The anatomy of the guitar and other terms I don't understand.
- Thread starter Kushantaiidan
- Start date
I have no idea what my fretboard is made of. and I don't know whether it is neckthrough or whatever. And I can't tell what my pickups are either, and what's a headstock? Actually, I pretty much don't get any of the above post.
anyway, here is a better picture of mine, can someone tell me more about it?
YaYo
whendaydescends.com
- May 6, 2001
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Ok, im reading a little book i have to describe this guitar to you, because my knowledge is pretty much limited to the guitars i use.
The neck, you know what this is... i think most people wont know what kind of wood their neck is made from so its not so important (it becomes an issue when you get dear guitars, but i imagine for cheap guitars there is a standard material that does the job).
Attached to the front of the neck is the fingerboard/fretboard (most guitars have this, just a thin strip of wood on the face of the neck)... on this fingerboard the frets and fret markers (the dots that mark the 3rd, 5th, etc frets) are placed.
at the top of the neck is the head or headstock... the big thing that has the tuning heads on it... i assume "six-on-a-side headstock" means that all six tuning heads are along one side of the head (see the picture of my guitar), i cant see the headstock in your pics but most guitars of that style have 3 tuning heads on each side of the head (like 90% of acoustic and nylon guitars)...since yours seems like a cheapo imitation this may not be the case...
ok seperating the fretboard and head is the nut. Its usually just a piece of plastic that acts as fret number 0. has little grooves in it to keep the strings in the right place, whatver whatever. On my guitar however, and on most non-cheapo electric guitars (excluding jazz/blues guitars like yours), there is a locking nut. If you look closely at the picture i posted earlier, you will see that there are 3 squarey circley type things where the nut should be... once the guitar is tuned these are locked with an alan-key.. which clamps the strings down at that end, after this if you were to turn the tuning heads it would have no effect on the pitch of the string! Very useful!
There will be one more thing on the head... a little plastic cover on the face of the head near the nut, that is screwed on... or maybe it doesnt have the cover in which case you will see a hole and in that will be a nut (not talking about the nut you just learnt about, this is a 'nuts and bolts' nut..).. this is attached to a metal rod which runs through the neck, the truss rod! You see guitar necks can get warped (due to poor treatment, or string tension,etc), and so by tightening or loosening the nut you can fix up the warps, in a few guitars there are even two truss rods which help fix even more warps (this is rare though). This can fix a bad action (how high the strings are off the fretboard), which could reduce string buzzes. However if you dont know what you're doing then you could also cause your guitar more problems so most dont ever touch it. Acoustic guitars and quite possibly some electrics have the nut at the other end of the neck, so it may be harder to get to or hidden.. but its there somewhere!
ok, hope this is helping, ill tell you about the body of the guitar and its attachments next...
The neck, you know what this is... i think most people wont know what kind of wood their neck is made from so its not so important (it becomes an issue when you get dear guitars, but i imagine for cheap guitars there is a standard material that does the job).
Attached to the front of the neck is the fingerboard/fretboard (most guitars have this, just a thin strip of wood on the face of the neck)... on this fingerboard the frets and fret markers (the dots that mark the 3rd, 5th, etc frets) are placed.
at the top of the neck is the head or headstock... the big thing that has the tuning heads on it... i assume "six-on-a-side headstock" means that all six tuning heads are along one side of the head (see the picture of my guitar), i cant see the headstock in your pics but most guitars of that style have 3 tuning heads on each side of the head (like 90% of acoustic and nylon guitars)...since yours seems like a cheapo imitation this may not be the case...
ok seperating the fretboard and head is the nut. Its usually just a piece of plastic that acts as fret number 0. has little grooves in it to keep the strings in the right place, whatver whatever. On my guitar however, and on most non-cheapo electric guitars (excluding jazz/blues guitars like yours), there is a locking nut. If you look closely at the picture i posted earlier, you will see that there are 3 squarey circley type things where the nut should be... once the guitar is tuned these are locked with an alan-key.. which clamps the strings down at that end, after this if you were to turn the tuning heads it would have no effect on the pitch of the string! Very useful!
