What I hate about electric guitars is their weight

Do you have a nice wide strap? 3 inches or wider makes a big difference.

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Current strap is 2"/50mm. I’ll look for a wider one.

This probably indicates you need to work on something physical. Weights and flexibility. Your shoulder will thank you, continuing to push through can cause you damage.

I play my strat for hours at a time without pain. Not a heavy guitar.

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My cheap Squier Affinity Strat is 2.7kg
I am not interested in a heavy guitar.

Mine’s 3.7kg.

I love my Revstar, but it is a heavy beast. It’s probably the heaviest guitar I have owned.

Cheers,

Keith

My Tele from Artist Guitars is a beast at just under 4.5kgs. Body is American Swamp Ash. One of their best ever sellers, due to its awesome sound, coupled with the split coil dual humbuckers. The weight seems to distribute well, so it doesnt really feel heavy.

My Epiphone Les Paul, according to a bathroom scale, is c. 4.2-4.3 kgs. However, I’ve never felt it particularly heavy.

You may find more info on guitar weight in this article.

Is it really heavy metal if your guitar isn’t made out of heavy metal?

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No :slight_smile: Unless you guitar is made out of very heavy metal you can’t play metal music. You can only play wood music !@^@^@

Pretty much got wide bass straps on all the electrics in the stable. Even the light HBs.
:smile:

This is an interesting discussion. I just weighed my guitars, my Strat is 7.5 lbs (3.4 kg), my DIY Tele is 6.4 lbs (2.9 kg), and my Gretsch is 7.4 lbs (3.35 kg). I had an Epi Les Paul years ago and although I loved the look of it it was just too heavy for me and it didn’t feel right. I rarely played it, then I sold it. When I got my Strat I knew right away that it felt right. In the post on favorite guitars I said that my DIY Tele - currently my favorite - felt really good, and seemed to be a bit lighter than my Strat. The Gretsch is a good weight for me compared to a Les Paul, but it feels kind of big (after a torn rotator cuff a while ago) and so I rarely play it.

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I started learning Bass a while ago. I last about 20 minutes standing up when I play my Fender Jazz Bass (really heavy). My shoulder (trapezius ?) really starts to ache. No problem when I’m sitting or playing my Strat, or thinline Tele.

I totally feel you on heavy guitars. I suffer from chronic mid-back pain and wearing a heavy guitar exacerbates that.

But there are really light guitars out there. My Strandberg Boden, for example, is only ~5 lbs (2.2 kg).

A guitar doesn’t have to be expensive to be light. A $200-400 Jackson Dinky or Squire Strat can be at light as 6.5 lbs (3 kg).

But you have to look at the individual guitars, because there can be a lot of variance within the same model. I’ve seen identical guitars of the same exact model vary by as much as 1.5 lbs (0.7 kg) from lightest to heaviest.

That’s one reason I really like Sweetwater as a store, they unbox and weight every guitar over $300 or so, so you can compare and see exactly what you’re getting.

Short of getting a new guitar, you can try a wider/softer strap, and/or see if you can make changes to your posture to help reduce the strain, and/or try to build up core stability.

I bought a wider padded leather strap and it’s a big improvement over the nylon webbing strap I had. Thanks for the tip. :+1:

What did you buy can you send a link? thanks

I got this one, but it’s unlikly to be available where you are:

https://dslstraps.com.au/product/25padded-garment-saddle-brownblack/

Price is equivalent to about USD38.

Comparing my Squier Bullet Strat electric to a Little Martin acoustic, the total weight of the strat is probably a lot more, but the centre of gravity is nicely balanced, so it doesn’t “feel” heavy when playing it. Whereas the Little Martin’s centre of gravity was significantly towards the head. The guitar constantly felt like it wanted to fall over while I was playing, had to support the neck all the time to stop it from diving. So in terms of physical strain, the acoustic was much harder, in my admittedly brief experience.

Maybe full-size acoustics don’t tend to have quite the same balance issue?

Edit: my Squier weighs 3.2kg for the record

If you want something really light you should be looking at something like this, this type of guitar is made by several companies, this being one of the less expensive reasonable quality ones!


This is a fixed bridge, it has S/S frets and weighs around 1.5 - 2kg also it doesn’t need to have double ball ended strings like so do, for the price it’s a very nice instrument.
Ibanez amongst a few others (all more expensive) make something similar.

So, Darrell, how do you tune those headless wonders? And, do they stay in tune relatively well?
Inquiring minds wish to know. :thinking:

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