Anatomy

Almost anything affects tone. From the wood in which your guitar is made of; to the kind of pick you use, it really depends on how fussy you are.

Ok first, a brief anatomy of the guitar.




(picture ripped from blogskins.com)

Tuners - This is a no brainer. Tunes your strings, blah. However if you use tremolo bridges(explain later) you will need locking tuners to keep the guitar from going out of tune.

Headstock - Houses the tuners. Interesting fact: Many leading guitar luthiers/manufacurers like to design specific headstocks as a signature, such that people can identify the guitar brand immediately just by seeing the headstock. e.g. Dean Guitars headstock is "V" shaped; making it look really fierce! It is also said that angled headstocks(tilted ones) tend to have better sustain than their levelled counterparts.


angled headstock of a Gibson guitar.


Nut - It is an itsy plastic looking thing between the neck and the headstock; holds strings in place. It is that white thing in the picture above.

Frets - Those metal dividers on the neck. There are different kinds of fret gauges to accomodate different playing styles - Medium, Jumbo, Medium Jumbo, Extra Jumbo. Jumbo frets make barre chords easier to play, easy bending and vibrato as well. If you're into metal and shredding etc, jumbo and above are just for you. However if you press jumbo frets too hard the notes will go sharp; and blues players will find it hard to get used to as well. It all depends on the comfort of the player.

Inlays - These are the dots that signify the fret positions, usually marked at the 3rd, 5th, 7th, 9th, 12th, 15th, 17th, 19th, 21st frets of the guitar. Like headstocks, many guitar manufacturers have signature inlays. Gibsons have their standard bar shaped, whereas PRS have eagles for inlays. They are usually made from mother-of-pearl or plastic.

Truss Rod - a steel/graphite rod located within the guitar neck; for maintenance of the neck. Novices should not attempt to adjust the truss rod(that includes me) as it can damage the guitar beyond repair.

Body - Where most of the magic happens unseen. List goes endless on the different kinds of wood used to construct the bodies. The usual ones are alder, maple, basswood, ash, mahogany. Most cheap guitars have basswood as the bodies, whereby higher end ones like PRS or Gibsons have mahogany bodies, Fender mostly use alder for their bodies. A very important consideration when buying a guitar as this will determine the tone you desire.

solid body - Commonest electric guitar body. pretty self explanatory. Heaviest. Best sustain due to wood density. More wood = more sustain.

hollow body(electric) - Considerably larger than an electric guitar, (slightly fatter body) but the cavity of the body is empty as it mimicks an acoustic guitar, giving out similar acoustickey warm tone. They are noted to have visible f-holes on the surface of the guitar for easy recognition. Weapon of choice for Jazz/Blues/Country guitarists. Lightest of the three.

semi-hollow body - Similar to hollow body, but has a block of wood in the centre of the cavity. It is said to cut down feedback for a smoother sound. Considerably lighter than an electric guitar.

hollows and semi hollows are definitely not for metal/hard rockers. They sound horrible in high gain overdrive. It's just like how plump people should not wear skinny jeans. Or when an ang moh tries to speak chinese. These guitars are best for jazz, blues and milder genres; they sound beautiful when played clean or slight overdrive.

Pickguard - Protects body from aggressive/angsty strummers, 'nuff said.

Pickups - Again, extremely important in the electric guitar. Only a physicist can explain this properly; i can't. Basically these are electronics that pick up signals from the vibration of the guitar strings and sends to the amplifier.

single coil - as the name suggests, a single pickup. The picture above shows the Fender Strat, with 3 single coils. They are the trademark of Fender guitars. They are usually synonymous with brighter tones. The downside is that there is notable constant hum or buzzing sound while playing. This is because they pick up random radio waves as well. i believe Jeff Beck designed a "silent" single coil and have been using it since.

The Fender Strat Single Coils. Note the 3 skinny blokes.

humbucker - evil twin of the single coil. nah, just kidding. It is just two single coils put together, polarity reversed, coiling reversed, in order to cancel the hum. It is synonymous with warmer tones, and a signature of Gibson and preferred choice of rockers. They are associated with more aggressive tone as this pick up, as compared to the single coil, can handle more distortion/overdrive without flooring out.

The Gibson Humbucker pickups - notice those fat boys!

Pickup Selector - a toggle switch. Determines desired playing style. Fender has 5-way selector, while Gibson has only 3. It allows more variety of tone control when switching from rhytmn to lead or vice versa.

Tone/volume Knobs - They actually play important roles in shaping tone. Roll the tone knob and hear as the tone changes significantly, and adjust it to your liking.

Bridge - The fella that anchors the strings to the guitar. They are either hardtail or tremolo.

tremolo bridge - more like movable bridge, with the whammy bar (or tremolo arm) one can change the pitch of the guitar with a single wrench - or with light tugging - a tame vibrato. Dimebag Darrell popularised the tremolo bridge with his divebomb technique, a production of squealing/screaming sound to accomodate aggressive playing - as my friend David would say - hardcore aggression. Popular trem bridge brands like Floyd Rose enables extreme dives and dips; as compared to the normal Fender ones.

Hardtail - comes across as a useless brother of the trem bridge. not really. Actual fact: the hardtail provides better and longer sustain, and keeps the guitar in tune better.

Trem bridges under often usage will cause the guitar to go out of tune easily, that is why it is important to get locking tuners - like Schaller or Gotoh to ensure the guitar stays in tune after an aggressive bout of tremming.

Jack - Duh. plug your cable in. Just ensure that it is well maintained and not loose.

Finally! I hope i have provided useful information. Do let me know if i have gotten anything wrong, cheers!