Originally Posted by anathematized_one

Well it depends. Ignoring models and brands, there are many factors to look at. Realistically, any guitar can be, and has been, used for metal.

Speed
This is where you look into neck profiles. You can get a more u shape or a more v shape, both of which can have thicker or thinner curvatures. Typically thinner = faster, but go with what is comfortable. Thinner also can reduce sustain.

No, thinner means that if you have small hands you have less to grab around and can reach all notes more easily. Neck thickness has very little to do with speed. Yes at the absolute extremes you might find some necks are too thick to play comfortably and those are going to hamper your speed, but I can play just as fast on my Epiphone Swingster as I can on my RG550, because if the necks are comfortable, their thickness simply doesn't MATTTER. Neck shape should be all about comfort. Thin necks support smaller hands by making it easier to stretch to low strings further up the neck. Thick necks provide more support lower down the neck or for people with larger hands.

You are correct that a neck that is too thin can have less sustain. You didn't mention that they're also more susceptible to temperature change and humidity, and that thicker necks will usually (not always, this is wood we're dealing with), be more stable and need less adjustment over time.

Tone
Nearly every aspect affects the tone. If you want a darker/warmer tone, you will want to go with a mahogany body, but it is going to significantly increase the weight. Other woods have brighter tones. You can also get a "top wood" to alter the tone, say getting a mahogany body with a 1/8" maple top wood would give you a warm and dark tone but also will brighten up some of the highs.


READ THIS: Warmoth Custom Guitar Parts - Wood Descriptions

This is waaaaay more complicated than you make it sound. Also at the kind of price ranges he's likely looking at for a second guitar (Unless he's really pushing the boat out), he can't afford a 1/8" maple top - if he gets a guitar with a maple top its going to be a veneer or a photoflame, more would be way out of his budget, and veneers and/or photoflames aren't going to change the tone of the body at all.

Sustain
This is heavily influenced by what type of fretboard you have. Rosewood is your typical fretboard, bit ebony provides much more sustain, but also costs quite a bit.

Other factors are down-tuning. I typically tune to D standard. Even in E standard though, I use relatively thick strings (easier and more comfortable to me). Thicker strings are easier tto use in lower tunings, but in higher tunings, they can be more difficult to tune. Many people also don't like thicker strings. This can affect the neck width you decide on, though more than likely it will not.

No, no no no no.

Sustain is a function of string vibration, and how much of it is transferred to the guitar at the nut and bridge. The more is transferred to the body, the better the sustain. The fretboard wood has a very, very minimal effect on this, and should be one of the last things you look at if you look at it at all. Fretboard material is a tone consideration - maple is very bright and snappy, rosewood more rounded and has "bark", and ebony very percussive and punchy without being as bright as maple.

Down tuning and string guage are all personal preference, but you're wrong about them being more difficult to tune. The only difference in how easy they are to tune, should be that the tuning machine will be a little more stiff.

I have absolutely no clue why you'd relate neck width and string gauge. The only reason I can think of is if you were trying to put 13 or something super heavy on an Ibanez wizard, which would probably warp it over time.

You also have options of a tremolo or whammy bar. I personally don't like them. To have one, you must have a floating bridge. For me, I like the feel of a fixed bridge and the trem bar just gets in my way. Another option is a locking nut, which helps to hold tuning, but is almost a waste on a fixed bridge.

Again, nonono.
1 - Tremolos are whammy bars. They are the same thing.
2 - You do NOT need a floating bridge to have a tremolo. Look at a strat - you can set them up to float, but you can have the bridge rest on the body with no issues whatsoever.
3 - You telling him about your preference for not having a tremolo, doesn't help him find a metal guitar. Why not tell him why that makes a guitar better for metal? (Answer: It doesn't matter. Plenty of metal bands use tremolos and plenty don't, if he wants to play songs by all those bands, he should buy a guitar with a trem. If not, then he shouldn't.)
4 - What you say about locking nuts isn't true. They don't help hold tuning on a fixed bridge in the slightest. The job of a locking nut is to prevent a tremolo from sending a guitar out of tune, by ensuring that the movement of the string is stopped at the nut. On a fixed bridge, you have no tremolo to CAUSE movement there, so its a useless addition. The only thing adding a locking nut to a fixed bridge guitar will do, is prevent you from being able to tune it until you unlock it.


If you are shopping in a guitar store, try to find an amp that has a similar sound and type to the one you use and test the guitars through there. Some guitars sound better on certain amps/setups than others do.

Another factor are pickups. Active require a batter so there is that which you have to replace when it dies but you get additional power, so you have to weigh that out. You alo have to decide on the type, single or double coil, humbucker, etc for each pickup (neck and bridge). If you customise a guitar, you may even mix brands/types of pickups.

I'm sure he knows this, but why not explain to him that for metal music he probably wants a humbucker in the bridge because of the thicker and more growly sound, with more bass and less harsh treble? That'd be a damn sight better than rambling on about the fact a bunch of different stuff exists. Also why did you seperate out double coil and humbucker? They're the same thing.

As for "additional power" - Active pickups are louder than passive pickups, but the reason they're active isn't power. The reason active pickups need power is they use very weak pickup magnets and not many windings - this means you have to have an active preamp, to boost the very, very weak output signal of the main coils, but it also means less capacitance in the pickup, which means more treble response. It also means less magnet pull on the strings which means more sustain and you can adjust the pickups closer to the strings.

Of course, this isn't without its drawbacks, and those are the you need batteries, you can't leave the guitar plugged in when you're not playing it because it will kill the batteries, and also some designs of active pickup don't have much headroom, and end up compressing the signal if you play hard, making them less dynamic. Which is best is up to the style of music he wants to play, which is why way up there in the first reply I asked him a bunch of stuff so I could recommend more wisely rather than just spouting off a bunch of gibberish he might not understand or even need to know.

Originally Posted by Pedestrian

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Originally Posted by Trollheart

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