So, I have built a 4 stringer tuned GCEA, acoustic.
My grandson, age 10, wants an electric guitar, likes rock, and I was thinking of building him a 3 stringer. Would that work as a first guitar for someone who likes rock? Also, piezio or coil pickup? With the coil pickup I could do solid body and have it look more like a rock guitar. Any other considerations?
TIA, Matt
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Look up Loog guitars for kids
Hi Matt, my $0.02 would be that you want to go with a magnetic pickup if he wants to play rock music on it, and preferably a humbucker at that.
I did make a solid body 3 string with a 'bucker and it came out like this:
http://www.cigarboxnation.com/photo/albums/31-pine-body-electric-3-...
I found making a solid body much more of a challenge than making a CBG, but it was a lot of fun. A cigar box with a magnetic pickup would probably be fine too.
I think a 3-stringer would be a good place to start. Check out Shane Speal on YouTube. He and his band have some good distortion/rock stuff to demo what can be accomplished with a 3-stringer.
As for pickups, piezo would work with a good tone pot, but your grandson would still be fighting some box noise until he learned to deal with the unique properties of a piezo. A mag pickup might be a better choice for him since it would (for the most part) only puck up sting vibration. Humbuckers are nice, but single wound coils also have advantages such as a warm tone. I think either would be fine. For a young rocker, you may want to work up a design that fits the image. Check out the photo below. It is a three-stringer with a hollow body and a four pole humbucker. Scale is 24" which makes stretching out for those chords a little easier than with a 25 or 25.5" scale.
i'd do a 3 stringer , with a mag pickup .( preferably a humbucker or 2 ) .
piezos dont like distortion much.