I have no knowledge of guitars. What makes one good, what creates the sound you want, what is better than the other. I just want some basic info on electric guitars. All I know is that I play a Fender highway one strat, I've heard it be called a "fat strat".
I would like to know things like, what are humbuckers? I hear people say that term a lot, are they the same thing as pickups? Any help is greatly appreciated I just want to expand my knowledge.
OK, basically, a pickup is the name given to the object which "picks up" the sound of the strings vibrating and sends it to an amplifier. Broadly speaking, there are two main types, Piezo and magnetic. For electric guitar, you only need to worry about the magnetic type. Focusing on these, there are again two main types, Single Coils and Humbuckers. Single Coils most commonly look like this:
Single Coils are
in general brighter, twangier, and have a better clean sound than Humbuckers, but have a tendency to pick up outside interference, in the form of "hum" or "noise". To combat this, some bright spark came up with the idea of wiring two single coils together with opposite polarity cancel the hum, and came up with this:
This is a Humbucker. Humbuckers do not pick up as much outside interference, and due to there being essentially two single coils, they have more output, or "beef", and are more suitable for hard rock, metal etc.
Absolutely everything has an effect on the way the guitar sounds, from the wood used in the neck and body of the guitar, to the metal used in the bridge. This is called the "tone" or "voice" of the guitar.
It is generally agreed on this forum that:
Bad Guitar through a good amp sounds OK.
Good Guitar through a bad amp sounds bad.
Good Guitar through a good amp sounds good.
Good Guitar through a good amp, in the hands of a good player sounds excellent.
Sound is not the only important factor when choosing a guitar. It must feel comfortable in your hands. What type of player are you? Do you play Metal, Blues or Pop? I'll be able to give you better advice if you specify.
As far as I know, a fat Strat is any Stratocaster with at least one humbucker.
