Are 'Metal Guitars' actually different?

ROOG

Sorry if this is a dumb question but, I am intrigued to know what makes a 'Metal Guitar', that is a guitar generally selected for Metal style of music? I found myself looking at Ibanez RG series on the web wondering if they are actually any different to play or sound much different to a Strat for instance? 

Also one article I read emphasised,  to 'beware' that most RGs are fitted with a 'Floyd Rose' style bridge. Having checked out what a Floyd Rose was, I concluded that it looked 'clever' and very technical, but why beware? 

Its enough to put a man off buying one?  :0(

Edit: For 'Man' I mean a man or a Woman

timmypix

Mainly looks. Probably black and pointy.

Other than that, it's all down to personal preference and common specs. They'll tend to have slimmer necks, flatter fretboards, higher output pickups, although that's by no means a blanket rule.

Ultimately, you can play anything on anything.

As for the "beware", Floyd Roses are indeed very clever and technical, which makes them a pain in the bum. They're great when they work, but for someone who doesn't know what they're doing they can be very daunting. I had one and just accepted string changes would take about 3 times as long with the Floyd; ultimately gave up on it when I got the same guitar without a Floyd and infinitely preferred it, both in terms of feel and tone.

webrthomson

The tendency in guitars used to play Metal is to have high output / active humbucking pickups, double locking trems (Floyd or Kahler), flatter finger board radius and thinner neck profiles. Also possible are more extreme shapes - Explorer, V, Rhoads V, Dean ML etc.

Floyds take a little getting used to both from a playing perspective as the whole trem floats so if you rest your hand on it you can pull it sharp and from a restringing / setup point of view too. Once you have the knack of restringing a Floyd it's not that bad - the first couple of times can be frustrating though

Most Ibanez RG's tend to have front and rear humbuckers with a single coil in the middle and while you can coil tap (use half of) the humbuckers that does not really sound that much like a strat.

skullfunkerry

'Metal' guitars tend to be pointier or more extreme looking, but they don't sound particularly different - an Ibanez RG for instance, will sound very similar to a Strat with humbuckers. If you're comparing a 'standard' Strat (as if such a thing exists) with three single-coils then there will be a difference in sound, but not necessarily a massive one.

Metal tends to be quite gainy, so the pickups in a guitar designed for that will generally be hotter (i.e. more output) so that they drive the amp harder and create more distortion. If you were playing through a cleanish amp though, again a really hot humbucker won't sound radically different to a lower output one - if you switched between guitars without altering the amp settings the difference would be there, but you'd certainly be able to approximate the lower output pickup using the hotter one, by tweaking settings and guitar volume.

Metal guitars tend to have slimmer necks and/or bigger frets, which can make them feel easier to play (although a lot of people don't like them), and in particular make them easier to play fast and higher up the neck (for those monster solos that (some) metal players love). The only way to find what shape and style of neck suits you is to play as many guitars as you can get your hands on.

A Floyd Rose style bridge is a marvel of engineering! A bit tricky to get the hang of at first, but once they're set up correctly they provide excellent tuning stability and don't have an appreciable effect on tone or sustain. Changing strings on them is a little more fiddly (but not necessarily 'more difficult') than on a guitar without one, but again once you get the hang of it it's really not a problem.

ROOG

@webrthomson I take your point about the humbucker pick ups, I can see how that isn't going to be strat like. So the Floyd rose is a pain to set up, but does it offer any advantages in exchange for the extra pain?  

bluechargeboy

My own experience of metal guitars is that I much prefer their playability to traditional guitars, but I prefer the sounds of traditional guitars. Basically I'm a fussy bitch.

fretmeister

The Ibby RG doesn't actually have monster output pickups. Not vintage by any means, but certainly not as loud as many modern pickups.

With 2 hums and a single with split options it's just a very versatile guitar.
I once put a Seymour Alnico II Pro in the bridge of an RG550 and it sounded fantastic.

In a dark plan colour I doubt 90% of the audience gives a shit. Obviously the bright yellow might not be the right choice for playing Robert Johnson tunes! But that's only a colour issue, not performance.

Kittyfrisk

ROOG said:

@webrthomson I take your point about the humbucker pick ups, I can see how that isn't going to be strat like. So the Floyd rose is a pain to set up, but does it offer any advantages in exchange for the extra pain?  

No point in redescribing the wheel ;-) this pretty much sums the FR up  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floyd_Rose

bluechargeboy

ROOG said:

@webrthomson I take your point about the humbucker pick ups, I can see how that isn't going to be strat like. So the Floyd rose is a pain to set up, but does it offer any advantages in exchange for the extra pain?  

