What is it that makes a guitar easier to play than other guitars? And what is it that makes it sound good?

conundrum: What is it that makes a guitar easier to play than other guitars? And what is it that makes it sound good?
What are the factors that make one guitar easier to play than another? I play guitar and I’ve noticed that some guitars are just easier to play. The pick seems to glide through the strings more fluidly and it seems to make a nice sound without much effort on some guitars, but on others it is hard to strum and it just sounds bad. My guitar is like this. I have a Gibson Epiphone and it sounds bad and I have trouble strumming on it. When I play someone else’s guitar or another guitar at a music store, I can play effortlessy. There are other guitars that sound bad and are hard to play, but it always seems like the one that I have is hard to play. Does it have to do with the strings? Does it have to do with how the strings are mounted? I was recently playing my roommate’s Schecter guitar, and the strings felt so firm, yet it was easy to play and it sounded good. I took the strings off of mine and put them on his. So the same strings that were on my bad sounding guitar, sounded good on his.
His guitar was also easier to play. The same exact strings that were on mine were used, yet his guitar was easier for me to play. I must be cursed.

Answers and Views:

Answer by Doc
I’ve been playing for years. As a kid, I worked with guys like Harry Chapin — ask your parents or grand parents…
There are usually a number of reasons that a guitar is harder to play an or doesn’t sound very good. It’s not necessarily the money. I have an old Aspen H-6 that made a friend’s $ 2000 Guild sound pathetic — REALLy torqued him off!
First, start with the action. Are the strings close to the board on the neck or are they REALLy high up? The closer they are, the easier it is to move your fingers. This may be as simple as the tortion bar needing adjustment, or it may be a cracked body.
Second, what kind of strings are you using? I’ve always liked GHS mediums with an unwound G (it gets rid of the “zit-zit-zit” sound when you work the stirngs up and down the fret board. I’ve never cared for gut or nylon strings, they just don’t sound as clean as steel.
Lastly, you didn’t say if your’s is a hollow body or what… If it’s a semi or a hollow body, check to make sure that it hasn’t gotten cracked. Sometimes when wood gets old and dries, it tends to crack with the change of humidity, remember, tight strings tend to put a lot of pressure on the joint between the body and the neck. You might also check the keys, I have an old Gibson Custom GS with horrible keys and pick-ups. They just may need replacing.

Answer by the dogone dog
can be the string weight but its more likely to be the neck profile and the action of the strings and other hardware.

more solid the bridge and tailpiece often the better and tighter the sound.

the wood can either hold the sustain of a guitar or just suck it up, generally the more expensive a guitar the better the wood – and better more costly wood will give a better sound.

the action is probably the main thing – the lower the strings sit to the frets without touching the easier it will be to play. but they cant be so low that they touch the other frets. you can get your guitar set up nicely at a music shop if you cant do it yourself. it will make the world of difference.

also the neck profile differs wildly on different guitars, this can be a physical or personal prefference as to which you choose. generally lead guitars are suited to thinner necks as they are faster to play with. thicker necks generally on bulkier and more rythm orientated guitars and square necks on slide guitars.

the pickups can make a massive difference too but that can also be a preferencial thing. there are many different pickups with different functions.

Answer by FILO
Part of it is your guitar neck and strings, as far as playability is concerned. If your guitar is old and the neck is bowed, you’ll have a hard time playing it, and you are right about how the saddle of a guitar being adjusted right and it also makes it easier to play. One the other hand guitars in stores were fine tuned by experienced guitar players and they know what to do to make some cheap guitars plaable. My best advice for you is that the next time when you dicide to buy another guitar whether new or used is to spend a little more money. for new guitars the $ 600.00 and up is the lowest end that is playable and sounds good as well. For used guitars roughly around $ 400.00 is good enough. you also have to make sure whether you like the guitar or not. This way you can be sure of yourself that you can’t go wrong with a guitar you just by. If you like you like your guitar a lot, you may have to spent a little bit of money to have someone at the guitar shop adjust the neck and saddle for you to make it more playable. the next thing is would be your strings. Yeah, for electric guitar you definitely should use light strings. Extra lite tends to break easily depending on your playing style. To compare your epiphone to a shecter is like comparing a pontiac car to an oldsmobile. Shecter guitars are generally good guitars comparable to say a washburn or fender. I own both a washburn and a gibson and I can tell you couple things that you can’t go wrong with sound and being playable. I love both of my guitars for the price that I was willing to pay for. You always have to pay a little more for quality. Good enough, yes?

Answer by gawainer
You need to think less about the quality of the strings, which is fairly uniform, and more about the craftsmanship that went into making the body and neck. The type of wood is important, the angle the bridge makes to the pegs and frets, the height of the strings from the neck, and so on. Every little thing makes a big difference. Nobody can make a $ 10 guitar sound good, but lots of people can make pleasant music on a $ 1,000 guitar. This is one commodity where price does make a difference.

