How to Read a Guitar Spec Sheet Part 1 Video Lecture - The Ultimate Guitar

guitars facts is it just a bunch of
mumbo-jumbo no it's actually really
important and one of the best ways to
kind of find out what you like in a
certain guitar and if you want to maybe
get another guitar or something similar
or something totally different how to be
able to read the differences between a
guitars neck its body all the components
etc so we're gonna do we're gonna take a
look a close look at a rundown of a spec
sheet for an Ernie Ball music man Albert
Lee HH and I'm also going to have some
of the stat specs online for a Gibson
standard Les Paul and a Fender American
Standard Stratocaster just to kind of
give you a bit of context about how
things can differ from one another now
there's a lot of different types and
models of Les Paul's and strats we're
just gonna take the 2016 standard
edition lines so let's get right to it
the first thing you're gonna see is the
model so this is an Albert Lee h/h now
the model is really important because a
lot of times there are several types of
models which in within one thing so like
there's not just one type of strap
sometimes those Deluxe's sometimes
there's hot rods stuff like this for
this guitar in particular the HH is
important because the H H stands for
humbucker humbucker so they have another
version of this guitar that comes in
single coil pickups which would be like
a SS a single single single sometimes
you might see like a HSS version of a
guitar usual that means is like a
humbucker and two single coil pickups so
a lot of times there are things in the
name that are really important for you
to understand the next thing is just the
size of it so this guitar is 12 and 11
16 inches wide now this stuff is more
really important for shipping like if
you're maybe buying something used off
the eBay or something or selling
something to know the shipping this
stuff is really important because for
the most part as you've probably
recognized a lot of it has are very
similar in size and weight so the
thickness of this is one 3/4 inches
thick and the length is 36 and 9/16
inches long ways so again really it
knowing just feeling a guitar you'll
have it just kind of an innate sense of
what fits for your your body type and
your arms and stuff like that the actual
and minutiae of the sizes is really
important for shipping purposes if you
go on to weight now this guitar
weighs six pounds and eight ounces so I
would say this is a like a lighter than
average guitar just for some reference
like like a strat usually weighs
somewhere between seven and nine pounds
depending on the the make of it and the
model of it Les Paul's are heavier the
chambered ones can weigh less than nine
pounds I want to say chambered what that
means it's like a solid piece of wood
and part of it is kind of cut out in the
middle so it's not just like a solid
piece of mahogany like some Les Paul's
which can get upwards of 11 pounds so
knowing how heavy your guitar is it's
pretty essential I kind of like them a
little bit lighter but I don't like I'm
too light where they feel kind of cheap
so this one is under 7 pounds again for
a solid body electric guitar I think
that's a little lighter than average but
you'll see that kind of varies a lot too
so the body would this is made of an
african mahogany now the newer Les
Paul's are also made of a mahogany body
and the strats are made of alder wood
which is pretty typical for a strap in
my opinion the type of wood or the body
of a solid body electric guitar isn't
nearly as important as it is for an
acoustic guitar but there's a lot of
debate on line as far as like the
different tones at certain woods and
stuff like issue because every wood does
have a signature tone just in my
personal experience the pickups are
bigger factor than the wood but the wood
is important so don't litter the comment
section with a bunch of all the wood is
important stuff like that but on
acoustic guitar that kind of the wood
definitely will have more of a character
that is more easily recognized body
finished high gloss polyester so a gloss
finish is something that's really
shining like for here you can kind of
see it reflecting the light a lot of
times basically guitars are made of wood
and they need to be finished to kind of
protect them from the elements such as
moisture changes in temperature even
just like the sweat from your hands and
stuff like that can warp whatever time
so most of them are finished with some
kind of like shellac lacquer finish
something so high-gloss polyester is a
good one it seems to wear pretty well
that's what these for these the downside
would be maybe that it kind of takes
fingerprints pretty easily and
especially a black one it can kind of
reflect a little too much but you know
this is one type of finish the body
colors I think you can probably figure
out what that is the bridge so this is a
standard
music man strings through the body
bridge of chrome-plated hardened steel
with vintage steel saddles so the bridge
of the guitar is right here where the
strings meet the body or go through the
body again so these are the saddles
right here and you can see the chrome
and you can see on the back the strings
come through the back so if your
restring it you'd slide it through here
and you pull it until the ball sticks in
here now all bridges are like that
there's actually like a lot of different
types of bridges which I'm not gonna get
into right now because there's so many
different ones and they all have their
unique kind of things but this is you
know a pretty standard bridge and it
works great so the pickguard as you can
tell it's a thing that you can see
bolted here to kind of protect the thing
from the pic which she could probably
