Electric Guitars Types: Everything you must know

[Music] this is a hollow body electric guitar that marked the first big breakthrough in trying to amplify the sound of the guitar in an era where music became louder and louder crowd's guitarist needed some help we didn't practice all these skills for nothing [Music] enter the guitar pickup it's due to the cradle of a major revolution in music and in the guitar industry itself the solid or semi-solid body electric guitar what's so amazing to realize that almost all guitars currently on the market are either a direct descendant or very similar to just a handful of instruments that came to life during the span of just one decade the 50s my name is paul david and in this video we'll go over the characteristics and sounds of the most iconic guitar types and brands and seeing all the instruments in the context of their time and why they came to be is super interesting to see and this story starts in 1950 defender telecaster was the first successful solid body electric guitar that came on the market although that wasn't quite the name leo fender had in mind it started as the broadcaster turns out gretch a company we'll see later in this video didn't like that they had a drum set with that same name and kindly asked leo to change the name of the broadcaster so one year later in 51 he did and it became known as the telecaster [Music] over 70 years later and the design is still pretty much unchanged and still massively popular among all types of guitarists this guitar can do it all the power is in the simplicity two single coil pickups a three-way pickup switch volume and a tone giving you that bright open sound so this is the sound where telecaster is most known for the twang from that bridge pickup [Applause] and this is the lovely round and creamy neck pickup so the most forward position on this guitar features the mythical dark circuits to emulate a base [Music] so you can't use both the neck and the bridge at the same time but luckily all teddies from 67 and onwards actually have a useful pickup switch to engage both so on this guitar i can show you how it sounds this is a thin line telecaster first introduced in 68 and it delivers a slightly warmer and darker tone as opposed to the solid body and this is how it sounds with both pickups [Applause] [Music] after the huge success fender had with the telecaster gibson desperately needed a response to that and they had gibson answered with the les paul in 1952 just like the telly it's a single cut design there's one cutaway near the upper frets of the neck but other than that the last ball is a different beast in almost all aspects for five years the guitar was built exclusively with a gold finish the gold top featuring p90 pickups gibson's version of the single coils now i don't have an original early gibson les paul here but this is a custom build that comes somewhat close to the looks and the sounds of one [Music] during the first years they kept upgrading the model in 55 they replaced the wraparound bridge with two nomadic bridge making intonation on the neck so much better in 57 they introduced the iconic humbucker pickup the paf patent applied for and a year later they added the sunburst finish this resulted into the creation of easily the most valuable guitars to date between 58 and 60 gibson would produce the gibson les paul standard burst [Music] the guitar was considered a commercial failure and that's why the production came to a halt in 1960. so the rarity in combination with that many consider this being the greatest les paul ever built means that an original from that era will set you back a few hundred thousand dollars so it's obvious that this is a 59 reissue les paul and just for fun because they are so different let's compare the sound of a les paul to that of a telly [Music] so the difference in sound is quite obvious but there's more difference that's worth noting like the necks this is a glute neck versus a bolt-on neck lightweight versus moderately heavy longer scale length so the strings are longer so it's more difficult to bend for example versus a shorter scale length which also means shorter frets making it a little bit finicky higher up the neck the radius of the fretboard is different and then there's the obvious control difference four knobs two knobs etc so all these variables make these two totally different guitars and these two ways of building guitars would set the benchmark for many more guitars to come for example remember that company that i politely asked leo fenner to take the name of the broadcaster fred gretch was looking at what the competition was doing at first being very skeptical of that modern nonsense but when seeing the success of it they released their take on the les paul in 1953 the grech geojet at first two single coils and what many seemed to forget about the hollowed-out body this made the guitar so much lighter and gave it its unique sound the melita synchro sonic bridge was a revolutionary adjustable system predating the gibson two nomadic bridges increasing the intonation of the instrument [Music] so these pickups are modeled after the first single coils they used the dynasonic fat and bright then in 57 the same year gibson introduced their famous pif pickups graduate introduce their iconic humbucking pickups that are still in high demand as of today the filtertrons so they are not installed on this guitar but almost at the end of this video you can still hear them on another one so this model has a bixby vibrato installed invented by paul bixby in the early 50s and soon gibson and gretch guitars offered it on their guitars and you could even buy it as an aftermarket option for the telecaster and maybe gretch never reached the same popularity as fender and gibson but many notable players loved theirs chad atkins george harrison malcolm young neil young pete thousand i guess you can say that the sound of their instruments shaped a great deal of the