so much for the “sound” of a solidbody electric guitar.

effects, speakers and cabinet, and amps have much more to due with the sound you get. noone plays a solid-body electric guitar without an amp.

If possible, could you write an article specifically about guitar maintenance? It’d be nice to know more about what needs to be done regarding guitar care and when it needs to be done.

Mario

I’m so glad you got something out of this article.

Björgvin:

John makes wonderful guitars. They are well worth their price tags.

Thanx

John

I welcome your comments. If the guitar makes you smile thats all that matters

The whole thing is a learning curve. Just when you think you have nailed it you find something else to make you think what if I………..

I am lucky, I have a friend he is one of the UKs leading guitar builders. His guitars get rave reviews in many Guitar magazines. He has recently sponsored the “Guitar Idol” competition by donating one of his guitars to the winner.

The images in my article are all guitars he as built. He was good enough to let me use them. Thanx Rob

So I’ve picked up information over the years from him. He has also worked for Gibson And Fender before going it alone.

Check out his guitars:

http://web.mac.com/robertlloydwilliams/Robwilliamsguitars/Welcome.html

You are right everything is important. I just feel if the guitar has a great foundation ie: Great woods and great build quality then the pick-ups and other hardware are just going to make it even better.

I’m glad you took the time to read my article Chris.

John

Thank you for this article as I do think it is very well written and I encourage you to write more. If it seems that my comment was discouraging then I apologize. I do agree that good wood does play a part in the sound. I NEVER said body wood was not important. Of course a guitar made out of plywood or particle board is not going to sound very good threoretically. (However, I have a feeling that if you get Stevie Ray Vaughan to play it you’ll get 75% of people commenting how great his tone is despite the case, but that’s another issue…)

What I did say was that I feel pickups and strings happen to be more important in regards to sound and feel like they were downplayed more than body wood in the article. You can tell a lot by playing it acoustically, but it’ll never give you the final answer unless you plug it into an amp of choice. And even then what type of amp is a whole other issue (and would make a good second article, explaining the basics such as tube vs. solid state, etc.).

There’s so many factors that go into choosing an instrument and it can be so personal sometimes that one man’s trash becomes another man’s treasure, so to say. This is a heated issue and allows for some interesting debate and discussion provided it’s civil. I am sure many of you have a lot more experience with guitar playing as well as doing tech work, as well as life experience (I’m only 30). However, there’s no need for name calling or false implications. I never said I was an expert. If there’s one thing we know about each and every one of us from the comments it’s that we all enjoy playing music, and playing music is fun and awesome. So let’s have fun and be awesome.

I guess i have opened Pandoras Box writing this article. Its great to see fellow guitarist so passionate about their guitars.

It takes a long long time to learn to play the guitar and even longer to learn to use your ears.

If you are a player who likes to have their amps gain set to the max and have 6 effects pedals in your signal chain. Play mainly power chords (stop shaking your head we have all done it) you are masking the sound of your guitar. Thats fine if thats what you want/need.

I sometimes forget how simple my chain is: Guitar, Monster Cable and a Tube amp (sometimes use a tube screamer and some analog delay) with this simple chain, its SO easy to hear the Tone Woods of your guitar. You can really hear the wood doing its thing.

When I said the guitar should sound good acoustically I am not saying you should place a mic in front of it and play it like an acoustic guitar. I’m saying the guitar should be alive with vibrations it should sing, it should have good acoustic volume before it gets to the amp.

If the guitar has a badly set up bridge or a bad string its still going to have a badly setup bridge and a bad string when you plug it into the amp. If the amp is gained up you might not notice it as much. The facts are still the same the guitar has problems. To me thats a great reason the play the guitar acoustically in the first place. You will notice everything acoustically. If you listen.

I have had my guitars set up by many different guitar techs in the past, one thing that they all do is play the guitar acoustically before they do anything.

Its when the whole thing comes together that you have a great guitar. Everything is important.

Go to your local guitar store and try 5 Les Pauls acoustically first, then on a clean setting on the amp and finally gained up. Some will sound ok some will sound great one might just sound KILLER, the KILLER one will tick all the boxes, thats the one to bye. Try the same thing with 5 Strats see what happens, see if you get lucky.

I have enjoyed writing this article its all food for thought.

John