Guitars

One of the most popular musical instruments in today’s world is the guitar. They are so versatile and apparently have made their presence known in all kinds of music. Moreover, they are easy to learn.

You will run into countless dilemmas while trying to find out the right guitar. It might be choosing between an acoustic or electric, or whether to invest in a high-end expensive one or an affordable model if you’re buying your first instrument. While there are many factors that can influence your choice, some prioritising factors include the sound and look of the instrument. Having a better understanding of them will help you make the right choices while making the purchase. Read this article to find out more about them.

Different types of guitars

The guitars are one of the oldest stringed instruments. Despite the fact that there are different variations of them like ukuleles and banjos, there exist varieties even within the guitar family. Each type has characteristics and qualities of its own. So, in order to choose the right type of them, you should know the features and qualities of each one of them. This buying guide will help simplify the process of finding the right instrument for you from deciding between types and models to deciding which sizes to purchase.

Electric guitars

With electric guitars a lot is possible. Because in electric guitars the sound is created in the form of electric signals rather than real sound. So, as the guitarist picks the strings, the circuit board creates electric signals corresponding to that note. This signal travels to the amplifiers, and then the actual come out through the speakers. Because it is possible to alter and tune these digital signals within the guitar itself, electric ones offer a lot more flexibility than their traditional counterparts. Because of the same reason, there are so many different variations within electric types.

Acoustic guitars

This is the most common type. There are plenty of reasons for this. Firstly, acoustic models are more affordable than electric models. Secondly, you don’t need any additional instruments like amplifiers or speakers in order to play them. While the sound that comes out when the guitarist picks the string might not be loud enough by themselves, the sound gets amplified inside the hollow body of the guitars. This will be loud enough for small indoor venues. If you want to amplify the sound further, you can use a microphone to pick up the sound and send it through amplifiers and speakers.

Electroacoustic

As you can probably understand from the name, this type is a crossover between acoustic and electric guitars. However, when it comes to the tonal characteristics, these models are more related to acoustic rather than electric models. The feature that makes these models electric is the presence of an inbuilt sound pick up unit. Because of this, you can plug the instrument directly into the amplifier without an external microphone. So, electro-acoustic guitars eliminate the need to have a separate pick-up mechanism.

Resonator

At first look, the resonator guitar will look like an acoustic one. However, you will notice that there are some additional fittings where there would be a hollow portion in acoustic models. Actually, this is the resonator mechanism. The advantage of resonator guitars is that they are louder than acoustic ones without using any speakers or amplifiers. Inside the resonator chamber, there will be an array of metal cones. These cones will work similarly to a loudspeaker and amplifiers the sound of the notes. The number of resonating metal cones varies between models.