Choose Acoustic Guitar
for
Quality and Playability

When you choose an acoustic guitar the two most important factors are: how it sounds and how easily it plays.

The differences in tone between a cheap acoustic guitar and a high quality acoustic guitar are tremendous. When you buy your first acoustic guitar you should aim somewhere in between, that way, as you learn, your playing will sound like music, not just sound.

A cheap acoustic guitar sounds dull and tinny, but a top quality acoustic sounds warm, rich, and bright, with each note sounding beautiful. To judge the difference, go to a good guitar store. If you can't play yet, get a salesperson to play for you. Don't wear a belt buckle, they scratch guitars, and the sales rep might not let you try a good guitar without taking your belt off.

• To begin: using a pick, pluck an open string. How long does it ring (sustain)? A good guitar will ring for quite a while. You can't play a note or chord that is supposed to ring for six seconds if the guitar only rings for two seconds!

• Next, pluck the bass strings. Better guitars have deep, warm bass tones, not thin or tinny.

• Next, pluck the treble strings. Are they as loud as the bass strings? If they are, the guitar has a "balanced tone".

• Listen for buzzing. Buzzing is caused by a string vibrating or rattling against a fret.

A very important consideration when you choose an acoustic guitar is the quality of the tone.

I built an acoustic guitar about ten years ago, and back then the materials alone cost me $480.00, and it took me a year and three months to build. You saw a picture of it in the acoustic guitar diagram, on the previous page.

The various woods an acoustic guitar is built with are one of the main factors to the cost, and, tone of an acoustic guitar. I could have spent much more for the wood, Brazilian Rosewood for the backs and sides would have cost me an extra $1000.00! I used a high quality mahogany, because, I wanted the warm tone that mahogany is known for.

Hand split wood is far better than milled wood because it is split perpendicular to the grain, which makes the wood stronger. The guitar's top can be shaved thinner, and the bracing can also be carved thinner and lighter, which adds more resonance, sustain, and warm, rich overtones.

The top and bracing of my guitar are made of hand split Alaskan Sitka Spruce, and it took 265 years to grow the tree wide enough for the wood I used, and probably twice as long to grow the tree. These trees are disappearing and the wood is rapidly going up in price.

Construction methods, (the best acoustic guitars are built by hand), quality of the tuning keys and other attachments, and the cost of materials used in ornamentation are other factors before you choose an acoustic guitar.

Acoustic guitars are not only made of wood. Some cheap acoustic guitars are made with Masonite, and have plastic bridges! Masonite is made with saw dust and glue compressed under pressure, and has virtually no sound transmission ability. That is what some of the cheap auction site guitars, that I warned you about earlier, are made of.

Some quality acoustic guitars are completely made of a graphite and resin composite. They produce a clear, bright tone, and never warp, even if they get wet! The guitar pictured here is by Rainsong™, For more info just click on the picture.

The majority of acoustic guitars are made of laminated wood (plywood). Plywood does not transmit the vibrations needed to produce sound very well. The glue in plywood doesn't transmit sound at all, and there's a layer of cheap softwood in the center, who's grain runs perpendicular to the grain of the outer layers, further reducing the vibration of the wood.

Solid wood tops sound better than plywood tops. If you can afford it, I recommend buying an acoustic guitar with a solid wood top.

Plywood backs and sides don't sound as good as solid wood backs and sides, however; they are not as important as the top.

Acoustic guitars with solid spruce tops usually improve tonally with age. Cedar, or redwood guitar tops sound good, but, they don't improve much with age.

Cedar, and redwood are softer than spruce, and they get nicks and dings more easily. Redwood also cracks easily.

Some acoustic guitars have composite, one piece bowls for the back and side. Some of these acoustic guitars sound very nice. A popular guitar of this type is "Ovation™". The guitar pictured here is from their "Applause" entry level series, click on the picture for more info.

Watch out, advertising can be misleading, so, I am going to help you decode its language.

Here is an example of what you might see: "Acoustic guitar with a spruce top and rosewood sides", or "select spruce".

What that really says is: "Acoustic guitar with a spruce veneer top and rosewood veneer backs and sides.

If the guitar was made with genuine solid wood the above sentence would read like this: "Acoustic guitar with a solid spruce top and solid rosewood back and sides". Solid wood is a selling feature, and you can bet that if the guitar is made with solid wood they are going to tell you! "Solid" being the key word.

Another example would be the guitars ornamentation. The guitar may look pretty with the abalone purfling around the perimeter, and the soundhole. If it doesn't say inlaid, it isn't. With the technology available now, most guitar manufacturers use micro-thin abalone or mother of pearl sheets, cut to size and glued on top of the wood before the finish is applied.

The nest important decision to make before you choose an acoustic guitar is the action, or playability.

• How to Judge a Guitar's Action and Playability

• How to Choose an Electric Guitar; Basics

• How to Buy a Beginner Guitar ... Main Index Page

• The Largest Online Musical Instrument Stores

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