Is there any disadvantage to playing a 3/4 shortscale bass guitar?
Yes and no.I've played several short scales. A couple of Danelectro longhorns(vintage & recent),Hofner violin,Fender Mustang & a Squier Jaguar Vintage modified.I've played for a long time & I do prefer long scales (34″ ) but I do have small hands & have had hand & arm problems.(not necessarily playing related).Some players feel that the low E string doesn't have the definition of a long scale. The key there is to find the right length string for the bass.Most music store don't carry short scale bass strings so you probably have to go on line.I do not recommend cutting down standard long scale bass strings.For me a lighter gauge string worked well.I used.95 to .40.(low E to G)That's a bit lighter than most players like. I was able to get the low E tightenough where the open note sounded tight & solid.Some short scales(Hofner mainly,but some others)use medium scale strings due to the bridge being set back farther on the body.Finding the strings are a bit of a disadvantage but they are readily available on line.There are several vendors who sell the various lengths.I do feel there is a bigger & thicker sound with a long scale but that may be a personal prejudice. Bill Wyman of the Rolling Stones certainly had a fat tone & he played nothing but short scales.Some short scales can be harder to get parts for(Hofner,Danelectro)although most nowadays seem to be standard.My favorite short scales were the Fender Mustang(their finally making it again)& the Squier short scale Jaguar.The Squire is great bang for cheap $$$.I used one for a year when I had an upper humerus arm injury & it sounded fine.None of my clients complained.There's also upper end brands ( Birdsong's are really good)that are really great.Danelectros,Hofners& Gibson are cool but kind of are there own thing. I feel that a Fender type is the most versatile.If you want to play a short scale you will have to do a little research\ work on your own.Most big box stores know little about them or carry the strings.The Squire is a good cheap platform to start.IDon't let me tell you what to play. Check them out & play them yourself.
Are there any major advantages or disadvantages that hollow/semi hollow electric guitars have over other types of guitar bodies?
Hollowbody electric guitars are more or less acoustic instruments. This has consequences that present musical opportunities and pitfalls. Consider the following to apply to semi-hollow guitars as well, but to a fairly lesser degree.1. Feedback:The most apparent one is that it will feedback much easier compared to a solid body guitar. This also gives it more sustain, because the amplified tone is feeding into the notes being played and exciting the strings longer.It can be a serious problem if the stage is not set well, feeding back much sooner than you would like.2. Sympathetic String Resonance:Less apparent is the fact that the strings sympathetically resonate because of the acoustic volume of the guitar in a way that isn’t possible on a solid body. It gives the timbre an additional richness because the other strings chime in with their overtones.Freddy Green gained some notoriety for his “one note chords”. His guitar was setup up big band style for maximum acoustic volume, with a floating pickup, high action and crazy heavy strings. He would hold down a chord shape, but only strongly picked one note. The other held notes resonated sympathetically.This resonance can be a problem if you don’t mute the strings you don’t want to sound.3. Body ResonanceEven more subtle is the physical effect the guitar has on you, the player. Because of its loud volume, you will feel the notes vibrate from the guitar. Playing these guitars is a more tactile experience than rocking a solid body guitar.This does not present any sort of problem.4. Bridge:A big disadvantage is that you can’t have a tremolo bridge on a hollowbody guitar. The soundboard top of the guitar doesn’t have the strength to hold one, and there’s no wood to attach the springs to. You can get Bigsby-type tremolos that attach to the tailpiece, a decidedly inferior solution.5. Tone Color:People talk about warm and rounded tones, but this comes from the pickups and strings. I’ve heard many planks with the same mellow jazz tone. The real differences are the ones that stem from the acoustic resonance of the body.However, it’s common for hollowbodies to have only the neck pickup. This will affect the tone color because the other magnet that would be pulling at the strings is missing.6. They Look Way Cooler:I mean just look at them.Wow.
Is there any disadvantage to playing a guitar with a bolt on neck?
There are advantages and disadvantages to a bolt on neck.Advantages:If the neck breaks or needs to be repaired, it can more easily be replaced.Cheaper. Although in all reality glued on necks nowadays are actually about the same price to produce, It is usually considered a premium feature, and is therefore more expensive.Allows for more craziness, the screws are made of steel. Glue on necks tend to not do well with a Floyd Rose tremolo, for example, because the glue weakens if stress is put on the neck, and if the stress is high enough, it can break the bond, although most of the time this will not be a problem.DisadvantagesSustain. Because the bolt on necks are not connected directly to the body, but to a screw which attaches to the body, vibration transfer is affected negatively. This is why, among other things, (body weight, shape, humbuckers) Les Paul’s have more sustain than a strat; the glued on neck. It’s also worth noting that neck-through-body designs have the most sustain out of any body style, maybe other than a one piece guitar, which I have yet to see.One more thing to go wrong. I currently have a guitar that someone dug the neck pocket in far too deep, making the action really high. you can also dig it too wide, too long and have problems with neck angle.Upper fret restriction. Because there needs to be enough neck and body for the screws to grip on to, the upper frets can be restricted.Honestly though, unless your super picky about it, or at least until you’ve compared neck throughs to glue ons to bolt ons, I wouldn’t worry about it much. You probably won’t even think about it much no matter what guitar you get.
