Why do you need multiple guitars?

Community Hub 🗨 Just Chatting
41

I think one of the reasons you see pros switch guitars so often during shows is different tunings. Ever been to a concert where the guitarist had only one guitar and the show stops for a few minutes so he or she can retune? Not super fun to watch is it?

The reason I own two electrics: one has single coil pick ups and the other has humbuckers. They sound really different. “Different tools for different jobs.”

Reason I’m toying with getting a third electric even though I live in an apartment and don’t have the space for it: so I can “play out.” I splurged on an American Strat and worry about it getting damaged or stolen when I start jamming (jams seem to happen in bars often).

42

Well, I have a Strat and a Gibson Les Paul. For me the sound is completely different. My Les Paul is the more “aggressive” one. But then I really like the strat to play like RHCP stuff for example.
For me, my Les Paul is my dream guitar, in the future I would like to add another one to tune in standard C, then I don’t have to change everytime the tune :laughing:

43

My very 1st thought when seeing this topic was “Why own more than One Pot & One Pan?”. You could go on & on… more than one winter coat? More than one car? More than one pair of sunglasses?
People pursue what brings them joy! I’m a guitarist. Maybe not a very good one yet, but playing brings me joy & I really like to look at the guitars I own & have a choice. I’ll play my Les Paul today & maybe acoustic or my Tele tomorrow… just keeping them in tune means “guitar time”!!! I won’t reveal how many “choices” I have or what they equate to in terms of money spent…… :crazy_face:
Don’t overthink this… just love your guitar & have a fun journey pursuing your passion!!!

Tod

2 Likes
44

I made a deal with my wife a couple of years ago; If a new one comes in, an old one has to go. At one point I had 5, including a couple that I almost never played. I sold or donated them. I’m now down to two acoustics, one sitka/rosewood dreadnought and one sitka/mahogany dreadnought. They sound quite different and I enjoy them both. But I’ll never say never. One of them could get replaced next week if I find the right replacement.

45

I think you may have nearly talked me into buying another guitar…:man_facepalming:t3:

2 Likes
46

The gas is strong with this one… :laughing:
Think of it as ‘fostering’ rather than ‘owning’.
Much more acceptable :wink:
Enjoy, my friend, and don’t forget to share the project.

1 Like
47

There is a simple answer to how many guitars should you have…

One less than a divorce. :face_with_diagonal_mouth:

1 Like
48

I suppose also the more you get involved with any pastime the better you learn and understand the intricacies of the hobby. It’s similar to my other main interest - running. People who are starting out on their running journey will just ‘run’. Those who have more hours under their belts tend to use ‘tempo’, 'interval, ‘long-slow’ sessions as a means of targeting tailored outcomes.

When I bought my first electric (Ibanez RG270DX) sometime around 2000 as a very uninformed beginner (ok, I could remember most of the open chords I had learnt about 10 years earlier), I bought purely on the ‘brand’. When exactly was the last time I had seen the likes of Gilmour, Iommi, Paige, Rothery, Knopfler and Duffy i.e. the guys I was listening to at the time, using an Ibanez?!? :face_with_open_eyes_and_hand_over_mouth:

However I was in my first proper job, had a reasonable income for my age and was a little too impatient.

I had absolutely no idea about pickup types (HSH in this case) and how they influenced the tone, floating bridges (!!! never again !!!) and this compounded by the fact the supplier didn’t have the actual colour I had ordered (metallic blue) so I haggled for the DX model as an FOC upgrade in ‘gloss black’ instead.

Basically, I made a mistake, The guitar was not suitable as a long-term instrument to learn on. It also uninspired me as I didn’t really connect with the colour. It got used, sparingly but rarely over the next 19 years.

It was only in 2018 when I decided to have another (proper) effort at learning. This time I had a better awareness of what would be more appropriate as the internet had become a far better resource than 18 years ago. I bought myself an Epi LP. Loved it for the crunchy tones. Then after a few months I wanted to expand a little more on the ‘cleaner’ side of things so a Fender Player Strat was up next. An acoustic then shortly followed. All 3 of these feel different, have their pro/cons but still compliment each other perfectly. Being able to swap thing around to keep things ‘fresh’ when the learning gets monotonous is a god-send too.

I’ve now decided to dabble with a HSS - effectively as a hybird between what I enjoy most between the LP and the Strat. Again, having the experience of having played both has given me extra insight into where I intend to go next.

Whilst I don’t consider the purchase of my Strat a mistake here, knowing what I know now I wouldn’t have bought the SSS version but would have gone straight for the HSS at that point instead …!

