Electric Guitars

Electric guitars come in all shapes and sizes. Generally speaking, an electric guitar is an instrument made from wood which uses magnetic devices known as pickups. These 'pick up' the vibration from tuned strings. There are normally 6 of these, but there can be more. This picked up vibration is then turned into an electronic signal which outputs via a connected cable to a large speaker known as an amplifier. Electric guitars are played in broadly the same way as acoustic guitars (or 'normal' guitars, if you prefer!) but the resulting sound is dramatically different. Electric guitars are the main instruments used in rock music and lots of other types of music. Electric guitars use effects pedals to transform the sound of the guitar into a massively diverse palette of sounds. Electric guitars are available in a wide variety of body shapes. Solid body guitars are made from solid pieces of wood and can be as traditional looking as a Fender Telecaster or as wild as a BC Rich Warlock. There is surely an electric guitar design to suit every taste! Semi acoustic, or semi hollow guitars, have areas within them that are hollowed out to allow for a different sound. They often have f-holes like a violin. The Gibson ES-335 is a famous example of this. Fully hollow electric guitars are usually larger bodies and used for playing Jazz music on. They have a warm, open sound. The Gibson ES-175 is a very distinctive example of a hollow body guitar. Each type of guitar has its own particular strengths and weaknesses. Many guitarists build up collections of guitars for playing different styles of music.

A locking tremolo is a type of bridge with a whammy bar. It provides a large degree of pitch shifting (both up and down in pitch) and 'dive-bombing' sounds. This is because the strings are literally locked down both within the bridge and up at the nut. Since the strings are securely locked, you can use the whammy bar to make all sorts of outrageous and wild noises with no fear of the guitar slipping out of tune. Lots of metal and 'shred' guitarists use locking tremolos to make other-wordly sounds come from their guitars! The most famous type of locking tremolo bridge is known as a Floyd Rose. These can be found on plenty of guitars from Jackson, Charvel, EVH, LTD and a host of other makers. The upside is the tuning stability and potential for expressive sounds. The downside is the compromise in tuning freedom (once the tuning is locked in, it's very much locked in!) and the comparatively time-consuming & fiddly nature of setting up and maintaining these bridges. Beginner guitarists may want to seek some extra advice before choosing a Floyd Rose-equipped guitar for this reason.

This is a very debatable subject! Most guitarists would probably agree that the most versatile guitar on the market would be some type of Stratocaster (or other S-type instrument) with a selection of single coil pickups and humbucking pickups. A guitar like this can cover the cleanest, most pristine sounds and the much more distorted, chunky, heavy rock sounds with ease. It would also have a tremolo or whammy bar to add more versatility. This type of guitar is available in all price ranges. We recommend looking at the Yamaha Pacifica 112J, the Fender Player Strat HSS. For a top of the range choice, check out the Tyler Studio Elite HD.

Some genres of music do tend to fit certain styles of guitar better than others: heavy metal, for example, is easier to play on an LTD or Jackson than a Gretsch. The opposite proves true too. Guitars with hugely high output pickups tend not to be as subtle sounding as large hollow body jazz guitars. After all, they are not designed specifically to carry out that task! The fact is though, you can play whatever you like on whatever guitar you like: that is part of the lovely freedom of being a musician! And for versatility, it is pretty difficult to beat a Strat with a bridge position humbucking pickup or something similar. With this type of guitar, there will be very little in the way of genres that you can't attack head on!

This question has been hotly contested but we think the most famous guitar has to be the Fender Stratocaster. It is the most recognised, most copied and most used design in the history of electric guitars. There are many variants of the Fender Strat (as it is often referred) but none of these deviate far from the original 1954 design. The Stratocaster is made with a neck that is bolted on to the body in a straight line. It produces a distinctly recognisable 'twang' sound that is used in lots of different genres of music. Famously versatile, the Stratocaster's design lends itself to multiple modifications and revisions. It does so without losing the inherent properties that have made it the world's most famous electric guitar. After the Stratocaster, the most famous guitar in our opinion is the Gibson Les Paul. Significantly different from the Strat, the Les Paul represents the other main type of solid body guitar type. The neck is glued in at a pitched angle, the body is deep with a carved top (often made from a separate type of wood) and the sound is thicker and chunkier. Famous for its near-endless amount of sustain, the Gibson Les Paul is the standard for heavier rock sounds. Between these two iconic models lie most other solid body electric guitars.