music history as we know it today but meanwhile something magical was happening in the west coast company we all know besides all the amps he designed leo fender was still thinking about how he could improve on that telecaster and so it happened in 1954 four years after the birth of the telecaster they released probably the most successful and iconic guitar ever defender stratocaster the biggest upgrades were a third single coil pickup in the middle giving you more tonal flexibility the comfortable contour body shape that was easier to hold and play and the edit although incorrectly named a tremolo system to the guitar yeah pretty much the same thing paul bixby developed a few years back so i'm sure we all know how a strat sounds but [Music] [Applause] [Music] and the often overlooked middle pickup [Applause] and the bridge we got [Music] up to the 70s all finished strats shipped with a three-way pickup switch one two three and people would try to find these iconic in between settings where you sort of jam it in the middle of a setting trying to find a combination of the neck and the middle or the bridge and the middle let's see [Music] there we are [Music] so luckily all the guitars now with five-way switches making life so much more easier so the following years we saw mostly incremental improvements on the known designs that was until 1958 where four new models saw the light of day and let's start with the first semi-hollow or semi-solid or thin line guitar that came on the market before the last poll all gibsons were completely hollow like this es-225 but with performances getting louder and louder these guitars were very prone to feedbacking [Music] kind of annoying right and that's where the 300 series came in starting with the gibson es 335 in 1958 and although they were still mostly hollow there's the usual f holes with the arch laminated maple top now there was a solid piece of wood running through the center of the guitar the center block this increased sustain made it brighter sounding and got rid of that unwanted feedback and of course it featured the one year earlier invented humbucker pickup all these ingredients put together create one of the greatest stones around [Music] [Music] the 335 is a special beast so the reach on the neck especially compared to these older hollow bodies was unparalleled and to many this is the most versatile guitar gibson ever made so many jazz and blues players favorite guitar obviously i mean it's seen in hands like bb king or larry colton but guitar also put its mark on the rock'n'roll and even the hard rock scene [Music] so there's very little you can't do with the es es-335 and in that same year gibson released two more iconic models but let's first head over to what fender came with where the gibson 335 was aimed at a jazz player so was the fender jazz master that debuted in 1958 meant to be the most luxurious guitar of the fender lineup but the jazzers weren't really interested in this new kid on the block and mostly stuck with these art stop hollow bodied guitars soon though the model was adopted by the surf rockers a massively popular genre emerging in the early 60s nowadays the model is regaining popularity amongst the indices where we see it in the hands of many young and upcoming artists these bodies were carved to be more balanced on the left when sitting down due to an offset guitar body shape and this was the first fender with a rosewood fingerboard instead of maple although the pickups look very similar to the gibson p90 they work quite differently they have a wider and deeper tone without losing the clarity we all know in law from the traditional fender pickups [Music] so the newly designed terminal system was meant to suit the more subtle approach and although it had quite some issues in the beginning it did give the guitar a unique voicing with characteristic overtones all that paired with a unique set of controls to shape the tone make this instrument an easy guitar to love those same controls and tremolo systems were fitted on the fender jaguar 2 that came to life 4 years later in 1962 and i'm putting jack under the same umbrella since the jaguar was meant to be an upgraded jazz master and visually there are pretty similar the most obvious changes were new pickups a shorter scale length even shorter than the one gibson was using and it was the first fender with 22 frets instead of the traditional 21. this model became much appreciated in the 90s with the birth of the grudge scene so deer was 58 we saw the jazz master the es-335 and we're not done yet because in that very year gibson debuted the explorer and the flying v in an attempt to modernize the company gibson went back to the drawing board sales of solid bodies were going down they needed something new and spicy so they designed three eye-catching models the unreleased modern the explorer leslie flying designed with a retro aesthetic look that was so popular in that era and it was their attempt to prove that gibson wasn't what leo fenner claimed it to be a study old company that never had an original idea in their lives the first v had a two-nomatic bridge two humbuckers a three-knob volume and tone control and the wing-shaped tailpiece in two years gibson would produce less than 100 fees and even less explorers sales came to a halt and they stopped production of both models in 59 a bit too ambitious for the time i guess but in the late 60s production started again when notable players like albert king and jimi hendrix picked up the instrument this guitar is modeled after the custom jimi hendrix guitar from 1969 and it features the gibson vibrola gibson's take on the bixby and fender tremolo systems [Music] so gibson was in bad weather sales went down across the board and they cancelled the les paul the v and the explorer in 1960 to make plays for a new kid on the block well new kid kind of in 61 gibson introduced the gibson solid guitar the gibson sg the last pole needs a