What is the best semi hollow guitar?
whatever you, as an individual, find suits your needs… does it sit comfortably in the lap? is it nicely balanced on a strap? does it have that certain vibrance on those favourite passages?hell, one of my friends has the real deal gibson. yet he actually prefers the chinese copy of it that a different friend purchased for about 1/10 the price from…erm…DHgate?a copy that was good enough to fool a luthier when he took it in for some action adjustments.whats best? who knows? each guitar has its own personality, due to it being made from predominately natural materials. (timber)
What's the difference between hollow, semi-hollow, and solid guitars? Are different genres better at playing on one vs the other?
Assuming we’re talking about electric guitars here….The hollowbody is the classic “jazz box”, like the Gibson 175. The preferred type of instrument for the “straight-ahead” jazz player.The big Gretsches and such had considerable popularity with country instrumentalists like Chet Atkins and Merle Travis, and the “Texas Swing” country-jazz players.Very little use among rock artists because they tend to feed back wildly at high volumes. (Ted Nugent being a notable exception)The Semi-hollow, typified by the Gibson 335, is a very versatile instrument that can cover a wide variety of genres (not “genders”). It’s popular with contemporary jazz players, blues artists, and many rock players. Much more resistant to feedback than the hollow-body, it also can produce a wide variety of tones with proper use of effects and amps.The solid-body guitars, like the typical Fender strats and Gibson Les Paul's, are the weapon of choice for most all rock players and they are quite versatile as well. Lots of country “lead” players prefer them, and they pop up now and then in many other styles. Ted Greene, the jazz chord master, uses a telecaster.But the lack of feedback at high volumes and the versatility of tone afforded by different pickup combinations and effects pedals makes it very popular with rock and pop players.
What are the pros/cons of a solid-body vs. hollow-body electric guitar?
I didn't know until recently that electric guitars were available with hollow bodies; I thought all were solid. What reasons would a guitarist have for choosing either? Do they have different sounds? Which one is more expensive?
What are benefits to a hollow body electric guitar?
I'm assuming you mean a hollowbody electric.... There are basically two types.The full-on hollowbody like the iconic Gibson ES-175:And the semi-hollowbody like the equally iconic Gibson ES 335:The full hollowbody is basically an acoustic archtop guitar with added electrics; a pickup and tone controls. It's the standard "jazz box" and produces a nice mellow, "clean" sound loved by jazz players.They are problematic for rock players as the design is prone to feedback....But some players (notably Ted Nugent) exploited this tendency for his feedback-driven sound.The semi-hollow is a very versatile design which is very popular with jazz players as well but can function very well for both pop and rock playing as it's much less prone to feedback. The neck structure extends through the body and that's what the pickups, bridge, and so forth are mounted on. Only the "wings" to the side of the neck are hollow.BB King favored these instruments.
What are the Pros and Cons of Playing a Hollow Body Electric Guitar?
I have played them all and I will probably never go back to playing a solid body full time. They feedback a lot but I kind of like it and that normally only happens in a small room or on a small stage when I am too close to the amp. They weigh a lot more than most solid body guitars (although not nearly as much as a 10 pound Les Paul) My Washburn full hollow has way more tone and sustain than most of the solid body guitars I have ever played. I can make it sound however I want without the use of effects pedals at all. Go into a music store, play everything hanging on the wall and see which guitar feels good and sounds good to you. I've said this a million times and will continue to say it. There is no right or wrong when it comes to choosing a guitar. It's all about personal preference.
Would you rather have three $1000 guitars with various characteristics (Strat/Tele/LP/semi-hollow, etc.) or one $3000 top-of-the-range guitar?
The question is sort of aimed at the electric (even rock) guitar world, but it might be useful for a perspective from the classical guitar side of things. An additional bit of context is that I have a “nice number” of very good electric guitars of various kinds.The first thing about high end classical guitars is that they also have “various characteristics”, especially along the dimensions of tone and action, and to a lesser but useful extent in size, and even shape. Most serious classical players have more than one really good instrument for similar reasons to electric players, because certain kinds of music can fit certain instruments better than others.It’s not that you can’t get a very good classical guitar from a luthier for under $5000 (you can), but here, let’s start there and look towards to (say) $12K or so. I’m guessing that most classical players with this budget would go for one really great instrument, and for the very same reasons that violinists, pianists, etc. would.In this range, the price is not automatically a measure of the goodness of the instrument. This is because — as in the electric world — as in the violin world also, etc. — there are fads, famous makers, etc. The good news is that there are some really cosmic classical guitars in this price range, and some of them are closer to $5K than $12K.I want to echo and enlarge a point made by one of the other answerers: a really great piano (and not a concert grand either) these days is more than $100K (e.g. a Boesendorfer 200 and above). You can get a really great guitar for less than 1/10th of a great piano (and you can take it with you everywhere). This is one of the great musical bargains of all time.