What should a quality electric guitar have?

Question

i am a sort of beginner and i dont really know what it really needs to have. What should i have? and what do you recommend it needs?it would really help find a good guitar.how many riffs should it have and that sort of thing?i really need your help!

Answer 1

If you're a beginner, look for a guitar that is functional and relatively inexpensive (i.e. less than $200).  Just something basic to learn on.  Once you develop, you can start to look around for something better.

Answer 2

A quality guitar should have a quality musician to play it.

That is not entirely a joke. The thing is, the very upper-end guitars have qualities that a beginner wouldn't even notice or appreciate. Kind of how an expensive sports car has handling and performance qualities that a 85 Buick does not have, but the driver needs to be experienced to notice it.

Anyway, it's your first guitar, so you don't want to get ripped off. Chances are, when you get good or develop your style, you will buy another one anyway.

The best one to buy is the one that feels comfortable, and you can afford it. Some guitars are cumbersome, and may dissuade inexperienced players from practicing because of it.

I knew many people who wouldn't play their guitars cuz they were "too heavy".

Even cheap guitars are good enough to learn on. That wasn't always the case. But the quality of "under $200" guitars has increased beyond recognition in the last 15 years. If you were to compare a $150 guitar now to one from a music store in 1990, you would be shocked that they once sold these horrible things.

As for style of guitar, there are many variations, but the two main ones are Les Paul and Stratocaster. The majority of guitars are based on these two.

I won't get into specifics of build quality, cuz each brand does their own thing while copying these two styles. But long story short,

The Paul is dual-humbuckers, while the Strat is several single-coils. Two different tonal qualities. There are a million guitars of different shapes and sizes, but the layout of the electronics is usually one of these two, or some combination of both.

DO you want to sound like Slash or Stevie Ray? When you decide, that will tell you which style to pick.

Stay away from big-name brand guitars, unless you have at least $1000 to spend. The cheaper-guitars sold by the big-name guys (under$400) are not as good as the no-name brands for the same price.

They even sell guitars at WalMart, fyi. In the TOY section, of all things.

Riffs are not part of a guitar. A riff is a term that describes a type of rhythmic musical passage.