Cheap Guitar Accessories

Guitar Pickup Setups

Guitar Pickup Setups

Do You Know The History Of The Electric Guitar?

The electric guitar was invented by a very talented man who when by the name of Adolph Rickenbacker. The first complete setup was back in the 1930's, which was only a mere 70 years ago. On the other hand, the Classical guitar and the Acoustic Guitar have been around for many centuries. There is evidence that dates back to 1800 B.C., that shows the presents of guitars, or similar instruments. There is really no comparison between todays electric guitars and the past. The evolution of electric guitars has been nothing short of amazing. This article will give you a brief history of the electric guitar.

Adolph Rickenbacker manufactured his fist electric guitar in the early 1930's, and equipped it with tungsten pickups. These pickups would sense the vibrations from the strings and convert them into electrical currents. The currents are relayed into the amp and produces sound.

Semi-hollow body are what the older guitars were know as. They were called this because they had sound holes in the body of the guitar. This style of guitar is still very popular today.

As the Big Band era approached in the 30's and 40's, the use of electric guitars became more popular. Plugging the guitar into an amplifier would give the much needed sound levels to be heard over the loud surroundings of the bands.

A guy by the name of Les Paul is an excellent musician, but if for some reason you don't know this name, he is the inventor of the solid body electric guitar. Les Paul invented the fist solid body in 1941.

This type of guitar is made of one piece of wood and has no sound holes. You are able to simply plug into an amplifier and start thrashing. Paul's first original guitar he made was nothing to brag about. It consisted of nothing more than a rectangular body attached to the neck and six steel strings. However, a modern day Les Paul is simply a thing of beauty.

It was in the 50's that Gibson hooked up with Les Paul and presented the Gibson Les Paul to the world. From that day there was no turning back. The Gibson Les Paul has been a major success for over 50 years, and is considered the most popular selling electric guitar on the market. One guy very partial to the Gibson is Slash from Guns n' Roses.

Leo Fender soon became the next big thing in solid-body guitars. Leo invented the Fender Broadcaster in the late 40's. The Broadcaster was introduced to the public in 1954, but instead of Broadcaster, it was named the Fender Stratocaster or Fender "Strat". The Fender Strat guitar was very different from the Gibson in the fact the the Strat had a different body shape, used different hardware, and was much lighter. Despite these differences, the Fender has become the second favorite guitar among musicians. Musicians such as Eric Clapton, Stevie Ray Vaughn, and many others play the Fender Stratocaster.

Today, there are many other guitar manufactures that produce solid-body guitars. Here are a few:

1. Washburn
2. Ibanez
3. ESP
4 .Jackson
5. Paul Reed Smith
6. Kramer
7. Dean
8. Epiphone
9. Peavy
10. Schecter

About the Author

If you want to get and advanced start at playing the guitar, check out this site where you will find quality resources for the aspiring guitarist
Guitar Resources

Which guitar and pickups should I get?

I have been looking at getting a new guitar for months now, but I keep changing my mind. I originally opted for a Gibson Cherry SG, but I don't know whether it's heavy enough.

I only have one guitar at the moment - an Epiphone G-400 SG. My playing style is metal, heavy rock, alternative and heavy metal. (Bands like Coheed and Cambria, Pantera, Metallica, AC/DC, etc.)

Which guitar should I get, and which pickups? My distortion setup is simply a Boss ML-2 (My amp has no gain settings for some reason, I think it's a bass amp), and I like the thick sounds, and the screaming highs on solos or artificial harmonics.

I have also looked replacing the pickups on a Gibson SG with EMG's, or getting an ESP with fitted ESP EMG's, or even getting the Zakk Wylde Signature Gibson Les Paul. Help please!

If you want a good metal tone, then you need a good amp. Period. A no-name amp that doesn't have a gain control or even worse, is a bass amp, isn't going to do a very good job at getting you there... you need something that is going to be more geared towards the sound you want.

