subject: Physical Considerations In Buying Acoustic Guitars [print this page] As their name suggests, solid wood acoustic guitars should be made out of wood. If the wood to be used for the guitar is well-dried from moisture, high quality guitar could be constructed, but if the wood still contains such element, the instrument is more likely to get crooked. Long ago, guitar makers dried dense wood for months or years just to be able to produce fine quality guitars that could withstand time. Nowadays though, it is very rare to witness such guitar making process as most guitar manufacturers rely on the "kiln-dry- process where chemicals are used to treat the wood and dry it only for a week or less to produce guitars to save expenses, and this is something that prospective guitar consumers should be aware of.
If you are to purchase wood acoustic guitars, regardless if they are dreadnaught acoustic guitars or the flattop steel-stringed ones, you have to put in mind that every part of these stringed instruments directly affect their quality and ability to produce sound. With the increased number of guitar manufacturers entering the market, it is really hard to define which among them offer guitars made from top quality wood and who are offering guitars made from low quality synthetic wood materials. Hence, it pays to know some important parts that you have to watch out for when purchasing such instrument. Written below are some of the major guitar parts that you have to take into account to get your money's worth.
First in line is the bridge unit, which is perhaps the most important part of solid wood acoustic guitars. Many of us think that the sound of guitars are produced from string vibrations that travels to the sound hole which helps amplify the sound; however, this is not the real case in acoustic guitars because it is a portion of the bridge that truly picks up the vibrations produced by the strings, transmits it to the sound chamber that amplifies the sound, and then bounce it through the struts straight to the sound hole; hence, from here alone you could see how essential the bridge unit is for the production of high quality sound. Due to the fact that many guitar manufacturers would like to save money from production they often use plastic guitar units instead of wood, which is not actually an ideal material since plastic bridges won't provide you with good acoustic tune. A good guitar bridge unit is the one made from dense wood such as ebony, rosewood or ash just to name a few, as these materials hold the strings well in position, while the strings do not bite into the bridge which usually occur if the bridge unit is structured from plastic that often result to a dysfunctional unit.
The next parts of solid wood acoustic guitars that you should observe are the body and neck. The body of the instrument should be made from top-quality wood and not those polywood products you see such as plywood and laminated wood; the back and front parts of the guitar body should be made from two different types of wood--denser wood for the back and lighter wood type for the front, the panel should also be made from two kinds of wood but should mirror the appearance of each other for if not what you're picking is not of finest craftsmanship, while the sides should be made from a third kind of wood. Meanwhile, the neck should be glued to the body and not assembled directly to the body; neck should be assembled separately from the body and before it is connected the glue from the body should be dried for months for security purposes. Guitar necks can be structured from different types of dense wood, and are commonly made in two distinct parts--the fingerboards and the neck itself, although there are some guitars that have headstocks made separately.
As the sides of dreadnaught acoustic guitars are made from two different wood types, it is crucial that they are firmly joined together and glue isn't enough to do such task, which is why end blocks are necessary. The end blocks of the guitar are usually affixed to the tail end of the instrument to provide structural support where the sides come together, at the back and in the front. To know whether a guitar has a front end block, position the instrument with its neck pointing to the ground; if you can't find any, do not purchase the instrument.
If you're rooting for solid wood acoustic electric guitar rather than the plain acoustic ones, you could still follow the same tips provided above. However, you should also consider looking at the electronics that you intend to use for your acoustic electric because there are different kinds of electronic systems that you could use. You could either use piezo saddle transducers or dual source systems depending on your preference. All in all what you could actually make out of these simple tips is that you shouldn't be persuaded by sales pressure; it always pays to be knowledgeable about the product you intend to purchase because at the end of the day what you want is an instrument that would last for decades.
