Whether you're playing in a pub, a concert hall, or in your house, you still need to know what to look for in an acoustic guitar. Heybrook Music’s guide includes information that can help you choose an Acoustic Guitar for your needs.

Since there's so much to consider when purchasing an Acoustic Guitar, don't hesitate to call 01942 607148 for more information.

The Anatomy of an acoustic guitar

Basics:

An acoustic guitar is a mechanical amplifier. Its job is to amplify the volume of a plucked string to a level where we can hear it. The major component of the amplification is the guitar top. Think of it as a speaker and think of the rest of the guitar body as the speaker enclosure.

Classical or steel string?

Put simply, classical guitars are used  for classical music, or for people who want to play Latin or flamenco. They are soft on the fingers and have a correspondingly soft attack and decay. This is why a lot of schools recommend using nylon string guitars to start with
Steel strings are for everyone else. The question to ask is do you want to play songs? If the answer is yes ,then you probably want a steel string

Laminate Top

Most common on a lower priced guitar is a laminate top ,in which three thin layers of wood are glued together at right angles. Such a piece of wood whilst inherently stronger, will not vibrate as well as a solid top and therefore will not produce such a good tone. Additionally, the tone will not improve with age. However, the benefit of a laminate top is its strength and affordability

Solid top

This is a top that is made of a single piece of wood which is ‘book-matched’. A solid top guitar should
‘age’ better and the end result will be improved tone and volume as the guitar gets older. The top will start to act quicker as it gets older and matures; it will become a more efficient “speaker”. The same would apply to the back and sides of a guitar although you will usually only find totally solid wood guitars at the higher end of the spectrum e.g. Taylor and Martin.The most common woods you will come across for tops will be spruce and cedar. Spruce is very pale, whereas cedar is a reddish colour. Spruce has a ‘ringier ‘tone and cedar is warmer and matures more quickly

Electro acoustic

Simply an acoustic guitar with some kind of piezo electric device under the saddle to convert the string vibrations into electrical energy ready for amplification. Normally electro-acoustic guitars have a battery powered pre-amp on board with some eq facilities and increasingly a tuner

Does size matter?

Well on this occasion yes it does . A smaller guitar tends to have a sweeter more balanced tone than a larger guitar. The advantage of a larger guitar is more volume and more pronounced bass frequencies. Acoustic guitars come in several sizes

Acoustic guitar body styles explained

This is actually a complex subject that could easily fill a book, as the various styles and sizes introduced by specific manufacturers have evolved over more than a century. However, the most significant change came in the 1920s, when guitars were designed to accept steel strings, rather than the traditional gut (or later nylon) strings.

Martin Guitars, a company with a long history of building these instruments, began giving numerical codes to the various size bodies. Smaller-bodied 12-fret guitars included the models 0, 1, and 2, while the 14-fret instruments included the 00 and 000 models. The 000 style is favoured by players who want a brighter, cleaner sound, while still having a full-sized body. As an example, the Eric Clapton Signature model is a 000 size guitar. Meanwhile, for those who wanted an acoustic with a richer bass response, Martin began building the so-called "dreadnought" models, which (trivia fans take note) were named after a famous British battleship. Many of Martin's most popular designs have been the D-sized instruments, from the relatively plain D-18 to the top-of-the-line D-45, with its ornate inlays. Not to be outdone, Gibson introduced their jumbo "flat-tops" - guitars like the J-45, the J-160E (as used by the Beatles), and the "Super Jumbo J-200," the company's "King of the Flat-Top Guitars."
From there, various manufacturers used these basic shapes and sizes as jumping-off points for other designs that included both sharp and rounded cutaways on the treble bout, as well as the unusual (but effective) Ovation guitars with their Lyrachord bowl-back designs.

What is the benefit of an acoustic-electric?

Essentially, the earliest acoustic-electrics were simply acoustic guitars that had a standard magnetic pickup installed either in the soundhole or at the neck joint (as in the Gibson J-160E, popularized by the Beatles). Though these instruments could now be amplified, feedback was a constant problem, as was the compromised acoustic sound, as the pickups could not handle the complex high-frequency overtones produced by an acoustic. In the late 1960s, all that changed when Ovation designed the piezoelectric bridge pickup. Rather than depending upon simple microphonics to increase volume, piezos amplified the actual vibrations of the guitar top and body and hence produced a more natural "acoustic tone." Over the years, many advances were made to help deliver a convincing acoustic guitar sound at concert hall volumes, with each manufacturer producing their own specific variation on what is now commonly called the "electro-acoustic guitar."
Given all that, the most important benefits of your modern acoustic-electric is the ability to play at concert hall levels and still retain the shimmering overtones of the acoustic, but without the feedback usually associated with high volume levels. Another benefit might be the ability to plug your guitar directly into your console, without the need for an expensive mic, not to mention a relatively noise-free environment to record it in.

