Best Electric Guitar Review

The best electric guitar for you will probably be different to the best guitar for the next guy. I mean, electric guitars come in three basic types:

• Solidbody
• Semi-hollowbody
• Hollowbody

Although if you’re into more modern rock, you’re probably only looking for the first variety: the solidbody. This means that the body of the guitar is in one solid piece, usually with no space inside, as in an acoustic.

The other extreme would be the hollowbody guitar, such as the ES-339. These are more like acoustics because the inside of the body is a hollow chamber, which helps with resonance and changes the tone.

Most hollowbody guitars are prone to lots of feedback due to the increased resonance, which is why solidbody guitars are more used for heavy metal and rock.

Which Pickups are the best?

The next thing that makes a huge difference to the sound of your electric guitar, is the pickups. These are what transfer the sound of the strings to the jack socket, and then on to the amp. You can see them on most electrics just under the strings on the body; they look like little boxes.

There are two main types of electric guitar pickups:

Singlecoil Pickups

These are what the first electric guitars came equiped with. Singlecoil pickups consist of one single coil of wire for each string, or sometimes only one coil in each pickup.

The coil of wire works a bit like a microphone, picking up the sound of the strings. However, it’s also a very good radio antenna. This is bad news, because it means you’ll get interference from anything from your computer monitor, to Jazz FM…

Singlecoil pickups can be recognised by their thinner (about 3/4 of an inch) width, and thinner, more cutting sound. The singlecoil pickup, found most nobably on Fender guitars, can be heard in recordings by:

• Jimi Hendrix
• Eric Clapton
• Stevie Ray Vaughan
• Richie Blackmore
• Kurt Cobain

The singlecoil sound is probably in the best electric guitar for country, and some would argue that you can’t beat it for blues rock (although this is controversial…).

Humbucker Pickups

Humbucker pickups, on the other hand, consist of two coils which are designed to ‘buck’ the hum- or interference- created by radio signals and electic devices.

Some would argue that the best electric guitar has to be made with the more modern, humbucker pickup. This is especially true if you want to play with high gain, or distortion!

Humbuckers produce a warmer, thicker sound than singlecoils, which can be great with a lot of gain, as you’re less likely to sound like a wasp riding a moped…

Humbucker pickups are featured opn guitars such as the Gibson Les Paul, or your favourite Ibanez 7-string. They are used by guitarists such as:

• B.B. King
• Zakk Wylde
• Jimmy Page
• Steve Vai
• Gary Moore

These types of pickups are more suited to heavy, thick sounds, but can also produce the mellower bluesy tones of B.B.King’s ‘Lucille’.

Scale Length

The “scale length” of your best electric guitar has to do with the length of the guitar’s neck. Different types of guitar have necks built to different lengths. This actually has a greater effect on the guitar than you might think! It affects how the guitar feels to play, what size strings you should use and the guitar’s tone…to name a few things!

So lets start from the beginning…

String Length

The best way to think of this is that longer, thicker and looser strings will sound lower in pitch. The opposite (shorter, thinner, tighter strings) will sound higher in pitch.

Since we usually want the guitar tuned to standard tuning, the pitch needs to remain the same, and we adjust the tension or the string gauge.

So, what this means is that guitars with longer necks (longer scale length) will tend to have strings that feel “tighter” and will be slightly harder to fret in standard tuning. The usual way to get around this is to use smaller string gauges on these instruments.

Of course, the reverse is also true- guitars with shorter scale lengths will feel looser, and may require heavier string gauges.

So it will be up to you, and the sound you want, whether or not the best electric guitar has a longer or shorter scale length!

The Frets

The scale length has nothing to do with the number of frets the guitar has. The positions of the frets are worked out by ratios- the 12th fret is always half way along the string, for instance. The scale length is only telling us the distance between the nut and the bridge, and no matter how long this is, the 12th fret will always be at the half way point.

What this does mean, however, is that guitars with longer scale lengths will have the frets spaced further apart than their shorter scaled brothers. Again, this will also effect playability as you may need to stretch that little bit further on some guitars to reach the same notes

The best electric guitar for you should be one that fits your hands, and longer scale lengths can be better for people with bigger hands

The Tone

As I’ve already mentioned, longer scale length guitars have tighter strings when tuned to the same pitch. This has an effect on the tone- bringing out more of the higher frequencies in the sound.

If you want an example, go and listen to a Gibson Les Paul or SG (which traditionally have a shorter scale length) and compare it to a PRS, or Ibanez guitar (which have longer scale lengths). Even though both guitars have humbucker pickups, the Gibson guitars will sound bassier and that’s partly because of the scale length.

Neck design

There is also the specifics of neck design to consider to find the best electric guitar. Firstly, there are three types of neck joint:

• Set Neck
• Bolt on Neck
• Neck through Body

The set neck and neck through body designs generally offer the best resonance between neck and body, although bolt-on’s are generally cheaper.

The Fender Stratocaster uses a bolt on neck, whereas the Gibson Les Paul uses a set neck. The Neck through body design tends to be the best electric guitar in high volume situations, where a lot of note clarity is needed.

Slim or Fat Necks

This feature should be self-explanatory…although it’s effects may not be. Should the best electric guitar have a slim or a fat neck?

Slimmer necks usually make the best electric guitar to play faster on, but this isn’t always the case. Some of the fastest guitar players (Zakk Wylde, Matt Heafy, Gary Moore) use Les Paul guitars, which have very thick necks.

In my opinion, whichever style of neck feels right for you, is the one you should use. I prefer fatter necks, and it hasn’t hindered me in any way…

Finding the Best Electric Guitar

Hopefully the reviews here will help you find the best electric guitar for you. I will give you the facts about each guitar, and my own opinion, but it should be your own decision in the end.