There will be one more thing on the head... a little plastic cover on the face of the head near the nut, that is screwed on... or maybe it doesnt have the cover in which case you will see a hole and in that will be a nut (not talking about the nut you just learnt about, this is a 'nuts and bolts' nut..).. this is attached to a metal rod which runs through the neck, the truss rod! You see guitar necks can get warped (due to poor treatment, or string tension,etc), and so by tightening or loosening the nut you can fix up the warps, in a few guitars there are even two truss rods which help fix even more warps (this is rare though). This can fix a bad action (how high the strings are off the fretboard), which could reduce string buzzes. However if you dont know what you're doing then you could also cause your guitar more problems so most dont ever touch it. Acoustic guitars and quite possibly some electrics have the nut at the other end of the neck, so it may be harder to get to or hidden.. but its there somewhere!
ok, hope this is helping, ill tell you about the body of the guitar and its attachments next...
veil the sky
Lexicon V
P(retty)
R(ich)
S(on of a bitch)
man I'd love a PRS!!!
Mike definitely plays a PRS I saw them play London a few months ago. I think Pete was playing one as well.
R(ich)
S(on of a bitch)
man I'd love a PRS!!!
Mike definitely plays a PRS I saw them play London a few months ago. I think Pete was playing one as well.
Opth_001
Space the final frontier
My question is when you tell someone what gauge your stings are, are you suppost to tell them the size of the high E or the low E. I alway tell people the high E but sometime I hear people say "I got .52" and at first I think damn you've got some huge stings and than I realize they're talking about the low E.
veil the sky
Lexicon V
Dude most guitars DON'T have locking nuts!!
In fact, the best and most expensive ones don't. PRS rarely have them. The reason is that with a floating bridge, PARTICULARLY with a Ffloyd rose style tremolo, there is less contact between the bridge and the body-wood of the guitar. This results in inferior tonality because the sound doesn't resonate within the wood as well.
Also Floyd Rose style tremolos result in reduced body integrity of the guitar. They break easier, particularly if they are open-fronted and have a scratchplate.
The truly best guitars have fixed bridges. IMHO of course.
In fact, the best and most expensive ones don't. PRS rarely have them. The reason is that with a floating bridge, PARTICULARLY with a Ffloyd rose style tremolo, there is less contact between the bridge and the body-wood of the guitar. This results in inferior tonality because the sound doesn't resonate within the wood as well.
Also Floyd Rose style tremolos result in reduced body integrity of the guitar. They break easier, particularly if they are open-fronted and have a scratchplate.
The truly best guitars have fixed bridges. IMHO of course.
YaYo
whendaydescends.com
- May 6, 2001
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i use both when i tell people... as do most people really, because it tells you most of what you need to know, some people mix and match and prefer ligther high strings to solo with, but heavy strings to riff with.. so the two extremes are the way to go
currently i have 11-52 strings...
currently i have 11-52 strings...
veil the sky
Lexicon V
YaYo
whendaydescends.com
- May 6, 2001
- 4,458
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Just to stop Kushantaiidans confusion at this point, locking nut and floating bridge generally go together i believe, and ill descrive a floating bridge in future, but theres one on my guitar...
and yeh thanks for that information, maybe it was just when i was last looking for a guitar i only noticed the ones with the locking system since that was what i wanted
veil the sky
Lexicon V
Yeh, metal guitars man. I love 'em too 
Just a pain in the ass sometimes when they need repairs.
Standard trems as a rule don't have locking nuts because they don't have fine tuning at the bridge. Standard trems are also distinguishable in that they make full contact with the body of the guitar (when you're not using the whammy bar of course!) and the fender style ones are screwed in rather than balanced on pegs driven by alan keys.
People used to call those floyd rose-type tremolos super tremolos, but I don't hear that term used anymore?!
The key factor is the fine tuning though.
Just a pain in the ass sometimes when they need repairs. Standard trems as a rule don't have locking nuts because they don't have fine tuning at the bridge. Standard trems are also distinguishable in that they make full contact with the body of the guitar (when you're not using the whammy bar of course!) and the fender style ones are screwed in rather than balanced on pegs driven by alan keys.
People used to call those floyd rose-type tremolos super tremolos, but I don't hear that term used anymore?!
The key factor is the fine tuning though.
Opth_001
Space the final frontier
veil the sky
Lexicon V
YourFuneral
SIMply Virtual
Yeah, what he should've said was that most guitar with tremolos also have locking-nuts...
EDIT: DOH! Just noticed YaYo's reply... My bad...
True...
In your opinion, like you said... heh heh... I prefer Floyd's on mine mainly because I've never had any trouble with them and it fits my preferred style of playing. I would like to get me a fixed bridge guitar, however... I'll probably get a PRS if I do...