Let me give you an example of what I mean... distortion generates a lot of high-frequency noise, and not always the pretty kind. This happens in both the amp and in distortion pedals. Guitar amps and guitar speakers in particular roll off these high frequencies so you get a warmer, rounder tone vs a thinner, harsher (in an unpleasant way) tone. Bass speakers don't.

Bass speakers are geared towards reproducing a wider frequency response than guitar speakers... not just lower, but higher as well - they have a much less pronounced high end roll-off, and that means they keep more of the nasty high frequency noise. That's not good times!

So if you're willing to drop some cash on a new guitar, that means you have the cash to drop on a new amp instead. Take your guitar to a music shop (ie Guitar Center, Sam Ash, whatever) and plug in to a few different amps - Marshall, Crate, Peavey, B-52, Orange, Laney, and Mesa Boogie are all examples of brands that you should try (or at least those that you should if you can find them).

The amp itself isn't everything - speakers are as important, if not more important, than the amp itself. You simply can't overestimate the power of a good set of speakers in finding a good solid tone... I'm willing to bet that a good set of speakers would probably even work in your amp as is and give you a much better tone as is.... although of course that wouldn't be my first choice!

Probably the two most important things that I would look at is multiple speakers and wattage rating. More speakers, in general, equals better tone. Bigger speakers, in general, means better tone. Speakers with higher wattage rating, in general, mean better bass and a crisper, cleaner sound (if that's what you're looking for, of course).

So, to give an example, speakers from a 120w 4x12 cab are going to be rated at 40w a piece, right? Well, compared to a speaker rated at 75w (ie a 300w 4x12 cab) they aren't going to have nearly the solid bass and crisp treble detail that the higher rated speakers will..... *in general*. Different speakers have different tonal characteristics, keep that in mind. Researching your speakers to find the right ones for you is ideal, but at the very least try to find a cab that is rated with a higher number of watts.

Each of the bands that you've listed have a different approach to their sound, use different amps and different pickups, different gear in general. Claudio from CnC used Mesa Boogie, Travis from CnC used a Marshall JCM2000 I believe, then for their third album both switched to Bogner Uberschalls, I think Metallica has always used Mesa Boogie (but Marshall amps seem to nail their tone very well), Dimebag used a lot of EQ, a distortion pedal, and solid state Randall amps, AC/DC uses guitars similar to yours with a 50w Marshall tube amp (at least when playing live), etc.

If you like the way your guitar plays now, then don't switch it out for something else... just put in new pickups. If you want to switch, try a few different ones before you buy. I like lighter guitars, so Jackson, Ibanez, or LTD are my preferences, but certainly Epiphone, Schecter, etc are all on the table.

For me, I've gone with passive pickups (Seymour Duncan) and an onboard preamp.... this gives me a hotter tone, but also gives me more dynamic range and a more detailed tone than you can get with active pickups. My current fav's are an Alnico II Pro in the neck (for a very Slash-esque sound, esp on leads) and an Alternative 8 in the bridge (very hot, has a nice chimey tone though, similar to the JB but with a tighter low end, so a lot of clarity even with gain, saturates distortion pedals and tube amps very well).

Dimebag put an EQ before and after his distortion pedal... he boosted his mids before the distortion pedal and cut them afterwards.... this gave him a much more saturated, gain-y tone. You can achieve that same effect with EQ pedals, wah pedals, overdrive/booster pedals, etc.... I use my Dunlop 535Q before my distortion pedal, for instance, with the solo boost on and the pedal most of the way forward for a really smooth but highly distorted, chunky tone.

For quieter playing, I got an Epiphone Valve Jr (+ extension cab). Cost me about 250$, its a cheap tube amp, and once I put in a low-gain preamp tube in (a 12au7 / ecc83, I think, instead of a 12ax7) the treble stopped being so piercing, it got quieter (ie more reasonable volume, 5 tube watts is really loud!) and I could get a really nice creamy chunky tone with my Metalcore...

Saul

Fender Stratocaster: Electric Guitar Setup : Guitar Pickup Height: Fender Stratocaster