What Guitar Should I Buy For My Style?

When it comes to buying a new guitar there are so many different types to choose from and sometimes it can be a minefield to figure out what would be best suited to the style you play.

First of all, is knowing the basic different types of electric guitar, You have the classic Strat and Les Paul style guitars and they are absolutely brilliant for a plethora of different styles from blues to soul and from pop to rock.

The main difference between those two types of guitar is the pickups, the Les Paul has humbucking pickups that are high output sound brilliant for bluesy and rock tones. The Strat has single coil pickups that offer a beautiful bell-like tone when using a clean sound on your amp but then really sing when you turn the gain up although the Strat would not be as great for the really heavy sounds that genres like metal would use. To get the best sound for genres such as metal you would be better suited to brands such as Ibanez or ESP as a number of models not only have humbucking pickups but quite a lot have active pickups. Active pickups are great for heavy sounds as they are really high output (volume) and this will drive your amps gain even more than any other style of pickup helping you achieve brutally heavy tones.

For clean tones, although the Strat and Les Paul guitars would be outstanding you could go down the hollow or semi-hollow body route. These guitars bridge the gap between acoustic and electric and can come with a variety of different pickups.  Now regarding pickups, you have quite a few types, the main two you will see are Single coil and Humbuckers.

In a nutshell single coil pickups sound smooth and are great for cleaner tones and humbuckers are high output, warm and brilliant for songs that require a little more grit. You do also have tonnes of different variations of the two main types that differ from brand to brand but all offer the same overall tone they do it just slightly differently.

There are so many things to consider when it comes to buying your guitar, if you need any more help or guidance – please do not hesitate to contact any of our stores where our experts will help you to find the perfect guitar to suit your individual style.