Opth_001
Space the final frontier
Originally posted by veil the sky
Yeh, metal guitars man. I love 'em too
Standard trems as a rule don't have locking nuts because they don't have fine tuning at the bridge. Standard trems are also distinguishable in that they make full contact with the body of the guitar (when you're not using the whammy bar of course!) and the fender style ones are screwed in rather than balanced on pegs driven by alan keys.
People used to call those floyd rose-type tremolos super tremolos, but I don't hear that term used anymore?!
The key factor is the fine tuning though.
From what I know I thought that the locking nuts helped keep your guitar in tune when you used your whammy bar. Is this true?? If so why would they make guitars without locking nuts w/whammys'?
YourFuneral
SIMply Virtual
veil the sky
Lexicon V
It's because when guitars first had tremolos, it was so people could do what Hank Marvin does and give it a light vibrato. Not what us uncouth metalheads do and divebomb to the point where our strings touch the floor (guilty as charged ) This 'light tremolo' effect (hence the name) doesn't put your tuning out any more than bending a string does, so the locking nuts just weren't necessary.
'Super' tremolo systems tend to go out of tune far easier anyway due to the fact that the bridge is totally suspended and the slightest change in tension will put you out of tune. That's just another reason why the locking nuts are there, for that little bit extra tuning integrity.
) This 'light tremolo' effect (hence the name) doesn't put your tuning out any more than bending a string does, so the locking nuts just weren't necessary. 'Super' tremolo systems tend to go out of tune far easier anyway due to the fact that the bridge is totally suspended and the slightest change in tension will put you out of tune. That's just another reason why the locking nuts are there, for that little bit extra tuning integrity.
Misanthrope
Latin, NOT Mexican.
Misanthrope
Latin, NOT Mexican.
Originally posted by veil the sky
It's because when guitars first had tremolos, it was so people could do what Hank Marvin does and give it a light vibrato. Not what us uncouth metalheads do and divebomb to the point where our strings touch the floor (guilty as charged
'Super' tremolo systems tend to go out of tune far easier anyway due to the fact that the bridge is totally suspended and the slightest change in tension will put you out of tune. That's just another reason why the locking nuts are there, for that little bit extra tuning integrity.
This is a very important issue. Nowdays i hate exesive tremolo just as much as wah. Why are all metal players obsessed with doing dive bombs and other wild crap? I think we need another Schuldiner nowdays ( For those of you who dont know he was a legend to solo ( imho and in others opinion ) and composing, and he was using fixed bridge most of the time ). Im currently trying to eliminate most note altering techniques on my solos, i have just 1 solo with 1 bending, and there are still like a million things i wanna try, i always had bad guitars with ruined intonation ( i never care for fixing it i just adapt ) and i was always making an efford not to use vibratos bendings or tremolo bar. Nowdays it just kinda seems like not as good and those things are almost none-existant in my playing...its a bit weird now that i think of it...
veil the sky
Lexicon V
That is pretty thick, but I know this guy who plays with 14 - 58s!!!!!
Ouch dammit!!!!!!!!
Needless to say he doesn't do many big bends! nnnnneeeeeooowwwww <<crack>> AAAAAAAARRRRRRGGHHHHH!!
Ouch dammit!!!!!!!!
Needless to say he doesn't do many big bends! nnnnneeeeeooowwwww <<crack>> AAAAAAAARRRRRRGGHHHHH!!
veil the sky
Lexicon V
It's all a bit corny these days to divebomb and do general whammy mayhem. I don't ever do it creatively, but I don't think many people do anymore. It's an eighties thing
. I am a big fan of string bending and I like to pick out little melodies within bends and I have a few little string bending party tricks up my sleeve . I don't think there's anything unmusical about bending or vibrato! Vibrato is one of themost important musical techniques, and not just for guitar playing and again not just for contemporary music.Classical instrumentalists are often distinguished by the shape of the notes they play accroding to their tonality and vibrato. I don't think guitar playing is, or should be, any exception. Mike Ammott vibrato man yyyyyyeh!!!!
There is a whole school of jaz guitarists who rarely ever bend and have a very subtle vibrato (and often use very heavy strings btw for increased tonality) but that's because jazz is about the notes themselves rather than virtuosity. Also a lot of jazz guitarists suffer from an inferiority complex towards saxophonists and try to emulate the style of the saxophone itself. True y' know
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