It’s okay to have your go-to guitar for pretty much everything, but there is a lot of merit to having multiple instruments. This article will share some benefits of having different guitars available to you and why you should strongly consider them if you’re on the fence about making another purchase.
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What’s The Point Of Having Another Guitar?
All guitars have unique qualities that they bring to the table; the one you have now could be your favorite, but having more guitars lets you enjoy:
- New sounds
- Different feels and aesthetics
- Alternate tunings
- Other technical specs
- Having a spare for a backup
This can help create new inspiration that you didn’t have before!
As you continue to read, I’ll discuss why these factors are important and should be taken into account when getting more than one guitar.
1. Tonal Variety
While the main guitar you currently use the most can cover most of your bases, it can’t technically do everything.
Let’s take the most obvious approach here – say you primarily play electric guitar, finding an acoustic guitar of some sort, whether it’s a steel-string or a classical, will produce completely different sounds than an electric guitar, and they won’t feel similarly either.
This point still applies even if you want to have multiple electric guitars. For example, a Stratocaster doesn’t sound anything like a Les Paul, but they are both fantastic guitars, so why not try both?
Many people have various guitars available to record with for this reason, and having options can give you a better chance to create the best-sounding songs.
Though, even if you’re not recording or gigging, it’s still fun to switch it up and play something different every so often.
2. Feel & Aesthetics
Similar to how an extra guitar or two will open up your tonal palette, having others not only can have their own feel, but you can enjoy ones with different shapes and fretboard woods, which all contribute to the overall look of the guitar.
Once again, comparing the popular Les Pauls and Stratocasters, both have iconic shapes that help them stand out, but they also have different-sized necks, fretboards, and headstocks that look and feel drastically different from each other.
Another good comparison is owning a V-shaped guitar. Sitting down with one of those can take some getting used to as well because the body shape isn’t intuitive for everyone to play that way.
However, it looks super cool, so people who love more traditional designs often like having a V just for the novelty at the very least.
Even between two of the same guitar, you might want one with a maple fretboard and one with rosewood, both with different paint jobs – something as simple as this can be enough to justify getting another instrument!
Guitars can come in all kinds of different styles!3. Play In Other Tunings
Another very popular reason why people choose to have more than one guitar is that they want to be able to play in different guitar tunings. Yes, this does relate to being able to have a different sound and adds to your versatility, but in my opinion, this benefit is pretty specific and worth discussing on its own.
Consider this scenario – you might have two Ibanez RG models that you love equally and they have similar or identical specifications, and so they play and sound nearly the same.
Well, you can have one in standard tuning, and for the other, you can enjoy some drop tunings without deviating far from the tones you enjoy the most!
This is actually very useful if your guitars have locking tremolos, such as a Floyd Rose, but if you want a guitar with a fixed bridge, changing tunings and keeping it in tune and playing well is pretty painless.
Nonetheless, even if you have different brand guitars, having the option to access different tunings easily is definitely a perk to owning multiple guitars instead of just one.
4. Technical Features
Speaking of bridges, this is also a reason why you might want to have different guitars, along with some other features that can contribute to the playability and sound of the guitar.
As mentioned before, you might have one guitar where you prefer to have a Floyd so that you can do dive bombs and other whammy tricks, but you might want a different guitar with a fixed bridge because it’s easier to maintain.
Types of guitar pickups can also be another reason, which definitely has a role in how an electric guitar looks and sounds. For example, you might really love humbuckers, but perhaps you’ve always been interested in having a guitar with single-coil pickups – well, you can have another guitar that satisfies all these other interests you want to explore and utilize.
Also, these days, many people are interested in extended range guitars and therefore, have a seven or 8-string (or higher!) in addition to having a regular 6-string guitar.
Depending on your musical taste, having a guitar with access to additional notes can be a real game-changer and open up some doors you wouldn’t have otherwise if you didn’t have a guitar with more strings on it.
5. Having A Backup
Lastly, it’s good to have another guitar or two so you can have a spare one in case of various circumstances.
Maybe you have to take your favorite guitar to the shop for a set-up, and you don’t want to go a long time without playing. Having another one you can play in the meantime will keep your skills sharp until you get your primary guitar back.
Or, worst-case scenario, you accidentally break your main guitar while playing gigs or transporting it; having another will let the show go on!
Even if you don’t play your backup guitar that much, having one available on the side can potentially help you avoid a lot of stress.
If you don’t need anything too fancy, tons of affordable guitars are out there that might come in clutch for you someday.
Conclusion
At the end of the day, it’s good to have extra guitars because you might be in the mood to play something else once in a while, but hopefully, these suggestions can help you find specific reasons you should have another guitar on-hand. You never know when an extra one will come in handy.