Guide to Guitar Parts, Spares and Replacements. Find guitar, bass and amp parts for custom builds, repairs, modifications or customisations. Buy guitar parts and spares (for Electric, Bass and Acoustic Guitars), guitar bridges, guitar saddles, guitar swiches, guitar machineheads and more. Take a look at the individual parts of a guitar and their functions. Also find guitar parts diagram and videos with clear breakdown of both acoustic and electric guitars.
Introduction
Learn about all the parts of a guitar. Its important for serious guitar students to know more about guitars and how it makes music. Knowing the various parts of a guitar and their various function will help you fix glitches and get the best possible sound from your guitar.
No matter what level you are at with your guitar playing, at some point you are sure to need some parts for your guitar. With Guitar Parts, you’ll be able to keep your guitar in perfect condition, or upgrade it to give you fresh sounds.
Buying things such as strings, or cases, or better picks, is comparatively easy, you can find these offline as well as online. But what if you’ve a vintage guitar and want a pick-up for that old Les Paul? What if you require a new set of pots for that old Epiphone Casino that you used to gig with years back. What if you need machine heads for that cigar box guitar you’re building?
It can get difficult to find such guitar parts.
Ideally, the best place would be to go to a local guitar store, and talk to the experts there as to what you requirements are, but the challenge is that physical Guitar stores are becoming fewer, and most of them will only carry fewer spares.
And even if they are ready to take your order, you may not get that part immediately.
So checking online is worth trying. Fortunately, you will find a huge selection of Guitar Parts now available for you to buy online. From replacement control knobs to bridge pins and jack plates to pickups, you can choose from a vast selection.
Whether you are looking for a replacement for a broken guitar part or an upgrade, you can choose from a wide range of parts available – Guitar Nuts, Bridge Pins, Saddles, Pickups and Scratch Plates.
Parts of the Guitar
There are so many different kinds of guitar like classical, electrical etc, each having a different construction and components. However, there are some parts that are common amongst most of the guitars. To know to play a guitar or even to understand it well, it is important that you know its basic parts.
A guitar is a stringed (generally 6) instrument that is played with fingers or a pick. It consists of a body and a neck, to which the strings are attached. Now, let us look at some of the important parts of the guitar in detail.
Neck
The neck holds the strings, tuners, nut, frets and fretboard. The neck is where you play all the notes (by fingering, tapping and other ways). The design of the neck has an impact on the play-ability of the guitar.
The neck of the guitar is usually either bolted or glued to its body. The neck part consists of frets, truss road, tuners, fret board and headstock which are all fastened to a long extension made of wood. Usually the wood on the neck and the fret board are always different from each other. You can determine the quality of the guitars quality by checking its firmness or stiffness.
The neck region of the guitar consists of the following parts:
Headstock / Head
The headstock is located at the neck end of the guitar which is farthest from the body. It holds the tuning gears that the strings are attached to. The tuning gears, or tuning pegs as we alternatively call it, is used for tuning the guitar. The design of the head determines the placement and design of the tuners also.
Nut
You will find the nut at the joint where the headstock meets the fretboard. The nut holds the strings in place on the neck.
It is a small strip made up of plastic, steel, brass, fossilized mammoth bone or other hard metals (bone is better). The nut is important for tuning of the guitar. It must be cut accurately; else it contributes to tuning problems due to string slippage or buzz.
Fretboard
You will find the fretboard is usually made of rosewood and is glued to the neck of the guitar. Fretboard is a piece of wood which has many frets embedded in it and is also called as fingerboard. It is on the top of the neck of the guitar. In classical guitars, the fretboard is flat, whereas in acoustic and electrical guitars, the fretboard is slightly curved.
Frets
Frets are metal strips, made of either nickel alloy or steel placed on the fretboard. It is placed in such a way that it divides the scale length on the basis of a specific mathematical formula. Standard guitars have 19 frets while the electric guitar has 21 – 24 frets. The frets determine the tone, when you press the strings to the fingerboard between the frets or pluck or strum it, you get a tone.
Strings
All guitars have strings. Most guitars have 6 strings, but some have more. The more strings the more sonic possibilities. More expensive guitars use better wood and its top quality craftsmanship make a lot of difference to the sound quality.
You will find guitars with various numbers of strings, four, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven etc but a standard guitar has six strings. Modern guitars use strings made of metal, polymers or plant and animal product materials.
Body
Be it any type of guitar, the resonance of the wood structure of the body affects the sound produced by the guitar.
The body of an acoustic guitar consists of :
- The upper bout
- The sound hole
- The lower bout
The upper bout is the upper part where the neck connects to body and it also includes the sound hole. At times, due to the large body of the guitar, it becomes difficult to use any frets above the 12th but if the guitar has a cutaway, it gives an easy access to the frets.
The sound hole is where all your sounds come out from.
The lower bout is where the sound and the depth of the sound is generated. You will find that they come in different sizes as per the type of guitar.
The body of the guitar usually made of tonewoods such as spruce and red cedar in an acoustic guitar determines its overall sound quality. However, in an electric guitar, the body is made of maple, basswood, ash, poplar and mahogany etc.
Bridge
In an acoustic guitar, the bridge enables the transfer of vibration from the strings to the sound board causing a vibration inside the soundboard thus amplifying the sound produced by the strings. The bridge holds the strings in place on the body of the guitar.
The way the bridge is attached, affects the sustain (how long the notes sound) and sound quality of the guitar.
Pickups
Pickups help in amplifying the sound. Most guitars have at-least one and maximum of 3 pickups.
