Electric Guitars for Hard Rock

Few genres of music emphasise the role of the electric guitar quite like Hard Rock. Since the genre's birth in the UK in the 1960s, guitar riffs and guitar solos took a far more central role in the music. But which electric guitars are best suited to playing Hard Rock? There's no rule to say that you couldn't use any electric guitar in a hard rock band, but there are a few that stand out as classics of the genre.

Les Paul

The Gibson Les Paul is probably the most iconic hard rock guitar. Initially designed with input from it's namesake, the late Les Paul, a jazz, country and blues guitarist, its warm, thick and articulate tone has made it a near-perfect weapon in any rocker's arsenal. Les Pauls are generally made of mahogany, with a rosewood fretboard and a maple cap. Some variations, such as the original Les Paul Customs, have an all mahogany body and/or an ebony fretboard. The earliest Les Pauls had P90 pickups, which give a clear, dynamic, midrangey tone that overdrives beautifully. The vast majority now come with humbucker pickups, which have less noise and a thicker tone. All variants are very much suited to playing Hard Rock guitar. A real Gibson Les Paul is not a cheap guitar, and in recent years Gibsons have been very inconsistent and can suffer from build quality issues, so it's worthwhile playing the same guitar as you are buying before putting money down on it.

Famous players: Jimmy Page (Led Zeppelin), Slash (Guns N Roses)
See also: So-called "lawsuit" Les Pauls from japanese makers such as Tokai, Greco, Burny and so on are really high quality guitars that are often at least as good as their american counterparts and are a lot more affordable too.

SG

The Les Paul's younger brother, the SG, has also long been a staple of hard rock guitar. Much lighter than the Les Paul, with a smaller and thinner body, it is a great choice for people who are loathe to take the full weight of a Les Paul. This lighter weight body has its downside however, sometimes causing "neck dive" where the full weight of the neck headstock is not balanced by the weight of the body when played standing up. The SG, like the Les Paul, is made of mahogany and has either P90 or humbucker pickups. Unlike the Les Paul, the SG does not have the maple top on the body. The SG has a doublecut body, with sharp points that make for the famous "devil horns" which have no doubt done much to attract rockers to the instrument.

Famous players: Angus Young (AC/DC), Tony Iommi (Black Sabbath)
See also: Yamaha SGs look slightly different to the Gibson SG, and have a thicker body, but are every bit on par with them in instrument quality. Les Paul Juniors are similar to SGs, with an all mahogany body and neck. They have either a Les Paul singlecut or a rounded doublecut shape and a single P90 pickup in the bridge. Most hard rock players will be happy just a bridge pickup, but if you do need the neck position there is also the Les Paul Special, which is the same as a Les Paul Junior but with two P90 pickups.

Superstrat

"Superstrat" is a generic term for the hotrodded electric guitars based on the Fender Stratocaster pioneered by makers such as Charvel and Kramer. The superstrat has a strat-like countoured body, and a scale length to match. The superstrat differs from a regular strat with the addition of a humbucker in the bridge, and a much faster playing compound radius neck. Most superstrats feature a double locking tremolo, such as a Kahler or Floyd Rose, which allow for much more adventurous use of the whammy bar and incredible tuning stability even with aggressive playing. Superstrats also are usually rear routed, making for a more streamlined, tasteful and striking appearance, as well as improving the tone somewhat.

Famous players: Eddie Van Halen (Van Halen), Warren DeMartini (Ratt)
See also: While a superstrat is a much more obvious choice, the regular Fender Stratocaster should not be completely overlooked. The lower output and less raunchy, bell like tone of the bridge single coil in the standart strat will take a little more work to get a hard rock tone out of than a bridge humbucker, however players like Jimi Hendrix, Ritchie Blackmore and Yngwie Malmsteen have shown that a non-hotrodded strat can be more than up to the task.