Which Guitar Type Is Right For You?

remember about 20 years ago when I was a beginner guitar player going online and trying to find out which electric guitar I should get and being completely overwhelmed by all of the options that were out there now unfortunately in the early 2000s YouTube wasn't a thing so I had to spend a few years trying to figure that stuff out so today's video is going to be the video I wish I could have seen when I was trying to figure out which guitar type was right for me now I should point out this video is not sponsored by anybody but there are some affiliate links in the description if you want to support the channel and check out some of my favorite guitars in different categories and also while you're down there please subscribe it really helps the channel out when you subscribe and click that Bell to be notified when I'm posting new videos with all that out of the way let's take a look at the basic electric guitar types so when it comes to body style there's three main types the first most common and the one you're probably looking at is what's called a solid body electric guitar and solid body guitars come in ball shapes and sizes and different wood types now the next most common type is going to be what's called a semi-hollow guitar now semi-hollows are kind of a mixture of a solid body and a hollow body which we'll talk about in a second this guitar type has a solid block of wood down the middle of the body with two Hollow Chambers on either side and last but not least we have the hollow body now like the name suggests these are guitars whose body construction is completely Hollow almost like an acoustic guitar there's no center block of wood anywhere in this body but like an acoustic guitar these are incredibly loud and resonant and that sound and that resonance comes through the pickups and out of the amplifier giving these guitars a more sort of warm resonant and almost Woody sound [Music] now hollow body guitars like this black falcon here are amazing they look fantastic and they're great for certain styles of music like jazz for example but they do have one major drawback and that is if you plan on playing this loud with an amplifier they're going to feed back a lot more prone to that howling screeching feedback because the guitar resonates so easily with semi-hollow and solid body guitars feedback is much less of an issue hey uh editoret here just butting in for a second to announce that today we are dropping a brand new video course the funk guitar Survival Guide I teamed up with my good friend Patrick Arthur who's an amazing player here in the Atlanta area and together we're going to teach you the fundamentals of funk guitar in three different styles from a meters style to a James Brown style to a Nile Rogers style there's Jam tracks and PDFs that go along with the entire course and the Jam tracks actually were recorded full band so there's no drum Loops or programmed bass lines or anything like that you're gonna be playing with a real band for more information on what's in the course check out the link in the description and you're going to get a 50 off launch discount it'll never be this discounted ever again so if you're interested in the course check it out and uh back to the video now scale length is how we describe the length of the string from the saddles on the bridge all the way up to the nut at the end of the neck and on fenders and Gibsons they're different fenders have a longer scale length generally speaking of 25 and a half inches whereas Gibson's generally speaking have a shorter scale length of 24 and three quarter inches now that leads to a pretty big difference in the playability and the feel of these two style of guitars longer scale instruments like the fender here have more string tension which means it takes more Force to fret a note or bend a note on the neck and they also have a greater distance between the Frets whereas the Gibson with a shorter scale is going to have less string tension so a little bit easier to fret the note as well as bend the note and the Frets themselves are a little closer together let's say you're a player with smaller hands or someone who might want to play faster speed is the name of your game then you might think about going with a guitar that has a shorter maybe Gibson style scale length or if you're like me you have bigger hands and don't mind a little more string tension a fender style scale length might be your bag it's an important thing to think about but it shouldn't make or break your decision on your next guitar type so we're talking about the sound of an electric guitar I think the pickups have the biggest impact and the type of pickup and how it's built and where it's placed on the guitar have a huge impact on the voice of the guitar now the first main type is what's called a single coil now the name single coil refers to the construction of the pickup you have six individual magnets that are wound with copper wired thousands and thousands of times it's called a single coil because it's only one coil of wire now this is a Stratocaster style guitar so it has the traditional Strat layout of three single coil pickups and they're known for having a really distinct Punchy clear sound [Music] thank you now it's cool about a strat like this is you have three individual single coil pickups with a five-way selector switch so I can select just the bridge pickup like this or I can combine the bridge in middle and get sort of that classic Strat sound then I can go just to the middle position and then I can combine the middle and the neck [Music] or my favorite sound on the Stratocaster is just the neck pickup now there are more types of single coils than just the strap pickup for example the Telecaster is another really popular type of single coil pickup [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] even though it has single coils are a different style of single coil pickup they're wound differently they're built differently so they sound different and we only have two pickups here instead of three so I have a three-way toggle switch instead of a five-way so I have just the bridge I have the bridge and the neck together and then I have just the neck now the Strat and the Telecaster are two of the most common types of Fender style guitars out there and you really can't go wrong with either one but if I had to choose I would be more of a teleman than a stratman now like the difference between the Strat single coil and the tele single coil we have another really popular type of single coil pickup which is worth looking at called the P90 this is a single coil pickup but as you can tell it looks quite a bit different than what you would see on a strat or a tele and as a result it actually sounds quite a bit different as well [Applause] [Music] foreign [Music] foreign s tend to be a little bit beefier they have a little bit more output meaning they're a little louder than something you would get from a strat or a tele generally speaking but they're not as mid-rangey or beefy as a humbucker which we'll check out in a second as a result to me these are like right in the middle these are the sweet spot if I had to have one pickup to play everything I think a P90 would be it for me and last but certainly not least is the humbucker now a humbucking pickup is actually two single coil pickups stuck together and wired together so that they actually cancel the 60 cycle hum that comes from a single coil pickup these were invented by Seth lover in the late 1950s and they actually were trying to make a noiseless P90 at the time and while they didn't really accomplish making a noiseless P90 they did accomplish making maybe the most iconic pickup of all time especially for rock music and that is the paf humbucker which is what's loaded in this Les Paul now paf stands for patent applied for which is the little sticker that was placed on the underside of the pickup in the late 1950s when Gibson was applying for the patent for the humbucking pickup they also have the most mid-range and sort of the most punch of the pickups we've looked at so far foreign [Music] [Music] buckers are great for a lot of things but especially if you are more of a rock guitar player you want to play with a lot of gain a lot of punch humbuckers are a great place to start thank you foreign on something that took me years to figure out when it comes to picking a guitar for a certain sound and that is you can play anything on anything there's no rules that say you have to play a strat to play blues or you have to play a Les Paul to play Rock you can literally do anything a guitar is just a tool for a job now there are some exceptions to that rule if you want to sound like Jimmy Page in the early days of Led Zeppelin you're probably going to want to get a Les Paul or a Les Paul style guitar if you want to sound like Stevie Ray Vaughan you're probably going to want some kind of a strat but outside of trying to sound like a specific player at a specific time with a specific rig picking a certain type of guitar for a certain type of music I think is not the right way to go instead I think it's important to focus on a few key things first of all is the feel how does a guitar feel when you pick it up is it something that's comfortable is it easy to play the more you play the more experience you gain over time the more you'll start to find your thing and one thing I I wish I could go back and tell myself as a younger player by the guitar that's exciting to look at buy the guitar that you can't walk past without picking up leave the guitar out sitting on your stand in your room so that every time you see it it gets you excited and you can't help but pick it up and play it when you're a beginner the best thing you can do is spend time with a guitar in your hand if you have the guitar in your hand practicing and playing you're getting better period so because of that the type of guitar you buy matters you want to get something that excites you do you want to get something that you like you want to get something that's the right color it's the right shape something that gets you excited to play and that's the other thing to think about this is subjective what I look for and love in a certain guitar type you might find repulsive you might hate the way this guitar looks or the way this thing sounds that's okay you don't have to play any one of these guitars the important thing is to go out and play stuff experience stuff go down to your local guitar store and spend time talking to the people there and just try a bunch of different stuff don't get stuck in the rabbit hole of saying well I'm a tele player or I only play Gibsons or I only play PRS or whatever it is go out and experience a wide range of guitars different types different pickup combinations different scale links different body constructions and find what you like if you can do that I think you'll have a higher chance of finding the one the one guitar that really sticks out to you like I did with this one so that's how to find the guitar type that's right for you like I said you can find some affiliate links in the description to some of the guitar types we talked about in today's video some things that I really recommend in different budget options don't forget to subscribe if you haven't done so already my name is retro thank you so much for watching today's video and I will catch you on the next one

Channel: Rhett Shull

Views: 150,011

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Id: m5svhFCEF98

Length: 12min 38sec (758 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 21 2023