To make the sound of the guitar louder, acoustic guitar has a resonance chamber and the electric guitar has pickups.
Electric Guitar Parts
Acoustic and Electric may look very similar; for instance, they all have neck, frets, 6-strings, but they have some small differences too.
- The shape/design of the head-stock may differ (an electric may have all the tuning pegs on one side).
- An electric guitar has picks (one, two or more) that produces the sound (sound on an acoustic is generated from the sound-hole).
- An electric guitar also has volume and tone control, a selector switch (to choose which pickup you want to use).
- Then there’s something called the whammy bar, which lowers or raises the pitches of the strings (sort of a wow thing).
- Then there’s a jack for the guitar cord to connect to an amplifier
Bass Guitar Parts
Learn about the design of a bass guitar and where to find parts in case you need replacement. Bass guitars are an important instrument in any band. In case you play one, over time, you’ll realize that you have preferences for certain bridges, pickups or components. In which case, it makes sense to know about the various parts of the bass guitar, their functions, and where to order replacement parts/spares.
As with most musical instruments, over a period of time your bass will also go through wear and tear, and it may not provide the same sound quality that it used to give when it was new. Things like humidity can also play a role in altering the basic shape and sound of the instrument.
Most students focus only on the learning part (how to learn to play the bass guitar) and never look into the construction details, unless you’re faced with the situation where you have to get a part replaced. Its only when you realize that the repair is going to cost you some money, then you look at possibilities of fixing it by yourselves. In some cases it is possible, however in certain other cases it is best left to the experts.
So if you have the inclination to learn more about the parts, spend time:
- Knowing about the bass guitar parts
- Watching videos that show how to replace and upgrade parts
- Lean about the tools that you may need to get it done all by yourself
If you are good at using tools, like opening up things for investigation, and are okay to see your guitar broken down into several pieces, then you could try replacing the part yourself. In that case, you just need to know where to find the replacement parts.
The bass consists of three sections: The neck, the body, and the innards. The various parts of the neck and body are easy to see, but you will have to remove the cover (or covers) to get at the innards.
- Neck: Headstock, tuning machines, nut, fingerboard, frets, strings, back of the neck
- Body: Pickups, controls, bridge, strap pin, end pin, jack
- Innards (guts): Truss rod, electronics, batteries
Here are the things that you need to be aware of. The Bass Guitar & Amps have the following parts:
Guitar Parts
This include the body, neck, tuning machines, bridge, and other hardware parts
Guitar Electronics
This comprises of pickups, controls, active electronics, connectors
Amplifier Parts
This consists of tubes, transistors, controls, speakers
Popular bass guitar replacement parts/spares include: Bass Neck . Bass pickups . Bass BRIDGE & TAILPIECE . Knobs (tone or volume). Bass tuners/Bass turning pegs . Bass guitar pick-guards . Bass hardware
Whether you are repairing a bass guitar or customizing one, you will need parts that sound (and look) Now you can easily order quality guitar and bass parts – necks and bodies, pickup and bridge routs, neck profiles, frets, inlays, binding, and more.
Order bass guitar replacement guitar parts, including pickup winding parts and DIY pickup kit. You can use these high quality, affordable, bass guitar parts for upgrading your favorite instrument – Fender, Gibson or custom made guitar.
Bass Guitar Accessories
These are your usual maintenance activities such as replacing strings. You also get cables, picks, tuners, straps, etc for your bass guitar.
Tools required
It is always handy to have tools such as side cutters, multi-meters, and soldering equipment so that you can do such activities on your own.
Here’s a video showing the various Bass Guitar Parts.
Videos Showing Guitar Parts (Beginning Guitar Lesson)
It all begins with the first guitar that you buy! You just want to lock yourself in your bedroom for days, and learn the songs of your favorite singers/bands.
That’s how most get started. So its a good idea to keep handy all the material that will help you learn basic guitar chords, strumming, basic scales, plucking, basic chord pattern songs. It also helps to know about guitar-tuning and things like taking care of your guitar.
The point is that you need to have easy access to guitar lessons, so that you can devour them when you’re ready to put in the efforts. Of course, that doesn’t mean you just do a crash course for 2 months and then don’t practice at all for the rest of your life. You have to keep on practicing but you could grasp a lot in the first 2 months (if you’ve time on your hand).
You can understand the basics of the guitar and learn to play the guitar using videos.
Here’s another video showing the various guitar parts:
There are also several free software/lessons available online that can be accessed using just your guitar and a computer/smartphone that can help further your guitar learning.
There are many adults who take music lessons as a pre-teen, learn to play and read music, but then stop practicing as they get older (happens with almost everybody). So if you are keen to get started again, this video (Guitar Parts – Learning Guitar for Beginners) is a great help.
Closing Thoughts
It is a good habit to spend some time understanding the parts of your instrument and to learn about the various guitar parts . Every guitar, be it acoustic or electric have more or less the same parts except a few variations here and there. The guitar can be largely divided into the neck portion and the body portion for easy understanding. Apart from the ones mentioned above, there are other parts like, pickguard, saddle, whammy bar, guitar strap etc.
You also get guitar kits to help you make your own custom designed guitar. In case you already own a guitar, the guitar parts mentioned above are the ones that will probably need to be replaced over a period of time. You now have easy access to a wide array of quality genuine and aftermarket parts and accessories for bass guitars.
See Also
KeytarHQ editorial team includes musicians who write and review products for pianists, keyboardists, guitarists & other musicians. KeytarHQ is the best online resource for information on keyboards, pianos, synths, keytars, guitars and music gear for musicians of all abilities, ages and interests.
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