What is a guitar?

[Luke]

Reading a burb about the book dedicated to David Gilmour's black Strat. It seems as though every part has been changed out, including the neck 6x. To me the neck is the most important part of a guitar, it is the part that I have the most interaction with. If you change the guitar's neck it is simply not the same guitar IMO.

[Dickie Fredericks]

metal and wood

[Hipster Dofus]

Fun to Play...

[swimrunner]

it's the body

[Tonefish]

I don't know. I feel like I have a new guitar everytime I change the strings.

[treeofpain]

1. Pickups

2. Neck

3. Bridge

4. Body

in that order...

[Mike9]

Well there are several ways to look at it, but lets keep to the first three:

A: - you can buy a guitar and just play it - and adapt to it's short comings - and maybe there will be few . . . and maybe there will be many, but how would you know? You just a customer now.

B: - you can buy a guitar and modify the hell out of it till it suits your style and taste . . . for this month at least.

C: - you undertake to build, or work with a builder to realize your dream machine . . . you become aware quite quickly what is involved, but you stick with it compromising as little as possible for tone, playability and stability - it's like building a race car . . . how fast can you afford to go?????

Factory guitars are rarely if ever playable! They need setup work - they need fret work 39 times out of 41, The nut needs work all the time - and when you add it all together - that's not cheap - 'specially if you can't do your own work.

[Boris Bubbanov]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jSmSTpRUeLs

The only thing that really matters is the neck.

But too much water has passed under the bridge, folks will always identify the guitar with the body.

Give me a good neck; everything else can be improvised.


Bubbanov

[AndrewSimon]

Are we talking about what the player feels or the tone?

For the player it's the neck.
For the tone it's the body.

These are the major factors, of the course the final result for both is all the parts combined.

:munch

[shuie]

The strings are probably the most important part to me. YMMV.

[Gibfenderson]

The beauty of the Strat is that it is a component guitar!!!!! There are thousands of variations. You really do customize your own Strat to the feel, tone and look you want without spending a fortune.

Like making a perfect sandwich for yourself.....