The guitar is one of the most exciting instruments that are fun to play and gives you an exhilarating experience. What if you are a beginner and buy just any random guitar from the shop? Guitar playing could turn into a nightmare real fast!!
So your very first guitar should be selected judiciously. First of all, it is highly recommended by the experts in the field to start out with the acoustic guitar. We are introducing Acoustic Guitar for Beginner. Choices made clear and easy to you!
Top 5 Best Acoustic Guitar for Beginner
- Epiphone DR-100 Acoustic Guitar
- Yamaha FG830 Solid Top Acoustic Guitar
- Jasmine S34C NEX Acoustic Guitar
- Fender FA-100 Dreadnought Acoustic Guitar with Gig Bag – Natural
- Taylor Guitars Big Baby Taylor, BBT, Natural
How Do You Choose a Good Acoustic Guitar for Beginner?
Choosing your first guitar should be a big deal for you thus you get inspired by hardcore rocking guitarists playing in concerts, right? But when you get just some random guitar from the shop and it sounds awful, and it gets you thinking like, ‘what was I thinking?’
Fret not! We are going to help you get the right guitar for you.
Choosing Body Style
When choosing body style of an Acoustic Guitar for Beginners, you are aiming for comfort. So there are three body styles available.
- SMALL: Smaller body styles have less bass and more focused tones.
- MEDIUM: Medium body style guitar features more bass and louder tones.
- LARGE: Larger guitars produce large bass and reproduce low frequencies with ease.
Here is the list of terminologies for the size range that the known companies use for different sizes of guitars.
Choosing Body Shape
While sizes may vary, shapes of guitars are of five types. Here are different features exhibited by the various forms.
- CONCERT AND GRAND CONCERT: Especially, Concert guitar often comes in smaller size producing a bright sound and punch in its mid-range. Grand Concert is a bit larger than the Concert besides.
- AUDITORIUM AND GRAND AUDITORIUM: Auditorium guitars come in medium sizes producing volume and tone. Grand Auditorium showcases hour-glass shape delivering a more extensive range of capacity and balanced moods.
- DREADNOUGHT: Dreadnoughts, with their distinctive square bouts, full waist, and 14-fret necks; produces very powerful and driving sound quality.
- JUMBO: Huge and loud are the best description of Jumbo guitars, which yield loud sounds with profound resonance.
- TRAVEL AND MINI-ACOUSTICS: These are best guitars for the travelers and parents looking for just the right size for their kids. These guitars are made for kids considering their size. Manufacturers have made sure that their smaller size doesn’t compromise the quality of sound.
- CUTAWAYS: Cutaway feature is a late addition. It has a cutaway shape in the upper bout; allowing the player to reach higher frets of the guitar.
Choosing Body Wood
The first thing to keep in mind is that the wood used for acoustic is not necessarily good for electric and vice versa. The main characteristic that makes the wood ideal for guitars is its strength.
- MAPLE: have good tonal quality and sustain.
- BASSWOOD: is soft and produces balanced sound and great mid-range.
- ALDER: is lightweight and produces warm sound with a lot of highs.
Choosing Necks
In short, the best way to select the neck of your guitar is to base your choice on your comfort level. There are quite a few shapes of collars available.
While choosing your guitar, make sure that neck is the same level with the top of the guitar. On the other hand, it shouldn’t be too forward or backward. Otherwise, there will be adjustment problems.
Choosing Pickups
Pickups are devices that transform the sound waves into electric signals which are augmented through Amplifiers. Moreover, there are many pickups available. Your choice should be made depending on what kind of music you play, you play solo or in the duo or playing a studio or on stage. Choose accordingly.
Choosing Frets
Frets come in many sizes and choice can be made depending on your style.
- TALL FRETS: produces clear notes without lots of pressure
- SHORT FRETS: tends to drag against the board when bending
- SKINNY FRETS: are suitable for intonation
- WIDE FRETS: mostly used in electric guitars
Choosing Bridge
There are two significant kinds of bridges available in guitars: fixed bridges and moved bridges. On the other hand, Fixed bridges mostly used for Acoustic guitars and Epiphone dove pro acoustic-electric guitar. They have a standard thread design especially. Currently, Fixed bridge guitars have the advantage of holding a good tune. On the other hand, the flying bridge provides you the luxury of changing the length of strings according to your desire.
Choosing Steel or Nylon Strings
Again, it depends upon the kind of music you play. Nylon strings are mostly used for classical while steel is used for rock and country music. And it’s a myth that nylon is comfortable on fingers so the beginners should go for it only. You can use steel strings with as much ease as nylon. The only glitch here is that in case of nylon, you have to tune it more frequently than steel ones.
Best Beginner Acoustic Guitar Review
1. Epiphone DR-100 Acoustic Guitar
This is an ideal guitar for beginners who are looking for cheap option without compromising on the quality of sound. Therefore, it’s best for both young and adults. So, here are some pros and cons for this guitar that you may know.
Pros
- It produces sweet tones especially. You are in the learning phase and wondering that how to play acoustic guitar for beginners, so it helps you create good music to keep your interest alive.
- It is quite affordable and not heavy on your pocket so when you outlive your learning phase, and you don’t feel bad replacing it.
- You can get it in different finishes so you can get the one to your liking.
- With the Mahogany finish, it is exquisite in its design.
- It is straightforward to play, making your learning phase easier and enjoyable.
- It is lightweight and smaller in size making it easier to handle.
Cons
- You may have to tune it occasionally. This you have to live with as it is a beginner’s guitar at a low price.
- The strings would have to be replaced after a while, and you can get them according to your needs.