drastic change is what they thought the double cut creating a faster and more accessible neck they made the body thinner and lighter following the contours of the human body making it easier to play and so much little tweaks also they call it the most balanced guitar they ever produced so the first sgs were still marketed as les paul standards but les paul the guitarist that lends its name to the original model wasn't too happy with the redesign of his guitar and wanted his name after les paul 2.0 and so it happened the birth of the gibson s g [Music] in terms of tone it does exactly what you think so the sound of an sg is not as overwhelming and thick as a les paul it's a bit more open and bright that in combination with that mega reach on the neck and the guitar being very light makes this guitar super versatile and it's seen across many genres [Music] so for all the guitars and types and shapes we saw can be seen as traditional they were developed over 60 years ago and still determine how a big chunk of the guitar sold today look sound and play but in the 80s something changed a new genre of music started to erupt and guitarists were looking for a guitar better suited for that style enter the super strat the guitar that became the phase of metal and heartwarming companies pioneering this new philosophy are brands like ibanez jackson travel and kramer high output pickups to crank the amp even more resulting into more distorted sound a flatter fretboard radius and the new extreme tremolo system combined with the superb playability and even better reach on the neck often seen with up to 24 threads while still following general design philosophy of the stratocaster making this a versatile rock and metal monster [Music] probably the most iconic guitar of this family has to be the ibanez jam designed for and with guitar virtuoso steve vive but this is the ivan s rg super strat actually the first guitar i ever bought and maybe not as high end as the rest of the guitars in this video nonetheless an absolute fine guitar [Music] now there's many more brands that could be included then electro yamaha rickenbacker epiphone music man there's many but i feel like i've got to include one more brand in a very traditional often conservative guitar market it's hard to start a new business and turn into one of the established names but paul reed smith the founder of prs guitars did just that [Music] in 1985 he opened the factory and along the way pushed many innovations to the table often prs showcases extravagant designs with stunning visual elements many guitarists lean towards the more modern design philosophy of the prs guitars most notable being john mayer who shook the guitar world when they released the prs silver sky a mother intake on the vintage strat anyway here are some classic tones that i associate with that prs sound [Music] do [Music] [Applause] [Music] and if you want to know more about this guitar in particular maybe check out the video i made maybe the best solo i ever played lastly i'd like to talk about boutique guitars smaller companies or individuals putting their life's work into making the best guitar they can possibly make often putting a lot of hours into making just one instrument that can be highly inspired by traditional shapes we've seen often called the s-style or t-style strat or teles or it can be a totally new vision with fresh and unfamiliar designs for example this novo seris t obviously a t style guitar we've got the two gretch filtertron inspired pickups we talked about earlier and of course the telecaster style bridge and controls but definitely a unique identity going on [Music] and here is the bng little sister i mean that's a whole unique sound going on the thin line single cut inspired guitar yeah with p90s and a slotted headstock for example it's very cool unique feature set [Music] if you've been paying attention you realize that i didn't specifically talk about genres too much so i think this story has proven that when a guitar is built with a particular charm in mind it often finds its way into new realms that the maker didn't even think about in the first place also please don't limit yourself to the brands i mentioned or the models i talked about in this video this is an overview where it all started and nowadays there are so many great guitars and if you can't imagine it there's probably someone who can build it for you which is a great thing so if after watching all these beautiful guitars you feel inspired i think you would love going through my intermediate guitar course next level playing it's a carefully designed road map to help people reach that next level of playing all the things i advise people to learn and how to do it bundled with tabs backing tracks and detailed explainer videos in a seven level course going through the many facets of what guitar means to me and making you a great aura guitarist from solos to rhythm guitar and from exercises to improvisation i use my experience as a teacher and combine everything in a fun and easy to follow step-by-step roadmap check it out at nextlevelplaying.com if you enjoyed watching this video make sure to gently hit that thumbs up thank you so much it means a lot drop a comment below and of course if you haven't subscribed already please do so thanks everyone for helping me out with this video for the guitars and stuff and i hope to see you around next time cheers

Channel: Paul Davids

Views: 2,187,703

Keywords: paul davids, guitar types, electric guitar, video, tone, timeline, history, guitar, demo, les paul, telecaster, gibson, fender, strat, stratocaster, les paul vs telecaster, strat vs tele, ES335, jazzmaster, flying V, Gibson SG, Supet Strat, Ibanez, PRS, Paul Reed Smith, Gretsch, les paul vs stratocaster, different guitars, what guitar to buy, which guitar do i need, what guitar, best guitar, best guitars, fender vs gibson

Id: hEOuGs7m8bw

Length: 23min 18sec (1398 seconds)

Published: Fri Aug 12 2022