h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Please help! I've been asked by a friend to find out what a 'good' guitar is for her to get her boyfriend for Christmas. She's looking to spend about £100 on an acoustic, preferably steel strings. She reckons if she asks a guitar shop they'd tell her anything to get a sale, so can anyone recommend a good make? Thanks.

In general, quality improves as price increases, so the more you spend, the better a guitar you will get. If your budget is set at £100, then it probably doesn't matter what brand you get, because all the ones at that price will be about the same quality.

Only one thing I can add to that: I've heard from three different people that Chinese pianos, Chinese violins and Chinese clarinets are all terrible and not worth anything at all. Extrapolating from this, I would advise you not to buy a guitar made in China.

A good shop should give good advice. If she makes it quite clear from the start how much she wants to spend, so no one wastes their time looking at beautiful but astronomically priced instruments.

Quite honestly, she ought to take her bf with her. (was the question a friend buying an instrument for her boyfriend or something? - haven't got it on the screen at the mo) ...

She should give him a card with a nicely written promise in it, find a really good shop to go to with him. After all he's going to play it and it's like a piece of clothing or a car or a dog - you can't choose it for someone else. He might not feel comfortable with it, and if he's a beginner, get discouraged too early. This shopping spree could finish in a nice restaurant or café where he can be suitably grateful and be really nice to her over a cuppa or a pizza for being such a wonderful generous girlfriend. Or the cuppa/pizza/beer could be part of the present.

We have a "Simon and Patrick" which from day one produced a beautiful sound. We have since had a pickup built in and it sounds even better.

And while I'm in this thread - I have a question too: Who knows how to contact the manufacturers of Cheval Guitars. We have scoured the web but can't find anything.

Have just read the question through again. If he's a beginner, steel strings might also put him off until his fingertips have hardened up.

Thanks to you both! I'm still not sure why I'm the one trying to find all this info for my friend!! The idea to take him along to pick his own guitar would be what I'd do, but I think she's more interested in the surprise factor on Christmas morning; that, and she lives in Orkney, so there aren't really any local music shops!! He's not a complete beginner, either, so the steel strings aren't a worry.

Anyway, new question she wants me to ask (!): does anyone know anything about Sigma as a make of accoustic guitars? She's found a second-hand one for £165 (note how the budget creeps up!), but doesn't know the make. Thanks.

Don't worry too much about the make (though I can recommend Simon & Patrick, or Seagull for anyone willing to spend a bit more), just stay away from painted or heavily lacquered bodies. Often cheap guitars have a thick polyester-based lacquer applied. This can stop the wood resonating properly, leading to a slightly dead sound. Guitars with a thinner lacquer resonate more freely allowing the guitar to really sing.

Also, tell your friend to get the someone in the guitar shop to play a few guitars to her, she'll soon know which sounds good and which disappoints.

Sigma is the tradename for guitars made by the Martin Guitar Company, one of the oldest, finest, and most widely-respected acoustic guitar making companies in the USA, if not the World. (Martin does make other kinds of guitars, but their bread-n-butter is making acoustic guitars.) Sigma guitars are, accordingly, pretty durn good, IMHO. I have a Sigma 12-String that I love playing, and payed about half of what I would have had I purchased a "real" Martin (and also didn't have to wait for them to make/order it). The primary difference between Sigma and Martin is where they are made - Sigma guitars are usually made in Korea and other Oriental Countries (which, it must be said, isn't necessarily to say that they are inferior in any way) as opposed to all guitars made with the Martin name being made at one of their main USA locations. Of course, there probably are some notable exceptions to this, but rather than give you a detailed history (that can be found at http://www.mguitar.com/), I'd say that, depending on the quality of the instrument, Sigma guitars are usually remarkable bargains for their prices.

To answer another question, I think perhaps the reason you couldn't find it was due to a slight spelling error ... I believe you might be looking for "Charvel" guitars (aka "Jackson-Charvel" - they are at: http://www.jacksonguitars.com/). They are another of my favorite guitar makers, but excel at making some of the more exotic cutting-edge and custom electric guitars. I recommend them to anyone looking to customize their existing guitar or buy a complete custom guitar. I have large fingers, so I prefer a wide, highly bowed neck - which is something of a rarity to find both traits in the same neck. Luckily for me, a guy I knew who was working for Charvel at the time made me a custom neck for my old 1978 Ibanez, which is now my favorite electric guitar to play. Lots of 80's "hair bands" and heavy metal bands had guitarists shredding Jackson-Charvel guitars, as well as some other, slightly mellower, guitarists (like myself, heh), but generally they are quite good, and built as much for playability and reliability as for their looks and attitude. Here's a fan site that I kinda like: http://www.charveljacksonguitars.com/

- JD (not a scientist)

Thanks a lot - JD - that really was a great help.

My son is now seriously looking into all sorts of guitars. He only had the name "Cheval" to go on as he asked a guitarist at a gig what make his instrument was and as far as communication was possible, that was what he had understood, although the chap did say it was the same as the French for "horse" which was a bit misleading.

Now we have another question. My son's English is very good, but it failed at the expression "fingerboard radius" - we can't work out exactly what this can be. As seen, for example in

http://www.godinguitars.com/godinlgx3specsp.htm.

And what does he need to know about pickups? He is not at all clear which criteria to apply when choosing .. and internet searches just tell you names and types, but not which is good or why, or which is best for his purposes. He plays mainly rock and blues.

I would be very grateful for any returns on this question - to any of you musicians out there.

I posted an answer but accidentally put it in a new conversation as "Fingerboard Radius".

Thanks Gnomon - you walking encyclopaedia you. Hugs and kisses.