surmise yourself but yeah sometimes
especially I'm like Telecasters and
stuff like that you can really easily
replace the pick guys are they're pretty
customizable you just screw em off put a
new one in scale length now this is
twenty five and a half inches this is a
pretty important one the scale length is
the distance from the nut of the guitar
all the way to where it comes in to the
bridge right so essentially how long
your strings are now a twenty five and a
half is pretty pretty standard Les
Paul's have like a 24 and 3/4 inch scale
length and strats have like a 26 and a
half length so again the numbers are
pretty close but if you actually pick
them up in your hands and like feel them
you'll probably feel the distance of
like a one-inch
scale length difference so all the stuff
is kind of important the neck radius is
10 inches the neck radius can be kind of
misrepresent all night misrepresented
but kind of confusing sometimes because
you would think maybe like the neck
radius is like how thick the neck is
it's actually not true the neck radius
is the curvature of the neck so like if
it's so like a 10 inch radius if you
think of a circle with ten inches like a
ten inch radius and then you think of
like how it's curved from ten inches the
curvature of it is gonna be how the neck
kind of sits in your hand and ten inches
isn't too wild the new stress have a
nine and a half inch radius and the new
last Paul's have what's called a
compound radius now what compound radius
is it means it's not the same all the
way through the neck usually what that
means
it'll be one way closer to the nut and
as you get closer to the body the radius
the curvature of the neck kind of
flattens out which makes it arguably
easier to kind of solo and Bend when you
get closer down to the higher frets the
headstock size is only 5 and 7/8 inches
now generally most kind of generic spec
sheets won't tell you what the headstock
sizes but this kind of a selling point
for these is kind of what makes it
special and that's just another good
reason to learn how to read especially
because you can how to pick out what
makes a certain guitar different unique
or special or even just learn a little
bit about your own instrument and what
makes it special even if you already
have it and you just can't really
explain why you like it so much knowing
these kind of measurement differences
will help you understand the differences
between any kind of make their model of
a guitar and again this is just kind of
a rundown of a generic specially you can
get really in-depth it and usually on
guitar manufacturers website you can
find like really really detailed spec
sheets they have anything down to like
the the width between where the string
sits the night and how it's different in
like really really micro measurements
but this is just kind of like a generic
rundown frets this has 22 frets which is
pretty common for an electric guitar and
they are medium width which you can kind
of just cells like the thickness of the
actual frets now sometimes the amount of
frets because like like a strat and a
Les Paul can also have 22 frets
some like like a PRS custom 24 that 24
or 22 it stands for the amount of frets
because I wouldn't say like 24 is not an
unusual number if you ever see a guitar
that has like another double dot thing
down here at the very bottom of the neck
that usually stands for the 24th fret so
you'll know that that has 24 frets this
brings us to neck width I think neck
width is actually probably one of the
most important parts and how a guitar
will feel alright and you can measure in
a couple different ways because next
often are tapered which means they're a
different width here as compared to down
here so generally the nut width is how
wide it is at the top here and then they
might have like another measurement for
how it is down to where it connects to
the body so the nut width for this
is one point six two five as compared to
a Les Paul which is one point six nine
five or a strat which is one point six
eight five so just to kind of give you
an idea that doesn't sound like a lot
but this neck really feels much
different to me than a strat neck or Les
Paul neck and a lot of that is the nut
with for example I got a classical
guitar like a Cordoba c7 has a two point
zero four neck width which is really
considerably bigger like if you've ever
held a classical guitar a lot of times
the next will seem a lot bigger and
that's just because the width it is is
more so that's definitely one of the
first things you should check out and
how wide the nut is because that's of
paramount importance to how it's gonna
feel and a lot of people have very
specific recommendations or preferences
for that kind of thing the neck would is
select rosewood so what does select mean
anyways there are different ways to
grade lumber and and it's kind of a
complicated process that I don't really
know a lot about but select just means
it's like really good lumber so this has
a select rosewood neck as compared to
like the newest balls have mahogany ones
and the strats almost always have maple
necks now the neck doesn't always mean
the fingerboard is gonna be of the same
material like for this one it actually
is it's like the Rose the rosewood
fingerboard is also Rosewood neck like
Les Paul's for instance they'll have a
rosewood fingerboard on a mahogany neck
and strats also - will have a rosewood
fingerboard on a maple neck that's why
you'll see kind of like that dark to
light neck thing going on with the strap
other strats have just maple fingerboard
also that looks really great but the
type of fingerboard actually also
affects the brightness of how a guitar
sounds and kind of drastically impacts
how it'll look to