As one of the most commonly used instruments in modern music, the electric guitar has always been the focus of stages and studios. It shines in rock, funk, pop, jazz and other music. If the classical era was the era of piano and string orchestra, then modern music is the era of bands. Now you can see drums, electric guitars, and basses (that is, bass guitars) in any music album. Today’s article is intended to help newbies choose a desirable and suitable electric guitar.

• How to choose a guitar?

For newbies:

The two most important criteria for a novice to buy an electric guitar are: feel and stability.

Many friends are dissuaded by the bad feel. Although most electric guitars are easy to play, some poor electric guitars are soft to play and have different resonance conduction. Guitars with different feel will also make your practice experience worse. There are discounts, so be sure not to choose a low-quality electric guitar just because it’s cheap.

The stability of the electric guitar is also very important: the pitch must be stable! The circuit must be stable! Accessories must be durable!

Some cheap tremolo electric guitars are very out of tune, so the lower the price, the less likely you are to choose a guitar with a tremolo! Mid-to-high-end rocking guitars can better protect the intonation of the guitar.

As we all know, there are some circuits inside the electric guitar. Although they are not complicated, once they are broken, repair work will be more troublesome. Therefore, you must choose an electric guitar with relatively strong circuit accessories that are not prone to problems.

Finally, there are a lot of metal parts on the electric guitar. The metal parts of the inferior electric guitar will oxidize, peel off the paint, and rust in a short period of time, which will affect the normal use. So don’t be greedy for cheap and end up buying a rusty one. electric guitar.

• How to choose a pickup?

Just like car manufacturers, each guitar brand and pickup manufacturer adds its own unique sound to its products. Like two humbuckers, such as the Gibson PAF humbucker and the Reverend Railhammer humbucker, there may be some subtle or less consistent sound differences, making them more suitable for players with specific needs. However, for the purposes of this article, we are going to compare the more popular pickup lines so that you can get an idea of what each pickup does.

Before we get started, let’s take a quick look at how pickups work to create the great guitar tones we love.

All pickups convert the vibration signal of the string into a current signal, and then amplify and color the signal through the amplifier speaker. Magnets wrapped in copper or other metal wire in the pickup create and project a magnetic field around the strings. Once the string vibrates, it destroys this magnetic field. The stronger the signal, the stronger the volume or output of the pickup. This is an important reason why we choose certain models of guitars or pickups to affect the type of music or playing style.

Single Coil PickupsSingle Coil Type

One of the most famous guitar pickups, commonly known as Fender or Strat style pickups. They're also one of the most basic pickup setups, featuring magnets wrapped in a single coil, delivering a simple, clear signal that can capture many different tones depending on their position within the body of the guitar.

A regular Strat-style three-single pickup setup allows for a bright, warm Neck tone and a higher-output Bridge tone. In this setup, the mid-range pickup is most often paired with a five-position switch and blended with the other two pickups to get that special Fender "Snap" or "Spank" tone.

Among them, the Telecaster model also promoted its own exclusive single-pickup version through some minor setting modifications (two pickups instead of three), and the body was also modified according to the tone.

But as we all know, the disadvantage of single coils is that they are susceptible to electrical interference, producing a "buzz" or "hum" sound. When the volume is increased, a special tone called "60 Cyle Hum" will be produced.

Suitable for music styles: Blues, Classic Rock, Country, Pop

P90 pickup

The pickup often seen on early guitars, the P90 is actually still a single-coil pickup, but it provides greater output than the Fender Strat-style single-coil pickup, and can maintain a high-power tone at low speaker volumes. They were often considered versatile pickups in their early days, with a slightly fatter sound than a standard single coil, with a magnet underneath the coil rather than wrapped in the coil.

The P90 also has a more humbucker-like tone than the Fender single-coil pickups—no doubt there has been constant co-evolution between the P90 and "bucker" pickups over the decades of Gibson's early design to this day.

Suitable for music styles: Classic Rock, Punk Rock, Country

Humbucker Pickups humbucker type

Humbuckers are among the most popular and well-known guitar pickups (though Strat-style single-coils and P90s also have legions of fans who espouse their tone). The Humbucker produces greater volume and output while also eliminating the hum issues associated with single coils.

The hum is actually routed through two coils of opposite polarity, which cancel each other out, thus canceling out each other's extraneous noise. Combining these two coils together, they produce a huge, warm sound that has become the most well-known signature tone of LP guitars.

A modern approach that is more popular today is the addition of a "toggle tuner" feature, which switches one of the two coils off with just the push of a knob. This gives the guitar amp a brighter, cleaner single-coil sound. This approach gives players using humbuckers more tonal options.

Suitable for music styles: Classic Rock, Blues, Hard Rock, Heavy Metal, Pop, Jazz

Humbucker Pickups humbucker type

Humbuckers are among the most popular and well-known guitar pickups (though Strat-style single-coils and P90s also have legions of fans who espouse their tone). The Humbucker produces greater volume and output while also eliminating the hum issues associated with single coils.

The hum is actually routed through two coils of opposite polarity, which cancel each other out, thus canceling out each other's extraneous noise. Combining these two coils together, they produce a huge, warm sound that has become the most well-known signature tone of LP guitars.

A modern approach that is more popular today is the addition of a "toggle tuner" feature, which switches one of the two coils off with just the push of a knob. This gives the guitar amp a brighter, cleaner single-coil sound. This approach gives players using humbuckers more tonal options.

Suitable for music styles: Classic Rock, Blues, Hard Rock, Heavy Metal, Pop, Jazz

Mini Humbucker Pickup

The Mini humbucker was originally created by Epiphone and is in many ways just a scaled down humbucker, but it does have some subtle differences from its bigger brother.