I think that Gnomon is absolutely correct about the meaning of "fingerboard radius." I'm not certain of that, as I'm not too familiar with the term myself (it sounds like a luthier's [someone who makes guitars] expression or term). I'm not exactly sure why some guitar necks are more bowed than others. My own personal preference is for a flatter (like a classical guitar) fretboard combined with a highly bowed neck (where the palm of your hand touches, on the other side of the fretboard). This is probably because of two things: (1) I learned guitar using a Spanish classical guitar, and (2) I'm a big guy with fat, working-class man's fingers. As far as how important those characteristics are for a student of the guitar, I believe that wider, flatter fretboards and necks are best to learn on (even for people with smaller fingers), because it helps prevent the development of bad habits later on.

As for pickups, there is a huge amount of choices available, as I'm sure you've noticed. Here is a link that might help: http://www.stewmac.com/faqs/chapt_9.htm ... it's about selecting pickups for your guitar, and talks a little about how to pick the best pickups for your guitar (in summary, it says: "play a few and see what you like").

My advice and preferences on brands is also probably not very applicable to you since you live in Germany (or so I gathered ) and probably will have most of your selection made by German or British, rather than American, companies. But I can still make some suggestions. First, there are two main classes of electric guitar pickups: single-coil and dual-coil (or "humbucking" pickups as they're now called, and sometimes just "humbuckers"). As their names imply, single-coil pickups use a single magnetic coil while the dual-coils use two. Accordingly, single-coil pickups are thinner (usually about half the width) of a dual-coil pickup (which often can look like two single-coils glued together, which isn't far from what they really are). Plain and simple, it depends on the kinda sound you like and want. Single-coil pickups are the standard most popularized by the Fender family of guitars (http://www.fender.com) and were/are the main pickup you hear in the blues/rock of people like Eric Clapton, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Jimi Hendrix, Dick Dale, etc. and so on and so on. They tend to produce a tinnier, twangy sound that was initially what almost everyone associated with the sound of an electric guitar. A man by the name of Seth Lover (who passed away a couple years ago) had an idea for reducing the annoying electric hum (we call it the "60Hz hum" which has to do with the fact that American electric power is provided in 60 Hertz or 60 cycles per second) and invented the dual-coil, humbucking pickup as a means to eliminated that hum. He worked for long-time guitar maker Gibson (http://www.gibson.com) and with the help of Les Paul and many other greats guitarists like Jimmy Page, Tony Iommi, Pete Townshend, etc., this pickup style is just about as popular as the single-coil version. Of course, many modern electric guitars will have both types, making even more versatile sounds available to the guitarist.

Modern single-coil pickups do not tend to hum like they used to, and don't sound as twangy and tinny as they used to either. In fact, they have a wide range of sounds available to them, and I think they sound really great when I want to play clean, un-distorted, heartfelt blues - though they can easily get a nice edge to 'em if you want it. Dual-coils have a tendency to sound warm and fuzzy, but again this is a generalization. Dual-coils are the favorite for heavy-metal guitarists because of their extreme sensitivity to the guitar string allowing them to have really good distortion and sustain (what most guitarists will call "hot") characteristics. However, I think the clean and un-distorted sound of a dual-coil pickup can also provide a wonderfully warm feel to some blues songs, and even get a little twang of its own (delta-blues artists like R.L. Burnside, Muddy Waters, Junior Kimbrough, and the great John Lee Hooker virtually defined their sound through un-distorted dual-coil pickups after they became available).

I know I've gone on and on, so I'm sorry for that (hey, I'm an American so I ain't bashful about anything, heh ). But I think it's important to understand that both single-coil and dual-coil pickups are very popular and while they CAN sound very similar, the differences between them are what making electric guitars sounding good is all about. So, without futher ado, I recommend the most often-repeated phrase I hear from guitarists who are asked anything about guitar equipment preference (and aren't being paid by the equipment manufacturer to endorse them!) and also which I repeat myself time and again ... "you must play them and decide for yourself."

Having said all THAT, my personal favorite manufacturer is EMG (http://www.emginc.com/), though I recognize that not everyone can afford or is willing to buy them. EMG pickups are a passion I share with my favorite guitarist, David Gilmour (of Pink Floyd) - but that's not the reason I like them. I used to live in the California town that EMG are based in (Santa Rosa) - but that's not the reason I like them either. I like them because they simply are the most versatile, reliable, and good-sounding pickups on the market that I've found in nearly 20 years of playing. They fit my style perfectly - which is to play as many different styles as I can learn. The choice your son makes all depends on what kind of music he's going to play and what kind of sound he likes. A word of caution, however: pickups aren't the only thing that make a guitar sound like it does. The big three factors that create an electric guitar's sound are (in no particular order): the strings, the pickups, and the amplifier. So even the best pickups won't work if the strings are shoddy (not usually a problem as their the cheapest one of the three) or dirty (remember to replace those things before they get dirty!), or if the amp is poorly/cheaply made (the most common corner to cut by young electric guitarists is to buy a cheap amp, which is understandable because those things can cost more than the guitar and everything else combined!).

Hope this helped you out. Good luck to your Son and his guitar puchasing and playing!

- JD (not a scientist)

I should proof-read my posts better. Sorry for the typos in my previous. I also wanted to clarify that EMG pickups are (mostly) what are called "active" pickups - this means that they require a battery (a 9-volt is typically used) to operate them. They make both single-coil and humbucking types as well as pickup setups and methods that are somewhere in between (like David Gilmour's). I thought I might mention, also, that early single-coil pickups were not as thin as they are nowadays, so they can LOOK like the modern dual-coil pickups. This confuses people (myself very much included) when trying to talk about legendary guitarists like B.B. King, John Lee Hooker, Les Paul, and others, many of whom used one kind for a while then another as they were invented and/or improved.

- JD (not a scientist)

Thanks again, BTW, from my son for your time and effort here.