1 Like
49

Its interesting, theres almost no chance you get your perfect guitar (if one exists) the first time you buy.

You’ll learn what feels good, what suits your play style, and what works with how your playing develops over time.

You cant go much wrong with something middle of the road but you may end up preferring something else entirely.

TBH a beginner I think shouldnt worry too hard, buy something used or cheapish and use that for a bit until you’ve more experience.

2 Likes
50

Spot on @RobDickinson! One of the reasons I went for the LP at the 2nd attempt - many hundreds of thousands of people had already trod that road, there’s a lesson there somewhere.

Get yourself one of these (or a good clone or a Strat-a-like) as a beginner and you can’t go wrong.

(As an aside I made similar mistake(s) with my earlier amps too (crappy little Marshall and a Vox) - went for the Katana 100 mkII as being adopted by the many!)

1 Like
51

Wow… seems like I started a hot topic. :slightly_smiling_face:

This is what I was getting at. If I want to keep warm, shield my eyes and get from A to B, then I only need one coat, one pair of sunnies and one car. But the pots and pans analogy is much more apt. The better you get at cooking, the more you realise there are certain pots for certain jobs. And if you want to develop your talents then you need those extra pots and pans.

Thanks to all the excellent and informative replies I can see that now. One of the factors that intrigues me is different scale lengths, as I read that shorter scale length = less tension = easier to bend notes. Is this a subtle difference, or would I (as a bending novice) notice this immediately.

1 Like
52

Worst thing for a learner - a ‘soft tail’ guitar, esp a cheap one.

Any whammy bar that isnt dialed in ( aka cheap + learner) is going to ruin your tuning.

Next is crap tuners/poor stringing (which you can learn to fix).

Its bad enough fighting your lack of skills, throw in a guitar that struggles to be in tune and…

1 Like
53

I guess I got lucky. I had no clue what I was doing when I bought my first guitar. I thought electric guitars were all pretty much the same, so I just went by appearance, buying manufacturer-direct online, one that looked good.

I got the Dean Zelinsky Tagliare pictured at left. I haven’t regretted it for a minute. It’s a much better guitar than I am a guitarist. Being a strat-type, it’s great for classic rock and blues, my main interests. I realize now how easily I could have gone totally wrong.

54

Don’t worry about that from a scale length point of view. You will get far more change out of going down a string size.

For bending practice (basically the riff practice in the Blues classes) I put a set of 8’s on my longest scale length guitar and use that. It is lighter than the shortest scale length at 9’s. I didn’t select this based on bend difficulty, I simply like the HSS sound for blues and trying to bend it with 10s was really tough as a beginner.

I did try 7s on a couple guitars but they are so soft, they are hard to play because I use too much strength with BOTH hands making picks vibrate too much and fretting detune the note. It took weeks to get softer, but still I was not soft enough.

55

I didn’t even know that 7s existed!

56

Lower tension is beneficial in some ways and has its issues in others. There are several ways to lower tension, string gauge, lower tension brands of string, shorter scale, tuning down.

Short scale is a little different fingering cords as the frets are a little closer together. It reduces the overall tension by roughly 5-6%, the neck will be roughly one inch shorter.

You can try out short scale by tuning down a step and putting a capo at the first fret.

If you go too low with tension and have low action, you may get more buzzing, especially if you play hard.

Although low tension would help bending, I think that, if bending is your priority, thinner strings may be a better bet., as @sequences suggests. Especially on electric.

But if low tension is what you are after think more specialized low tension strings and short scale (or nylon).

I like thicker string feel on my acoustics, I even have a set of 13s I want to try, but I also like low tension and have a bad left shoulder. So I have low tension 12s now (Santa Cruz parabolic lows) and the 13s are Newtone Heritage with a tension a little less than a standard set of 12s. This on a short scale 12 fret guitar and my shoulder is happier and my fingers are happier.

Newtone Heritage 12s were so low tension ( must be about the lowest tension available) they were hard to play on this guitar.

1 Like
57

Yes, I did move from 10s to 9s and found that much easier. I also tried thinner strings on my acoustic but didn’t like them.

That’s a good tip! Will try that.

58

FWIW, I find that different guitars inspire me in different ways, and cause me to play or to compose in different ways: sometimes slight, sometimes greater.

2 Likes
59

Billy Gibbons famously uses 7s after a conversation with BB king!

60

I thought that was 8s.

Edit: just looked it up. You’re right.

2 Likes