The pickup picks up the shorter string vibrations above it, resulting in a clearer, brighter sound that's similar to the warm, fat, and rounded tone of a Gibson PAF or other humbucker. With the increased output and hum-eliminating characteristics of a traditional humbucker pickup, a Mini humbucker is a great way to get more clarity on an LP or similar setup guitar, and it's also a great way to produce a Fender-style sound.

Suitable music style: Classic Rock, Blues

Active Pickups Active Pickups

By using electronic circuitry (usually requiring a 9-volt battery), these pickups create more output and louder volume by essentially having a built-in signal boost.

Active pickups are a relatively new revolution in the guitar world, first popularized by heavy metal players who were looking for more power than passive humbuckers. Over the years, the most well-known brand EMG has won a lot of victories over the years competing with mainstream pickup brand manufacturers such as Seymour Duncan.

Active pickups are also less susceptible to electronic interference than passive pickups and can offer built-in equalization, which means you can modify the pickup's tone before the pickup signal reaches the amplifier or effects unit.

Suitable music style: Hard Rock, Heavy Metal

Gold Foil Pickups Gold Foil Pickups

Gold Foil Pickups are known for their appearance on traditional Supro and Silvertone guitars as well as Ry Cooder's "Coodercaster" guitars, and are undoubtedly one of the most beautiful-sounding guitar pickups around.

In these pickups, gold foil covers the entire pickup, underneath the metal casing. It is said that placing the screws directly above the coils allows them to feel more signal from the strings, allowing the pickup to produce a clearer tone.

Gold foil pickups are available in single-coil or humbucker versions and are known for their smooth, ultra-clear and bright high-end tone (it's fun to imagine the original guitar sound of 60's and 70's guitars). Although these have been hard to find over the years, they have been reissued by multiple brands in recent years, making them a new sonic style and opportunity to own for players looking to stand out.

Suitable music style: Classic Rock, Blues

Jazzmaster pickups

Basically, these are another type of Fender single coil that is often confused with the P90 (the Jazzmaster pickup version doesn't have a huge appearance difference other than having a different cover underneath than the P90).

The main difference between the Jazzmaster pickups and the P90 is that there are magnets on the coil, whereas the P90 has magnets underneath the coil. This style is popular among jazz, surf, and indie rock guitarists, all of whom use the Jazzmaster as their primary instrument. Jazzmaster pickups also feature "Pancake" windings, which are wider and flatter than the P90's, providing a warmer tone while maintaining the clarity of a single-coil pickup.

Suitable for music styles: Classic Rock, Indie Rock, Jazz

Jaguar pickup

Jaguar Pickups are very similar to Start Pickups, but they have metal "teeth" around them to help eliminate the buzz usually associated with single coils. These pickups are also mounted directly on the body, unlike typical stratocasters where the pickups are mounted in the panel.

Jaguar Pickups are popular among indie rock bands and have been unceremoniously described as "a Strat pickup with teeth," despite being similar in structure and components to Start Pickups. Since Jaguar's fretboard is 24 frets long, new fans and different configurations have emerged in the fender family.

Suitable for music styles: Indie Rock, Classic Rock, Jazz

Triplebucker pickup

Here, an attempt was made to create a modern, high-output pickup. The idea is to basically add a third single coil to a humbucker to create a design with a higher output than a humbucker pickup, but with less buzz than a typical humbucker. When connected to a distortion pedal or Hi-gain Amp, the sound quality is excellent. According to many players, Triplebucker Pickups sound more natural than they look. Although you won't see these very often anymore, it wouldn't be surprising if someone tried to make a pickup like this in the next few years, especially for heavy metal music.

Suitable music style: Hard Rock, Heavy Metal

Z Coil pickup

Master luthier Leo Fender used it on fender and some special models of G&L. They are basically the same as standard Strat pickups, except that they are divided into a Z shape, which helps them eliminate noise. This is a new attempt to eliminate noise. single coil without losing clarity or original tone. They sound almost identical to Fender Strat pickups (minus the buzz, of course), and G&L have made some interesting new configurations to enhance the pickup combinations on these particular models.

Suitable for music style: Classic Rock, Jazz, Country, Blues

Filter-Tron pickups

Filter-Tron pickup enthusiasts include famous companies such as Lollar, TV Jones and Seymour Duncan. Influenced by Gretsch's most famous hollow guitar model, the Humbucker is a vintage humbucker-type pickup beloved by players of many genres, but is especially famous for its use in rock music.

Filter-Tro pickups are less buzzy than traditional PAF pickups, feature two very tight single coils, and have larger magnets than you typically see in pickups. This design produces a brighter and warmer sound than other humbucker pickups while still minimizing all noise.

These pickups have gained popularity in country, western, and rock music that have particular playing styles that allow for enough tonal clarity to help distinguish each note despite being played at high speeds and at high gain.

Suitable for music styles: Jazz, Country, Rockabilly, Indie Rock

There are too many kinds of pickups and too many designs today. In this article, we try our best to distinguish the pickups of each genre. Of course, there will be more detailed modifications in the future, and we will cover them one by one. to discuss again.

So how to choose the pickup configuration you need? First of all, increasing your own knowledge is an indispensable and important task to find a suitable pickup for your own playing style. You can listen carefully online or go to a musical instrument store to play. I believe you will soon feel the pickup. There are huge differences. I hope everyone can choose the guitar they want.

In the next blog we will introduce the location and matching of pickups, please stay tuned.