Apologies if this has been addressed, as I only skimmed the thread.
I have played quite a few inexpensive acoustic and electric guitars, and, one time, when God smiled on me, a Strat. The Strat damn near played itself, the fingering was so easy. So the fingerability of the strings is a big factor as well.
(This was about 25 years ago, I was never very good, and don’t know enough to know proper terminology.)
I agree completely. This thread is not about the vast majority of usable instruments. This thread asks what makes a solid body electric guitar great. Of course the foundation is fine engineering and exacting craftsmanship.
After that, greatness really only means I love it.
I thought **sunacres ** paraphrased your post quite well.
You listed some characteristics that make a guitar great, said they were subjective, and then again said they were “extremely subjective.” He was just agreeing with you, saying that there are certain minimum requirements but that a large part of greatness is subjective. What part was “nonsense”?
**cornflakes **said above that all guitars are acoustic guitars. That idea is crucial to the difference between a good and a great solid-body electric guitar. Pretty much any American Fender Stratocaster or Gibson Les Paul is a good guitar, very playable if set up properly, and with a decent tone. But guitars that are considered great sound different without being plugged in. The primary factors appear to be the wood and the neck joint. People who build boutique guitars can hear the difference between good and great pieces of wood by tapping on them. Players can distinguish a run of the mill solid-body electric from a potentially great one by playing it unplugged. Great guitars will always sound better than good ones unplugged. There will be greater sustain, and it will be louder. Individual notes will be more distinct. These differences in the unplugged sound do carry over to the amplified sound.
A lot of these discussions appear to be wine-tasting wankery because the difference between a good and a great Strat or Les Paul is not obvious to the casual observer, and the differences are subtle.
I just stumbled across this thread - laptop problems have restricted my SDMB time lately - grr.
Shouldn’t this be in Cafe Society - it is more subjective vs. objective, IMHO.
I agree with most posters that **cornflakes **got the components of tone pretty well (remind me, cornflakes, what type of guitar do you play and what do you play through?). I could geek out about how a specific pickup is considered better vs. worse - people spend thousands of dollars on vintage pickups for some legitimate and not-so-legitimate reasons. Same with wood - there can be much discussion about how one piece of mahogany or maple or whatever is better for a guitar vs. another.
Since cornflakes discuss what contributes to tone and you other posters have added other solid observations, I will try a different direction.
What makes a great electric guitar to me is whether it makes me want to play more and I sound better playing it. Factors that influence this:
The design of the guitar - bolt-on necks with 25.5" scales and single-coil pickups sound different from set necks with 24.75" scales and dual-coil pickups. Apples and Oranges. Neither is “good vs. not so good” - they are just different.
The ergonomics of the guitar - feature preferences, etc. - Jimmy Page’s '58 Les Paul Sunburst has a slimmed-down neck and he plays with 9’s (i.e., relatively thin strings). Stevie Ray Vaughn’s main Strat has a big chunky neck and he played with .13’s - bridge cables. Both are legit - but you have to make sure you have a guitar designed and set up to support your style.
As a rule, the more thought and care that goes into the selection of the ingredients, the design of the overall object and its assembly and the final fit and finish, the more likely that the guitar being made will be easier to play.
Guitars are tools. If you are a crappy carpenter and you pick up a crappy hammer but get the nail pounded in where it is supposed to go and it functions, did the tool do what it was supposed to? Wouldn’t a pro carpenter pull out some long-handled framer’s hammer - with a special wood handle and a special hardened head, etc. - and pound in nails one-per-blow; and if they do and the nails work, did the tool do what it was supposed to do? As I have played guitar for 30 years now, I have come to understand what I value in the tools I use. I can share some things that I see as “basic truths” vs. stuff that I acknowledge are my biases - but even that is subjective…
It all starts in your head. If getting that special wood or hand-wound pickup gets you to a new place psychologically as well as tonally, well, that’s okay - whatever works.
I agree. Since the basics of the OP have been answered, Cafe Society seems like a good place to discuss the finer points.
samclem GQ moderator
Easy.
If the volume knob goes up to 11, it’s a good guitar!
You can make a great guitar out of waste wood, and it won’t make a lick of difference if you can play it well.
I get the joke about “waste wood” - but that old old fireplace that May used in the Red Special likely had the qualities that guitar geeks value in the woods used in pre-1965 or so electrics - naturally grown, from a big tree with even grain, air-dried and aged, etc…
I keep coming back to this post. I hear you, but tend to agree with squeegee. I guess I have a few more points to make (now there’s a shock)
to **squeegee’s **point, engineering matters. A Fender neck needs to sit the correct way in the body pocket; you can go through a bunch on the line and only a few will have that correct. A Gibson peghead apparently as to be at a 17-degree angle; they have tried other angles over the years and manufacturing/crafting can lead to variations, though. Bottom line is that all of these variances matter and can add up to problems.
it depends on what you mean by “great” - lots of top players have the guitar they play at home vs. on stage. “Great” on stage = sounds good to a big crowd, enables quick dial-up of the right tones during and between songs, reliable/durable, cool-looking, etc. “Great” at home may = inspires me.
Ultimately, it sounds like the OP is asking “are there established facts about why one electric guitar is better than another” - the short answer: kinda. Yes, amongst players of certain types of guitars for certain types of music, there are some generally-understood qualities that define a great guitar vs. a good guitar. Yes there are exceptions to those rules - and if you step even slightly outside the box of “certain types of guitars for certain types of music” all bets are off, but among long-time, pro players there are certain tricks and truths you compile over time. For instance:
Tele’s played clean have to have microphonic pickups: If you twang, you need your Tele bridge pickup to be slightly microphonic; meaning if you put your mouth an inch away from it and shout, you can hear your voice through the amp. Most clean players prefer brass saddles for their bridge, too - it softens the bright tone just thismuch.
As has been mentioned, if you don’t play all that gained up - meaning you play anything up to hard rock, no metal - then a lower-output pickup through a well-made guitar body/neck, where you get the gain via the amp sounds better. This enables the sound-shaping qualities of the body and neck wood to define the sound; the lower-output pickup does its best to faithfully convey that signal to the amp (with just the right inefficiencies to improve the end tone).
Older-designed, musically inefficient components are better than up-to-date modern designs - I have mentioned this in a number of threads: the older pots, caps, resistors, etc. were inefficient - but the stuff they didn’t process correctly did good-sounding things to the harmonic overtones. More efficient designs don’t sound as musical - they lop off the tops of notes (very effective as an electronic component; not so much as part of an instrument)…
It goes on from there. This still belongs in Cafe Society since this is all ultimately subjective, but amongst players I respect and given the research I have done, I think there are some very clear things that make an electric better than others - and other factors that you really shouldn’t worry about nearly as much…
Oops - didn’t edit very well; a few typos, too - sorry 'bout that.