{"id":1131,"date":"2022-03-26T00:45:24","date_gmt":"2022-03-26T00:45:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.finalguitar.com\/?p=1131"},"modified":"2022-03-26T00:45:24","modified_gmt":"2022-03-26T00:45:24","slug":"how-to-pick-the-right-guitar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.finalguitar.com\/blog\/how-to-pick-the-right-guitar\/","title":{"rendered":"How To Pick the Right Guitar"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe width=\"100%\" height=300vh src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/ajrfZjm4m6w?autoplay=1&#038;mute=1\"><\/iframe>How To Pick the Right Guitar<\/p>\n<p>The first step to picking the right guitar is to understand the different types of guitars that are available. You need to know what purpose each type of guitar serves, and which one would be best for you. If you are going to be performing in front of an audience, you might want a more flashy guitar that stands out. However, if you are just looking for a guitar for your own personal use, then you have many more options available. Here is a list of most of the main types of guitars:<\/p>\n<p>Classical Guitar<\/p>\n<p>This type of guitar has steel strings and is commonly used for classical music and for flamenco style music. The classical guitar has nylon strings and is usually played finger-style (with fingers instead of a pick).<\/p>\n<p>Acoustic Guitar<\/p>\n<p>The acoustic guitar is best known as the type used by country musicians. It has steel strings, and it is typically played with a pick. Perhaps the most famous acoustic guitarist was the late Elvis Presley.<\/p>\n<p>Acoustic Electric Guitar<\/p>\n<p>This type of acoustic guitar has built in electronics that allow it to be plugged into an amplifier or speaker system. This allows it to produce better sound quality when it is being played over a PA system. Acoustic electric guitars are great for<\/p>\n<p>How to Pick the Right Guitar<\/p>\n<p>Choosing your first guitar can be overwhelming. There are so many different styles and manufacturers that the choice can be difficult. The most important thing is to pick a guitar that&#8217;s right for you. To do this, you&#8217;ll need to consider your budget, how much time you spend practicing and what style of music you want to play. You also need to consider your own comfort level with playing the guitar.<\/p>\n<p>To pick the right guitar for you, start by considering your budget. Most guitars are priced under $500, but if you&#8217;re looking for an electric guitar, expect to pay more for additional features like built-in effects or a whammy bar. If you&#8217;re looking for an acoustic guitar be sure the shop specialist shows you which ones have steel strings (most acoustic guitars have nylon strings) because they can be harder on the fingers when first starting out.<\/p>\n<p>Next, think about how much time you&#8217;ll have to practice each day. Do you already play another instrument? If so, it might take less time learning guitar than someone who doesn&#8217;t read music or has never played before. Another factor is whether you want to play alone or with others. If you&#8217;re going to sing along while playing, an acoustic guitar is probably a better<\/p>\n<p>When it comes to acoustic guitars, you&#8217;re going to run into a lot of opinionated people. If you&#8217;re making a shopping list, here are some of the most common opinions you&#8217;ll hear.<\/p>\n<p>Size Matters<\/p>\n<p>There&#8217;s a lot of debate over which size guitar is better for beginners. If you&#8217;re looking for an acoustic guitar, there are two basic body styles to choose from: dreadnought or concert (also called &#8220;folk&#8221; or &#8220;000&#8221;). To get a sense of the difference, compare the size and shape of these two guitars:<\/p>\n<p>Dreadnoughts tend to be louder than concerts, with more bass. Concert guitars tend to have a mid-range that&#8217;s more pronounced and less bassy.<\/p>\n<p>Other Guitar Body Styles<\/p>\n<p>While dreadnought and concert are by far the most popular body styles out there, they&#8217;re not the only ones. There are also smaller versions of both body styles known as parlor and mini-dreadnought. Each style has its own unique sound and feel. As always, it&#8217;s best if you can try before you buy.<\/p>\n<p>There are many different types of guitars, each designed for a specific purpose.<\/p>\n<p>Let&#8217;s break down the different guitar types and discuss some of their pros and cons.<\/p>\n<p>Electric Guitar<\/p>\n<p>The most well-known type of guitar is the electric guitar. Electric guitars use magnetic pickups to convert vibrations from their strings into electrical signals. They typically have six strings, but there are also 12-string versions available. Most electric guitars have solid bodies, but there are also semi-hollow and hollow body electric guitars available.<\/p>\n<p>Contrary to popular belief, there is no such thing as a \u201cbest\u201d guitar.<\/p>\n<p>There are only guitars that are best for certain applications.<\/p>\n<p>You can get so many different sounds from a guitar depending on the pickups, the strings, the amp, the guitar itself. But, underneath all of that you have to start with a good instrument.<\/p>\n<p>If you want to be able to play any style of music with one guitar and not have to change guitars every time you play a show, then you should look into getting an all-around type of guitar.<\/p>\n<p>A humbucker equipped guitar will give you the ability to cover a wide variety of musical genres without having to switch guitars.<\/p>\n<p>The humbucker tone takes some getting used to but once you get used to it, it really opens up the door for many types of music that would otherwise be hard to replicate if not impossible.<\/p>\n<p>Gibson Les Paul Standard is one example of a great humbucker guitar that can cover nearly all types of music (it has coil-split functionality).<\/p>\n<p>People often make the mistake of playing a guitar that is too big for them. This can cause many problems for a beginner like the player developing bad habits in their playing technique.<\/p>\n<p>How do you know if your guitar is too big?<\/p>\n<p>If you have trouble sitting because the body of the guitar hits your lap.<\/p>\n<p>If you have to sit sideways and reach around the body to play.<\/p>\n<p>If you cannot hold the guitar comfortably on your knee and fret at the same time.<\/p>\n<p>If you try to play standing up but cannot keep it upright because it&#8217;s too heavy or slips off your leg.<\/p>\n<p>The guitar should be like an extension of your arm, so if you need to change your playing position just to accommodate the size of the body then it is too big!<\/p>\n<p>There are a few different types of pickups, and they all make different sounds:<\/p>\n<p>Single coil pickups: These are the classic pickups that have been around for decades. They are a simple design where each string has its own pickup underneath it. In some designs, there is also a pickup in the middle. This can add more brightness to your sound, but it\u2019s not essential. Single coil pickups traditionally give you more of a \u201ctwangy\u201d sound, but they can also be used for crunchier rock tones as well.<\/p>\n<p>Humbucker pickups: These are very similar to single coils, but they have two coils instead of one. The benefit of this is that humbuckers reduce the hum and interference noise that you tend to get with single coils. They generally have a warmer sound as well, so if you want to use distortion or overdrive with your guitar, then humbuckers will work better than single coils for this purpose. Most guitars that are designed for rock and metal will have humbucker pickups fitted as standard.<\/p>\n<p>Active pickups: These are very different from the other two types because they require batteries to power them (usually a 9V battery). The benefit is that they give you a much higher output than passive pickups<iframe width=\"100%\"\" height=300vh src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/7n947Xna4Ws?autoplay=1&#038;mute=1\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>How To Pick the Right Guitar The first step to picking the right guitar is to understand the different types of guitars that are available. You need to know what purpose each type of guitar serves, and which one would be best for you. If you are going to be performing in front of an [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.finalguitar.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1131"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.finalguitar.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.finalguitar.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.finalguitar.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.finalguitar.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1131"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.finalguitar.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1131\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1132,"href":"https:\/\/www.finalguitar.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1131\/revisions\/1132"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.finalguitar.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1131"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.finalguitar.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1131"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.finalguitar.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1131"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}