Why are some acoustic guitars more expensive than others?

This is another topic that could easily fill a book, but you can typically begin with the materials used in construction (such as premium timbers like Sitka spruce, maple, mahogany and rosewood). As an example, highly figured maple backs and sides will certainly command higher prices than relatively plainer woods. What's more, certain woods are now in short supply, like Brazilian rosewood, so an instrument built using this particular wood will command a premium price.
Another important aspect in the price-to-performance ratio is whether the instrument is built by a skilled craftsman using hand- picked timbers. The best handmade guitars will take much longer to produce than those which are mass-produced in an assembly-line environment, since a gifted luthier will spend a great deal of time selecting each piece of wood used in construction, as each will play an important part in the complex tonal structure of the instrument.
Guitar pricing is also influenced by the quantity and quality of the ornamentation. As an example, Martin's D-50 K2 Deluxe features solid, highly figured flame koa for the front, back, and sides, with herringbone pearl rosette and grained Ivoroid body binding, a solid mahogany neck with solid black ebony fingerboard and mother-of-
pearl and abalone heart inlays. List price? £27,500 That's not to say that you can't get a great-sounding acoustic for a lot less money - a lot! It's just that some musicians and collectors guys want the very best one-of-a-kind instrument. For us "normal" musicians, quality comes with a much lower price tag than that, though pinching pennies is not the way to get a great acoustic sound.
If you buy a premium quality acoustic from one of the top companies like Martin, Taylor, Yamaha, Takamine, or Tanglewood, you will more than be rewarded with superb tone and wonderful playability!

What to look for:

Body Style:
Acoustic guitars come in a variety of sizes and shapes, from small travel size, to jumbo, to dreadnought. The body style in an acoustic guitar determines sound projection and tonal emphasis. Things to consider are tonal quality vs. playing comfort. Some acoustic guitar bodies come in a single cutaway design like the shape of the Gibson Les Paul. This gives access to the higher frets.

Electronics:
Some acoustic guitars come with pickups and preamps built in for playing larger venues where your acoustic sound needs to fill the room. Some instruments have preamps mounted in a hole cut in the side of the instrument, while others mount inside the soundhole. There are systems that combine preamp, microphone, piezo pickups , EQ, and tuners.

Neck:
The concept for necks on acoustic guitars is the same as it is for electrics; the size of your hand is key. Generally the thickness and width of the neck is based on the size of the body of the instrument as well as how many frets the neck has. Usually, acoustic necks are listed as 12-fret or 14-fret. This refers to the number of frets clear of the body, not how many overall.

Intonation:
Intonation determines whether or not the notes play in tune as you move up the neck. If the distance between the frets (usually above the 12th fret) is off, the guitar will be incapable of playing in tune and therefore useless as a recording or performance instrument. All our guitars are checked for intonation prior to sale

Tonewood:
The choice of wood determines the sound of an acoustic guitar. Different types of wood produce different tones, but most guitar makers believe that the top is the most important for determining tonal quality. Spruce is the standard material for tops with Sitka spruce being the most common. The cost of an acoustic guitar increases dramatically based on the rarity of the tonewoods, such as rosewood, but due to decreasing supplies of certain tonewoods, guitar makers are successfully finding alternative materials to make great sounding instruments. If you wisjh to know more about the effects of wood on tone check out our Buyers guide to Tonewoods

Tuning Machines:
The type of tuning machine your guitar has is very important. This is what allows you to fine tune and hold pitch. Enclosed machine heads resist rust and airborne corrosives, and therefore don't require as much maintenance or replacement as open tuning machines.

Bridge and Fingerboard:
The materials used for bridge and fingerboard do have an effect on sound, but this is minimal compared to the body of the guitar. Put simply, the effects of bridge and fingerboard materials cannot make or break a guitar's sound.