Ultimate Rhoads

This may be a very dumb question, but here it goes.
Since there is a dozen or so different electric guitars, am I
to assume that each kind has a different sound? Like an LP sounds different from a Strat, and so forth? I kinda always thought that they all sounded the same, it was just a different make of guitar.

the types of wood and the hardware will make for different sounds. for example, the maple cap (top surface) on a les paul sounds "brighter" than a mahogany cap on the same guitar. fender strats have single coil pick-ups which have a biting sound (think eric clapton or jimi hendrix) while the double pick-ups on the same guitar or on a les paul sound smoother or creamier.

contstruction makes a difference too.
bolt on necks lend a punchy quality to the sound while set (glued) necks give more sustain. then there are neck-through designs which offer maximum sustain.
the angle of the neck and headstock also make a difference to sustain.

The more you learn about guitars the more you know how different each one really is.....

The difference between a Strat and a Les Paul are Apples and Oranges...Both sound great in their own right but sound nothing alike....

Pick ups have alot to do with the sound of a guitar too....P90's sound nothing like Humbuckers....etc

The older the wood, the better a guitar sounds too....

I'm an idiot when it comes to all of this, just like auto parts.
I know what a string is, and the neck and body. But coils, and pickups, humbuckers are like speaking in an alien tongue.

Now, to really confuse you, different strings change the sound; new strings vs old strings change the sound. Different amps change the sound...

I'm curious as to why the subject came up?

great diagram paul. gina, look at the pickups in pauls picture. you see two rows of 'dots'. each row is a coil. this is a double coil (or humbucker) pickup.

Ahhh. Now it makes more sense to me.

I was just wondering for certain songs, Randy would play certain guitars.
And I would kinda get lost when y'all would talk about pickups, and such.

Also the beauty of guitars is you can have 5 models with identical construction and be the exact same model...yet they will all have their own sound and playability.

even the finnish can effect sound! although i know much less about this

It's quite the combination of Science and Art... helps keep us guitar players in "geek" status

Matthew wrote:Also the beauty of guitars is you can have 5 models with identical construction and be the exact same model...yet they will all have their own sound and playability.

it is like fingerprints, no two guitars will ever sound exactly alike. that is the reason why billy gibbons bought all those les pauls through out the years....he said he is in search of another les paul that sounds exactly like his '59 les paul aka "pearly gates"

Don't forget the amp. Marshalls, Fenders, Vox, etc... all different. Then throw in solid state, digital, etc. and the choices get harder and the wallet a lot thinner.

JR97 wrote:Don't forget the amp. Marshalls, Fenders, Vox, etc... all different. Then throw in solid state, digital, etc. and the choices get harder and the wallet a lot thinner.

yep, easy to forget when your drooling over guitars.

a strat into a vox av15 is totaly different to a Les Paul