with it (dimebag used it a lot with his dean)
also jacksons come with locks to keep your guitar in tune
jacksons are very nice and have a comphy neck
my next guitar i’m getting is a jackson haha but they’re expencive and i have no job or money
First off, it’s got to be visually appealing to you. I think that might be especially important to a death metal player. After that make sure that the guitar plays well, meaning that it’s easy to push the strings down to the fretboard and it feels comfortable to hold. The closeness of the strings, or “action”, can be adjusted to an extent in every guitar, with some being better than others. With playing metal, you probably want one with a whammy bar too. B.C. Rich are good guitars popular in metal, and any Gibson is always good, but pretty pricey.
Electric guitars…hmmmm….play it uplugged with your ear on the body of the guitar. You’ll be surprised how different the same exact models will sound from one another.
What you’re listening for is resonance. Some guitars just seem to sustain better than others.
Look for a very tight neck to body joint. If you can fit a thin guitar pick into the area where the neck joins the body..DO NOT buy this guitar.
Sight down the neck to see if it’s straight..a little concave bow is often preferable, but the neck should look even with no bumps in the ffetboard.
Examine the frets to see they’re seated properly, and run your hand along the edges to check for fret burrs. ( A sign of bad fret work)
Finally, plug the guitar in…a clean sound.,..NO DISTORTION, and play every note at every fret to check for buzzes. Check the tuning keys to see they work smoothly, and all volume and tone pots…switches..etc. The volume knob should have a nice gradual increase…and not a sudden jump in volume.
If you’re capable…bend some notes to see if they fret out. You should be able to bend a note at least two frets up in pitch without having the string go dead.
Finally…check intonation…a high open E string ( the thinnest string,) should sound like the same note at the 12th fret, and the same note as the harmonic at the 12th fret. (A harmonic is lightly touching your finger to the 12th fret, without pressing the string down, playing the note, and quickly removing your finger to get a more ringing tone.) Try harmonics at the 5th and 7th frets. Do this for all strings.
You can play death metal on any electric guitar. When you do the ear to the wood bit and play it unplugged…you may find one guitar that seems to speak to you. Do not discount this feeling….this guitar is saying “Take me home…I’m the one.”
Best of luck and keep practicing till those fingers bleed.
As an absolute beginner, you need not worry about the nitty gritty details of guitars. The main thing to decide is whether you want an acoustic, solid-body, hollow or semi-hollow – but your choice in music pretty much determined this already for you already (a solid body).
You’ll learn your other preferences as you gain experience, if you continue to play.
Instead, you should focus on getting a decent guitar for as little money as possible (I usually recommend a $200 budget for beginning players). This can be tricky since most inexpensive guitars are crap.
Some beginners solid-body guitars I can personally recommend as a great bang-for-your-buck:
* Epiphone Les Paul Special II (http://guitars.musiciansfriend.com/produ… – also they have a couple value packages on that site, which include an amp and other accessories)
* Squire Strat – but might be a little weak-sounding for death metal
* Epiphone SG Special – very metal (http://guitars.musiciansfriend.com/produ…
* Pretty much any Ibanez below $200 (they’re reliable for most entry-level guitars), or below $300 for their starter packs
These are just a few suggestions that you can’t go wrong with. Surely there are other great entry-level solid body guitars out there. My one biggest recommendation, though, is to avoid dropping a lot of money on your first guitar.
Hope this helps get you started.