A Little Primer on Rock Guitars

My Guitar Collection

A lazy Sunday afternoon and it’s time to finally document my guitar collection (which actually also serves as a little primer on guitars — which I use mostly for rock, metal, blues, folk, etc.). From Right-To-Left:

The two quintessential rock electric guitar archetypes:

• Dark Green (swirly color) Gibson Les Paul: This is the classic heavy metal guitar used by the likes of Jimmy Page (Led Zeppelin) and Slash (Guns N’ Roses). It has double-coil humbucking pickups (humbuckers) which are great for heavy metal. The humbuckers were originally created to reduce the AC hum/buzz that single coil pickups (like on the next guitar) were notorious for. Two pickups are wired in reverse and the hum of each cancels the other out. A byproduct is a high compression which basically results in the same/similar volume regardless of how light or heavy you hit the string. This reduces the sensitivity of pickups to the dynamics and nuances of strumming which makes it not so good for clean and expressive rhythm guitar. But it has the benefit of creating incredible sustain and power because you can hit a note once and hold it at the same volume for a very long time, and when you run that through distortion (i.e. the magic that creates heavy metal), it sounds fucking incredible and creates fabulous leads and riffs. This Les Paul is a “Flood Model” guitar, which contains swirly paint to commemorate the flooding the Gibson guitar factory which resulted in swirls of paint all over the factor floor. It’s color is gorgeous up close and when you have a lot of light (which unfortunately isn’t the case on stage — sigh).
• Sunburst/Yellow Fender Stratocaster: This is the classic single coil blues guitar used by likes of David Gilmour (Pink Floyd), Stevie Ray Vaughan, Eric Clapton, and Jeff Beck. It’s very bright and expressive, and the quality and nuances of the sounds come through as there is no compression — especially if you had a pre 1965 vintage Stratocaster (which I don’t…sigh). However, you get a lot of buzz from the pickups when you’re in a “dirty” room (i.e. bad AC wiring and lots of electronic equipment). One of my favorite designs in the Stratocaster style guitars is that the middle pickup is wired in reverse from the other two, so when you set it to play the two top or the two bottom pickups together, you get a funky quasi-double coil sound — this is a hallmark of the Strat. This “CBS” Stratocaster was my first electric guitar that I bought in 1979. It’s extremely heavy (has an Ash body with good sustain) and never goes out of tune.

The others:

• Aqua Blue Music Man Luke: This is a Stratocaster style guitar named after Steve Lukather (Toto, studio musician and writer), with EMG pickups, which have a single coil, very clean and bright powerful sound but without the buzz. This guitar by far has the best feeling neck on any guitar I’ve ever played. You get a certain kind flow from playing it. Steve Morse (Dixie Dregs) also uses Music Man. The Music Man guitar company was founded by previous Fender company people including Leo Fender, the founder of Fender guitars who had to remain a silent partner at the beginning of the company due to a non-compete clause after he sold the Fender Guitar company to CBS instruments.
• White Gretch: Similar to the White Falcon, but not as expensive. This guitar has great fat (i.e. powerful) and dirty humbuckers. These things can create crunch without using a distortion module. I actually like to use the neck pickup (the one at the top) for playing Black Sabbath, even though it doesn’t look like a metal guitar. This kind of guitar is used by the likes of Brian Setzer (Stray Cats) and George Thorogood for rockabilly and big band jazz/blues style guitar
• Shecter Bass: Which I got mainly for guest musicians who didn’t want to lug around their bass and for when I want to record with a real bass guitar vs. my digital studio.
• Fireglo Rickenbacker A360: Similar to the kind used by George Harrison of the Beatles. I rarely play it because it doesn’t sound that great compared to the other guitars, but I wanted a red guitar and a hallow body guitar in my collection.
• Purple sparkle totally custom made Telecaster: Shecter body, Warmoth maple neck with extra thick frets, EMG Pickups, and painted by the same guy who does Alice Coopers guitars. This guitar is a screamer and has a funk and brightness that will pierce through the rest of the band and the audience. It’s lacking in character and a whammy bar, so I use it only for certain songs. This guitar was originally dark blue, but was damaged in my divorce. I later saw Brian Setzer live with a purple sparkle electric guitar and had to have one. But all the purple sparkle guitar were cheap or mediocre. So I repainted the damaged tele.
• Martin Dreadnought 6 string acoustic: A stable of acoustic guitarists. I first got introduced to Martin through the music of Neil Young. They have an incredibly bright and crisp tone, and what I like in particular about them is their dynamic range. You can hit them as soft or as hard as you want and you consistently get a crisp, yet warm high quality sound. There is nothing like playing rock guitar on an acoustic — i.e. think Pete Townshend. Even if you want to just play rock or metal electric guitar, all guitarists should start with an acoustic to build up your strength and give you a strong rhythmic sense.
• Dark Gray PRS (Paul Reed Smith): I call this the monster, used by the likes of Santana. It’s another Stratocaster style guitar, but with humbuckers that also have a center tap so you can switch them between single and double coil modes. It also has something that few humbuckers have which is great sustain AND a distinctive expressive tone. These guitars are also known for their unique gorgeous true maple finish.
• Taylor 12-string Acoustic: It’s really hard to make a 12-string guitar that sounds fucking awesome — i.e. clear, bright, and warm. Many sound good, but not fucking awesome. And Taylor succeeded. I went to the Guitar Center looking for a 12-string for a recording session, but didn’t want to spend more than $1000 because one rarely uses these guitars. I was trying guitars for an hour (including several Martin’s) and I asked the sales guy about the Taylor on the wall. He said, “Don’t go near it, don’t even touch it”. I said, let me try, he scolded me, “I’m warning you, don’t touch that guitar! You want to stay in budget?”. “OK”, I responded, and spent another frustrated 30 minutes looking for the right guitar. When you spend more than $500 on a guitar, you really want to feel good about it. (BTW: Don’t ever buy a cheap guitar, e.g. under $300, even when you’re first starting, it will go out of tune all the time and you’ll think you just suck. Just the tuning pegs on my guitars cost around $150+). I asked him again, about the Taylor, he said, “NO, do not go near that guitar! Stop looking at it!”. Finally after I kept goading him, he capitulated. I kept insisting “I just wanted to try it”. Famous last words. I took one strum and Iknew I was in trouble. I said, “I want this guitar, I don’t care that it costs $1800”. It was way beyond my budget, but fuck it, I was in love. Then logic set in, and the other side of my brain fought back and said to me, “It won’t sound good with a capo” — 12-strings rarely do. I put the capo on the third fret and tried Landslide by Stevie Nicks. It sounded even more incredible — what a brightness and textual beauty in that higher register, and every string was crisp. My heart was excited and my stomach sank as I pulled my credit card, and justified that this was an act of God that brought me and the Taylor together.