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What to look for in your first electric guitar, and everything you need to know about pickups, feel, and tone. With 19 great deals
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Humbuckers are basically two single-coil pickups placed side by side and wired together. Armed with 12 pole pieces (two for each string), humbuckers get their name from the fact that their design reduces noise (or hum) often associated with single-coils. As a rule, humbucking pickups offer a fatter, more powerful (or hotter) sound than single-coils, which makes them great for hard rock, metal, jazz, blues, and punk—although they can be used for any style of music. While Gibson’s Les Paul and SG guitars are often considered legends of humbucker tone, virtually every guitar company out there—including Samick, First Act, Hamer, and Washburn—offers great humbucker guitars. Famous songs that demonstrate the tonal possibilities of humbuckers include B.B. King’s “The Thrill Is Gone,” AC/DC’s “Back in Black,” Guns ‘n’ Roses’ “Welcome to the Jungle,” and Metallica’s “Enter Sandman.”
Most guitar companies offer models that either combine both pickup types or feature a switch that disengages one of the humbucker’s coils to get a more “Strat-like” sound. This is often called “coil-tapping” or “coil-splitting.” Guitar greats who mix both single-coil and humbucker tones include Audioslave’s Tom Morello and instrumental shred-rockers Steve Vai and Joe Satriani.
Feel
OK, now on to Crucial Consideration No. 3: Plain and simple, if your guitar is uncomfortable to play, you’ll soon want a different one—or worse, you may just decide playing guitar isn’t for you. And we just can’t let that happen.
If you’ll be playing while sitting, make sure your ax rests comfortably on your leg. If you plan on standing while you play (for instance, if you’re in a band), comfy contours may not be such a big deal, and you may be able to choose what you like based almost on looks alone. Go ahead and check out unusually shaped models such as Dean’s Z-X or B.C. Rich’s Warlock. If you play standing, weight will be a bigger consideration than if you play sitting down. If you can’t stand straight up playing the guitar or if your back hurts when you play it, find a lighter one—perhaps a semi-hollow guitar.
Whether you sit or stand to play, be absolutely certain your instrument isn’t neck heavy. In other words, the headstock shouldn’t fall toward the floor when you’re not supporting it. Neck-heavy guitars are a surefire ticket to numerous problems, including painful wrist and back injuries.
Action, the relative amount of space between the strings and the fretboard, refers to how easy it is to press down on the strings and fret notes. The easiest way to see if a guitar’s action is good for you is to play it and see if you’re able to press the strings down without using excessive pressure and if you get a nice sound that’s not buzzy or weak.
Players who love to shred à la Joe Satriani or Steve Vai often prefer very low action and light-gauge strings (sets with a .009 high E string) because they make fleet-fingered maneuvers easier to execute. Beginners also like this setup because it’s very easy on the fingers. However, a light, low setup can produce a thinner sound that prevents you from really digging into the strings without breaking them or going out of tune. If the action is too low, the strings will buzz because they’re too close to the frets. If the action is too high, the guitar will be more difficult to play, but you’ll get more volume and a different tone. Stevie Ray Vaughan, for instance, played heavy strings (.013 on the high E) and had a throttling guitar tone that would have been impos-sible to get otherwise.
Like many things related to the art of music, action is a matter of personal preference that may change over time. When you’re starting out, though, give yourself a break with lighter strings (.009s or .010s) and low action. A good rule of thumb is to make sure that, when you’re not fretting a note, your low E string (the thickest one) is less than one-eighth inch from the 12th fret (exact measurements are best left to professional repair people). If you find a guitar you love but that has bad action or a slightly bowed neck, don’t rule it out quite yet: ask the store owner if their repair person can rectify the problem before you purchase. A good luthier can adjust the action in a setup (see “Get Your Due!”on the next page).
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