Answer by PedroFromHell
Alright, factors are:

Woods and materials- Some woods, (ussually the heavier, more expensive ones) make a guitar sound better than one with a cheaper, lighter wood. High-end guitars tend to use woods such as mahogany or rosewood, light fast guitars have basswood or maple, while cheaper poor quality guitars have plywood or agathis.

Pickups- The pickups on a guitar make up the tone by about 70 percent. There are two basic types of pickups: Humbuckers and Singlecoils. Singlecoils are thin single pickups that produce a twangy, thin tone. Guitars such as stratocasters have these. Humbuckers were invented later, and were initially made to cancel feedback and unwanted noise (hence humbucker-cancel the hum) these make a fatter, warmer sound, and are more common for metal and heavy riffs. I beleive your gibson explorer has these.
Some cheap guitars come with…cheap pickups. You can change the pickups of a guitar and change the way it sounds completely. Good pickup manufacturers are EMG, Seymour Duncan and D’Marzzio (spelling anyone?)

Action- This is the space between the strings and the frets. Although the action determines feel and speed rather than tone, it still has something to do with the way your guitar sounds. A guitar with lower action will feel easier to play than a guitar with higher action.

Neck Thickness- Guitars with thicker necks, such as Gibsons, may be harder to play than ones with thinner necks, e.g Ibanez RG’s or Fender Stratocasters. But neck thickness doesn’t have much to do with sound. People with bigger hands may get tired on thin necks quickly, but think necks mean more speed, in most cases. Nuff said.

Amp settings- Very, very “duh” A good guitar through a bad amp will most likely sound bad. It’s just the way it is.

Strings- You’ve already talked about strings, but I thought I’d give you more insight. Strings can change both the feel and the sound of a guitar. There is a huge gauge and brand range. I use Ernie Ball Super Slinkies because I’m able to play faster on thinner strings, and yet they retain a full sound. This is all down to prefference. Strings however, wear out quicker than you think. If you practice two hours every day for two weeks, your strings will already be too old.

Change your strings. It may be the most annoying job in the world (not to mention expensive) but I’ll guarantee you you’ll play a lot better on newer strings than worn out ones.

Pickup height- I forgot about this. Your pickups have two small screws on the sides, loosening or tightening them change the height of your pickup, higher and closer to the strings gives you more tone and more crunch, while lower and closer to the body mellows it out and makes it cleaner. If you’re willing to try this I suggest the following: Don’t. Unless you know what you’re doing, don’t mess with a guitar’s electronics. But if you really really really want to, then unplug your guitar from the amp. Always disconnect it before making any changes to the electronics. Try to use a screwdriver which doesn’t have a magnetised tip, for obvious reasons. Keep a phone with a luthier’s number handy. Make equal turns on both sides and remember, smaaaall turns, the slightest nudge can change the tone completely. Too far or too in can kill your sound. And try to measure with a modeller’s ruler before you make any changes so you know how to get back to what you were like before just incase.

Frets- Better quality guitars have better polished frets. They’re a lot easier to play on. Higher frets and jumbo frets also add to feel. These frets are taller than frets like, say an acoustic guitar. This means you don’t have to press so hard to get a sound out, but it also means you have to play light or you’ll go out of tune. A scallopped fingerboard has the wood scooped out inbetween the frets, and it maximises this effect by quite a lot. However, it can sound really bad if you don’t play light.

And at the end of the day, it’s not the guitar that makes the music, it’s you.

Quote: “Nobody can make a $ 10 guitar sound good, but lots of people can make pleasant music on a $ 1,000 guitar. This is one commodity where price does make a difference”

I dissagree, a good musician can make pleasant music on a 10 dollar guitar, it just requires more effort. The great thing about music is that it doesn’t have to be perfect.

Answer by Faith & Misery
A guitar sound better due to:
-The wood used, better quality wood is better
-The pickups, expensive ones produce a better sound
-Strings, some strings are better then others, some are really twangy and bad
-The bridge, not too sure but someone told me it affects the sound once
-The amplifier, this is a BIG factor, a bad amp could affect the whole guitar
-Tone settings, your guitar tone settings

Well, the reason why your strings are good on his could be because of his bridge, it’s much better, or he tunes it differently to you, like more ‘tighter’, so that the strings are slightly loose.

Answer by whiteouteyes
The reason some guitars are more comfortable has to do mostly with the neck of the guitar.If its a well made neck, and has a nice finish on it, you can def. move around the neck more comfortably.
The strumming thing is probably due the action of the strings-how far they are from the actual fretboard- and this can be adjusted at the bridge.
Are you talking about it sounding good acoustic or plugged in?Depending on the wood used and if the neck and body are seperate, the acoustic quality can change.For pluggin in, its mostly with the pickups, but the type of wood etc. still has a little bit of say in where the tones at.