Floating Floyd Roses are a pain, but top-mount ones aren't really. Just like a strat trem but locking. Way easier to live with.

You don't need to be an 80's rocker, you can get lovely musical portamento expression going and still be in tune. Steve Hackett uses a Floyd to great tasteful effect.

sw67

I have had a Ibanez RG507 for a couple of weeks now. It was cheap for a high quality guitar. I have used it twice now at gigs with my covers band playing anything from duran duran to joy division and its been great. I only got it for a bit of a change from my usual type of guitar and play punk or 80s covers. I have used it through a rift amp and a helix and it can sound like a strat. No issues with Floyd Rose trem and it stays in tune for the whole gig. I keep it tuned to standard and use my Telecaster for our Eb songs.

There is a made in Japan 507 same as mine in the classifieds that is under £250 - i would get it 

webrthomson

Once the Floyd has been settled and the nut locked the tuning stability is frankly amazing. You can pull the trem forward to the point the strings are under no tension and then return them too full tension and a well setup Floyd will still be in tune, its called divebombing

I always found the key to restringing a Floyd is to block the Floyd (if it's fully floating) so it cant move, restring and tune from the outside strings in, so do the low E, high E then the A string and B string and lastly the D and G strings - works for me - with lots of string stretching and re-tuning.

If you are thinking about buying something with a Floyd on it make sure you try it first as I say above it can be an issue if you rest your hand heavily on it

Fortheloveofguitar

No they just look ‘double ‘ard’

DefaultM

I like locking trems but I'm too nervous to gig with them unless they're blocked or I've got a backup.
The sound as one of the strings snaps and the entire bridge jolts back in to the body is the stuff of nightmares.

ROOG

Thanks for the comments all, @Kittyfrisk the Wiki article was helpful too.

So....if I didn't already have a guitar with a trem, (I don't btw**) do you think that a Floyd Rose equipped RG be a good place to start?

Thanks @sw67 ; I will check out the 507

** I have always worked on the principle that I barely have sufficient brain power to drive a guitar let alone one equipped with yet more user operated controls.

webrthomson

DefaultM said:

I like locking trems but I'm too nervous to gig with them unless they're blocked or I've got a backup.
The sound as one of the strings snaps and the entire bridge jolts back in to the body is the stuff of nightmares.

^ that is an excellent point

Caffeine_Vampire

Unless you particularly need the 'service' a FR offers, don't buy a guitar equipped with one.  All the above posts are correct.  Keep in mind that a 'metal' sound can be manipulated within reason by most modern rigs irrespective of the guitar you're using.  A lot of it is just aesthetic.

ROOG

webrthomson said:

DefaultM said:

I like locking trems but I'm too nervous to gig with them unless they're blocked or I've got a backup.
The sound as one of the strings snaps and the entire bridge jolts back in to the body is the stuff of nightmares.

^ that is an excellent point

I can see that this might be a significant issue in a live situation. Given my 'strictly home' playing, the only comment I am likely to get is from the missus who may assume that I have learnt a new tune!  

Funkfingers

ROOG said:
what makes a 'Metal Guitar'

Playing Metal on it.

ROOG said:
a guitar generally selected for Metal style of music? 

An appearance that seems to embody the underlying attitude of the genre.

Imagine, if you will, what a fourteen year old boy might scribble on the cover of his school exercise book. Ted McCarty begat the Flying Vee and Explorer shapes. Others took the idea to greater extremes.

ROOG said:
For 'Man' I mean a man or a Woman

Whereas, I definitely mean boy and not girl. This is definitely an immature male domain.

ROOG

Caffeine_Vampire said:

Unless you particularly need the 'service' a FR offers, don't buy a guitar equipped with one.  All the above posts are correct.  Keep in mind that a 'metal' sound can be manipulated within reason by most modern rigs irrespective of the guitar you're using.  A lot of it is just aesthetic.

Thank you @Caffine_Vampire I did wonder.  

Creed_Clicks

Doesn´t Bill Steer in Carcass play a Les Paul Junior or Melody Maker? 
Yer guy in Cigarettes After Sex plays one of those Parker Flys, which you wouldn´t associate with ambient slowcore style music.
Would be interested to hear if there any ambient post rock style bands, apart from the math rock guys or non metal bands using these RGs? They seem to be a workhorse. Not sure I´d be a fan of the FL.

PolarityMan

To drag this discussion out of the 80s a bit they prob have more strings these days too