Glossary of Terms

Action
the height of the strings relative to the fretboard; too low causes buzzing, too high difficult to play

Active/Passive pickups
active pickups require a battery for power, producing a higher output signal - Example: EMG 81/85; passive pickups produce lower output signal, often losing some of the very high and low frequencies on the way to the amp Example: Seymour Duncan, DiMarzio

Archtop
a guitar with a slightly rounded top; almost always electric, hollow body version is often used for playing Jazz

Binding
used for decoration and to strengthen the joints of the wood; usually the top edge of the body is routed out, and "binding" is glued in; comes in many sizes and styles; may be used on necks and heads; usually high quality plastic

Body
the main part of the guitar where the pickups and bridge are located; may be solidbody, semi-hollow body, hollow body, or acoustic

Bolt-on
refers to the attachment of the neck to the body; the neck is bolted to the body using 4,5,or 6 screws, clearly visible in pictures

Bridge
where the strings are attached to the body, may be stop tail, Tune-o-Matic (TOM), or floating

Coil tapping
splits a humbucker in half, effectively making it a single coil pickup which changes its tonality, but also produces noise that the humbucker usually cancels

Double cut/single cut
refers to the area where the neck meets the body; Les Pauls are single cut, Stratocasters are double cut; on single cuts, the side of the cut determines the "handedness" of the guitar

Double locking tremolo
a tremolo bridge where the strings lock into the bridge and are also locked with allen screws at the nut; cheaper tremolo bridges will be single locking, where the whammy bar will cause the strings to go out of tune very quickly

Double neck
a guitar with two necks; frequently one neck will be a standard 6 string, while the other will be a 7- or 12-string; somtimes one half of the guitar will be acoustic

F-hole
the "f" shaped sound holes often found on archtop guitars, used instead of the usual circular sound hole directly under the strings

Fine Tuners
feature on the bridge of tremolo guitars; the guitar is tuned as desired, and the locking nut is locked, which will slightly alter the pitch of the strings; the fine tuners are used to tune the strings back to "perfect pitch"

Floating bridge
style of bridge that is mounted in a routed out section of a guitar body, allowing it to be bent up as well as down; original Floyd Rose is a "floating" bridge; example: Jackson Soloist

Floyd Rose/licensed
the "Original Floyd Rose" is a patented style of floating bridge, many companies use the "original" on higher end models, while using a "licensed" version on cheaper models; some licensed versions are far poorer quality

Fret
the metal strip on the fretboard that cuts the string off at a certain point, producing notes; small, medium, jumbo, extra-jumbo(XJ)- refers to the height and width of the fret wire (a medium-jumbo is about the same width of a jumbo, but a jumbo will be taller

Fretboard/fingerboard
interchangable terms for the piece of wood onto which you press the strings; the fretboard houses the fret wires and inlays; most commonly made of rosewood

Hardware
the "non-wood" pieces of a guitar; bridge, jacks, control knobs, tuning knobs, strap pins, etc.

Head/headstock
the wooden part of a guitar at the opposite end of the neck from the body; houses the tuners, and often times the manufacturer name and serial number

Hollowbody
an electric guitar with a sound chamber; differs from an acoustic/electric in that an a/e is essentially an acoustic with pickups; many hollow bodies are archtops

Humbucker
(bucker, dual-coil) a style of pickup; two single coils of reversed polarity that are wired together to cancel the noise (buck the hum) common with single coil pickups

Inlay
pieces that are glued into the fretboard to mark certain frets, letting the player know where he/she is on the neck without having to count the frets; may be plastic, mother of pearl, abalone, ivory, or in some cases painted on the fretboard

Intonation
the accuracy of the tuning as you go down the neck; if the guitar goes flat as you go towards the body, move the corresponding saddle towards the nut

MSRP/list price
manufacturer's suggested retail price; guitars are almost always sold under MSRP; the Dean from Hell has a MSRP of $1,625 and is commonly sold for $999

Neck
the piece of wood connecting the head to the body, housing the fretboard and truss rod; a warped or cracked neck is one thing to look out for when buying a guitar; a broken bolt-on neck can be changed relatively easy, though on cheaper guitars, this will not be cost effective

Neck-thru
the piece of wood used for the neck is extended through the entire length of the body; the fretboard, pickups, and bridge are all mounted on this piece; the rest of the body "wings" are usually glued onto the neck piece; a high-end quality

Nut
a block usually made of metal, wood, bone, or plastic, that keeps the strings evenly spaced; an open string vibrates between the nut and the bridge

OHSC
original hard shell case; common abbreviation used by sellers; the hard shell case that came new with the guitar from the manufacturer

Paint/finish
usually nitrocellulose, polyurethane, polyester, oil varnish, or a water-based finish; usually a hard finish that resists scratching/chipping, may be gloss or flat, transparent, colored, multi-colored, or clear; seals the wood

