Selecting an Acoustic Guitar

Selecting an Acoustic Guitar

By iwmce

Top 10 things to look at when buying an Acoustic Guitar:

1. Playability - Are the strings close enough to the fretboard to allow easy playability? Is the neck straight? If a beginner, are the strings a x-light guage?

2. Sound - Does the guitar have good lowend response? That is bass qualities, the brightness is easy to obtain, look for a booming bass and good midrange.

3. Woods- Spruce or Cedar top. Audiofiles choose cedar for it’s rich bass qualities. Rosewood, preferrably brazillian rosewood but a good dark-grained rosewood will help produce a quality sound. Rosewood or Maple for the back and sides, works well. An ebony fingerboard.

4. The Bridge - A very important part of the guitar. look for one that is wrapped around the top. This produces the best sound but may be patented and only available on Alvarez guitars.

5. Acoustic only or Acoustic Electric - Given the option, the most important benefits of your modern acoustic-electric is the ability to play at concert hall levels, retain the shimmering quaility of the an unplugged acoustic, but without the feedback acustomed to high volume levels. Another benefit might be the ability to plug your guitar directly into your console, without the need for an expensive mic, not to mention a relatively noise-free environment to record it in.

6.Body Style - More and more serious acoustic players are turning to classicals, even for rock and hard rock.genres. The dreadnaught and jumbo, jumbo for more mainstream country music.

7.Appearance- this is a personal choice, acoustics come with many optional appearance choices. Headstock decoration, fingerboard inlay, soundhole decorative rings, and binding dressing. Abalone and pearl are some notable choices.

8.Intonation- check to make sure the notes played at the 12th fret are the same note as the open string, just an octave higher in pitch.

9.Tuning machines- try to stick with a 14:1 or higher ratio set of tuning machine heads. A good diecast machine head is found on most quality guitars.

10.Finish- becoming more popular again is the nitro-cellulose finish. The best for a good resonant guitar.

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