- As it is an inexpensive guitar, you won’t find it much durable as compared to expensive guitars.
- It comes with a gig terrible instead of a hard case.
- Its bridge pins are more laborious than standard bridge pins in other guitars.
Overall, it’s a good purchase for the newbies who are starting their musical journey and offer value for your money.
Click here to read my review about Epiphone DR-100 Acoustic Guitar, Vintage Sunburst.
2. Yamaha FG830 Solid Acoustic Guitar for Beginner
This is yet another stellar guitar highly recommended for the beginners and pros that don’t perform professionally and keeps it as a hobby. Besides, it comes in natural, Autumn Burst and tobacco Brown finishing. So, let’s see the discussion about pros and cons of this guitar.
Pros
- It showcases a great sustain.
- It has custom design bridge bracing.
- This guitar produces evident and robust bass tones. Its sound quality exceeds its price tag exceptionally.
- It produces louder and stronger sounds in low to mid-range due to the use of cutting-edge technology provided by Yamaha R&D division.
- It stays in tune for a more extended period. You don’t have to fret over tuning it everytime you start jamming.
- This is aesthetically stylish outlook, and finishing adds to its value and makes your music practice more enjoyable.
Cons
- Dreadnought models of this guitar may be too large for your comfort.
- It doesn’t come with the provision of cutaways so many newbies might find it uncomfortable to handle.
- It comes with no pick-up.
- The case is not included in the purchase of this guitar. But it happens when you are buying inexpensive guitars.
It is an overall good choice for the beginners. Beside good sound quality it produces, it also features good aesthetics.
Click here to read my review about Yamaha FG830 Solid Top Folk Guitar, Natural.
3. Jasmine S34C NEX Acoustic Guitar
A Japanese manufacturer, Takamine produce this guitar. In fact, this is an excellent Acoustic guitar for beginners. It is a warship which is the most popular shape of Acoustic guitars. Here, we are narrating its pros and cons to help you in your decision.
Pros
- It is a lightweight guitar which is easy to carry and handle.
- This guitar is straightforward to play which is a deliberate design to facilitate the beginners as much as possible.
- This is an inexpensive guitar, but that doesn’t mean it has compromised on the quality of the sound. On the contrary; it produces loud noise with rich tones and balanced characteristics.
- It comes in a cutaway design as well which adds to the comfort level while playing it, primarily by the beginners.
- This Jasmine S34C NEX Acoustic Guitar stays in tune.
- It is a loud guitar considering its price range.
Cons
- It does not come with a case.
- Due to its satin finish, it is prone to easy denting.
- To keep its price range low, it is given aNato top, and its back is provided with a laminate finishing.
So considering its pros outnumber its cons, this is an excellent choice for your first guitar.
Click here to read my review about Takamine Jasmine S34C NEX Acoustic Guitar.
4. Fender FA-100 Dreadnought Acoustic Guitar with Gig Bag – Natural
Fender FA-100 is an entry-level guitar. It is deemed as an excellent all-around guitar for beginners with price range well under 200$. It belongs to dreadnought family which is the most popular shape in the Acoustic category. Here, we are going to analyze pros and cons of this guitar.
Pros
- The sound quality of this guitar is excellent making it an ideal guitar for the beginners. Even pros use this guitar while on tours.
- FA-100’s actions are quite easy to play. This makes the learning process very easy and enjoyable.
- Unlike most economical beginner guitars, this guitar stays in tune much longer. The use of die-cast material by Fender makes it a more reliable.
Cons
- Fender FA-100 showcases problematic strings which need to tighten from time to time.
- Strings are located very low near the fretboard. This makes it very troublesome as you tend to hit the wrong note while intending to play a different one.
- It comes with a gig bag, not a hard case.
All in all, it is a good bargain and an excellent guitar for beginners. It gives them plenty of reasons to learn and make guitar playing as a constant feature in their life.
Click here to read my review about Squier by Fender SA-100 Upgrade Acoustic Guitar.
5. Taylor Guitars Big Baby Taylor, BBT, Natural
Taylor Big Baby is a little smaller than the dreadnoughts and therefore, is deemed ideal for the little maestros and for traveling. With mahogany laminate finishing, this guitar is beautiful in its outlook and is till now, given raving reviews by the people who have purchased it. Here are its pros and cons summed up for you.
Pros
- Its stunning laminate finish in Mahogany makes it a beautiful guitar to play and make your learning process even more interesting for you as well for the audience.
- The smaller size makes it ideal for traveling as it becomes easier to carry and handle it.
- Its smaller size makes it possible for the young lot to learn about it with ease of handling and playing it.
- Considering the low price of this guitar, the sound it produces is exceptional. So you get value for the money.
- The lightweight makes it easy to carry around, primarily by kids and during traveling.
Cons
- It is pricier for an average person. There is affordability factor that may figure high while buying this item.
- Its laminate wood may act as a catalyst for its aging poorly.
- The small size may cause problems for the fully grown adult in handling this guitar.
This guitar is stellar in the category of Guitars for Children Beginners. They can not only play it with ease but also enjoy excellent music made possible by its pragmatic design.
Conclusion
In brief, choosing Best Acoustic Guitar For Beginner is a decision everyone struggles with. Keeping in view this challenge, we have presented top 5 best acoustic guitars from best acoustic guitar brands. Though cheap guitar is usually the biggest attraction for guitar buyers but high-quality is a factor which should never be compromised. So if you want to purchase the best acoustic guitar, select from our top 5 collections of best guitars like Jasmine S34c NEX Acoustic Guitar (recommended). We have included only high-rated guitars with good customer reviews and features besides.
Here we have made your buying decision extremely easy and ensured that you only get the best!