Pickguard/scratchplate
most commonly plastic; may be attached directly to the top of the guitar (strat) or slightly elevated (les paul), protects the finish from being scratched by the pick

Pickup/pups
captures vibrations and converts them to an electronic signal that can be amplified; a magnet (either ceramic are AlNico) wrapped with copper wire; abbreviations such as HSH indicate a guitar has a humbucker,single,humbucker arrangement of pickups

Pickup selector switch
found on guitars that have more than one pickup, selects which pickup(s) are active; a guitar with 2 pickups usually has a 3-way selector (bridge pickup, both, neck pickup), guitars with 3 pickups usually have a 5-way selector; activating multiple pickups is useful when playing chords

Saddle
part of the bridge that determines the string action, having a guitar "set up" adjusts the saddles for optimum string height, among other things

Scale(length)
the length of the neck; most common is 25.5" for guitar and 34-35" for bass; a baritone guitar is slightly longer to achieve a lower tuning

Semi-hollow body
offers a compromise between traditional archtop looks and solidbody performance; example: B.B. King's Gibson "Lucille"

Set neck
method of attaching the neck to the body seamlessly; glues the neck to the body for improved sustain over bolt-on necks, though usually more expensive; a good compromise between bolt-on and neck-thru; example: Gibson Les Paul

Single coil
type of pickup; a single magnet wrapped in copper, half the size of a humbucker; common among Fender stratocasters, different tonalities from a humbucker, slightly more unwanted noise

Soapbar
a P-90 or P-90 style pickup originally made by Gibson, between the single coil and humbucker in size; it shares many qualities with the single coil including hum

Stop tail
a piece of metal that holds the ball of the string while not allowing it to move (as opposed to Floyd Rose); used on Gibson Les Pauls; commonly used in conjunction with Tune-o-matic style bridge

Strap locks
usually aftermarket; installed by removing the stock strap pins and screwing in locking ones; used to lock the strap in place either with ball bearings or a push/pull system; a guitar strap can work itself loose while playing, causing the guitar to hit the ground, strap locks prevent this

Strap pins
Two metal knobs onto which the strap attaches; many live performers swap the stock pins out for strap locks

Strings
either flatwound (core is wrapped with flat wire), roundwound (wrapped with round wire), or unwound; come in a variety of gauges; a matter of personal preference, though generally the lower you tune, the heavier gauge strings you use; usually steel core wrapped with nickel or silver

Strings/number of
standard guitars have 6 strings, 7 string guitars have an extra low string, 12 string guitars have 6 "sets" of 2, where each set is tuned to the same note an octave apart

String-thru
a guitar who's strings go all the way through the body; when changing strings on a string-thru guitar, the new strings are inserted through the back of the guitar and pulled out the front; improved sustain over tremolo guitars; often used in conjunction with Tune-o-matic bridges

Tremolo
type of bridge that allows the strings to be detuned via a tremolo bar (whammy); differs from a "floating" bridge in that a tremolo bridge can only detune strings; while a floating bridge can bend them up because the bridge is suspended in a portion of the body that is routed out; example of tremolo bridge: Fender Strat

Truss rod
a steel rod running inside the neck, used to adjust the curvature of the neck; ideally the neck should be very slightly concave; not enough will result in buzzing, too much will result in improper intonation; without the truss rod, the neck would warp from the tension of the strings

Tune-o-matic/TOM
simple style of fixed bridge used with string-thru and stop tail guitars; the bridge moves up and down on 2 screws, altering the action, while each string has a saddle, altering intonation; example: Les Paul

Tuners/tuning pegs
gears used to tune the guitar strings; strings are fed into holes in the tuners, and the gears are used to wrap the string around a post, altering the pitch; on double locking guitars, when the nut lock is locked, the tuners will not work

Tuning
standard tuning for a 6 string guitar is E/A/D/G/B/E, while standard tuning for a 7 string is B/E/A/D/G/B/E, drop D is D/A/D/G/B/E which makes power chords much easier to play; open tuning makes a chord when unfretted such as open G (G/B/D/G/B/D); down tuning is lowering all strings equally relative to standard tune such as C/F/A#/D#/G/C

Volume/tone knobs
usually on the front of the guitar near the pickup selector, allow change in volume and tone output of the guitar; some guitars only have one of each, while others have one volume knob for each pickup, or a seperate tone knob for bass and treble

Whammy bar
or tremolo bar; the metal "arm" used to alter the pitch of the strings on tremolo/floating bridges; almost always removable; usually on the right side of the bridge on right handed guitars so not to get in the way of picking

Woods
different woods have different musical qualities: basswood is lightweight with smooth tones, alder has better range than basswood, mahogany has good lows with compressed mids, koa is expensive with compressed highs, hard maple is loud with bright highs; a maple top is often used for its natural wood pattern (flame, quilt, matchbook); necks are usually maple or mahogany, fretboards are usually rosewood

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