Welcome to the Wilh. Steinberg Guitar Buying Guide!
This comprehensive guitar buying guide is here to be your trusted companion as you search for the perfect instrument. By the time you're done, you'll be armed with all the knowledge and insights needed to make an informed decision, as you are looking to add another beloved six-string to your collection. Here we will explore the various guitar body sizes and shapes, the types of tonewood that shapes the tone, and the pickups options of the guitars.
By the end of this guide, you'll be able to confidently navigate the guitar market, ask the right questions, and ultimately, make a purchase that will serve as your best music companion and enjoyment for years to come. So, without further ado, let's dive in and talk some guitars!
Selecting a Guitar Size and Shape That Enhances Your Playing Experience
All guitars, whether acoustic or electric, comes in various sizes and shapes. The physical dimensions and design of a guitar's body can have a significant impact on the guitar’s tonal characteristics, your playing comfort, and overall experience. So, be sure to consider factors like playing style, tonal preference, and height when selecting the right guitar body shape!
Grand Auditorium Cutaway
The grand auditorium is a mid-size acoustic guitar with a balanced and rich tone. It offers a full-bodied low and mid-range responses, with relatively bright high frequencies, resulting in an overall balanced and full sound. Its cutaway design not only provide aesthetics appeal, but also easy upper-fret access without sacrificing volume or resonance. This versatile body shape makes them suitable for a various playing techniques, including strumming, rhythm, and fingerstyle..
PG20sce Grand Auditorium Cutaway guitar
Dreadnought
Dreadnought has the most iconic guitar shapes of all – it is what a guitar would look like when we picture one in our mind. Dreadnoughts have a large, full-bodied size, and are known for their rich and powerful tones, with strong responses in mid and low frequency. Compared to grand auditorium cutaway guitars, dreadnought guitars are more suitable for playing strumming, it is a popular choice for players in musical styles that require a larger, more prominent acoustic sound, such as country, folk and bluegrass.
PD20s dreadnought guitar
Travel Guitar
Travel sized guitars have reduced body size and a smaller fret scale. Their compact size and lightweight construction make them highly portable and easy to take with you on the go. They are ideal for musicians who need to travel frequently or want an instrument for camping, hiking, or other outdoor activities. While travel guitars might not have the same full and rich tone as dreadnought and GA cutaway guitars, their reduced size often results in a more focused and prominent treble tone, which is especially useful for musicians who wanted to some soloing.
PT10se solid spruce travel guitar
Selecting a tonewood for your tonal and aesthetic preference
When choosing a guitar, the type of tonewood used in its construction is a crucial consideration. Tonewoods not only impact the instrument's sonic characteristics, but also contribute to its overall aesthetic appeal. Each tonewood species has its own unique properties that can produce significantly different tonal qualities. For example, spruce is known for its bright, clear sound, while mahogany offers a warmer, more robust tone. Visually, tonewoods can also vary greatly in their grain patterns, colors, and figuring, allowing you to select an instrument that aligns with your personal style preferences.
Spruce
Spruce is a light brown tonewood with even grain pattern, and is most commonly used as the top of the guitar. As mentioned above, spruce has a balanced tonal profile and produces a bright, crisp and articulate tone. Spruce comes in a types of variants, including Sitka, Engelmann, and Adirondack spruce, each having their own characters. Sitka spruce is the most common variant, and it produces an excellent balance of strength, stiffness, and tonal clarity.
Solid Sitka spruce top of PD23ce
Mahogany
Mahogany is a reddish-brown tonewood with a straight grain pattern, and is commonly used as the back and sides of the guitar. It has a well-defined mid-frequency response with smooth low-end, and produces a warm tone that can bring out the mellow character of the guitars. Overall, mahogany is an excellent tonewood that is prized for its warm, resonant, and well-balanced tone.
Solid Mahogany back and sides of PD13e
Rosewood
Rosewood has an exquisite deep brown color with attractive grain patters, and it is one of the more expensive tonewood used to make guitars due to its rarity. Rosewood is commonly used for the back and sides of acoustic guitars, as well as the fretboard. Rosewood has a balanced tonal profile – with no single frequency range dominating the overall sound, this makes rosewood guitars versatile for a wide range of musical styles.
Solid Rosewood back and sides of PD23ce
Flamed maple
Flamed maple is known for its visually stunning yellow color with its very unique grain structure, and it is usually used for back and sides of acoustic guitars. The density and grain of the flamed maple contribute to a complex and harmonically rich tone, with a pronounced overtone content that can add depth and nuance to the overall sound.
Flamed maple back and sides of PD40s
Pick-ups and electronics
The pickup system is an important component to capture and amplify the sound from your acoustic guitar – whether you are recording in a studio or performing on stage.
Under saddle pickup
Our PG20sce is equipped with the FISHMAN Presys pickup, it is designed to offer maximum control, performance and quality in a small, unobtrusive format. The compact Presys pickup offers volume, bass, treble controls, a phase switch and a built-in tuner with LED display.
Double S1 effect pickup
Our PD10mfse is equipped with the Double S1 effect pickup system which dramatically change the unplugged sounds of your guitar. The built-in Trans Acoustic technology allows guitarists to use effects (Reverb, delay, and chorus) through your guitar without the need of external amplification. Click here to listen to the effects from the Double S1 pickup :)
As you can see, Wilh. Steinberg offers players a variety of guitars with different configurations of body shapes, tonewood, and pickup option, and we are sure there is one for you.
So, now that you've absorbed all the essential tips and insights, you're set for purchasing your Wilh. Steinberg guitar that speaks the most to you. But we know you may have more questions. Please don’t hesitate to reach out to us on social media!