What do all electric guitars have in common?

Answer 1

Although it would seem like comparing completely different items with completely different purposes, this four Items share an evident common ground: They all use electricity to perform their intended purpose, and thus they all share common components and even the same electrical theory.

But, are there other ways to compare a Toaster a Radio a TV and an Electric Guitar? Let's find out.

Let me just set a couple of things straight before continuing: There are probably a couple million ways to tie this items together, but after you read the article you might understand what I mean. So please, just stay with me on this one:

The Electronic version:

There are two main similarities among this 4 items that can be highlighted as the "things in common":

1. They all have knobs or faders as controls. (Isn't it?... Hmm... wait a minute.. what about digital tv's?)
2. They all have resistors. Those are devices that reduce the amount of electricity flowing.

Knobs

All of our described items have some kind of fader or knob or even a slider that controls the "volume" or "power" of the artifact (or any term that can be used to describe the amount of total capacity of the instrument that is used at any given time).

The knobs or sliders that we see outside of our appliance or instrument (mainly the toaster or guitar) on the inside are no other thing that potentiometers (or pots). This electronic devices are thoroughly used on the Electronics realm, they are used to regulate the amount of electrons that will excite our electric/electronic system. Let's think about them as a faucet: the more you open them the more water you get, but in case of pots the flux is not water but electrons.

So, if you are using your toaster and you put your knob or slider settings on Light or Medium your bread will probably come out OK, but if you set it on Dark all the way up, your toast will burn out! and that's something that you may not want.

On the other hand, if you plug your guitar on with your amp settings just right you may not want to put your volume settings on Light or Med... The desired effect would probably be obtained by getting your guitar volume knob to real "Dark". (Well, maybe that's just my taste...).

And yes... the TV and the Radio. All that I can say is: you do not want to turn your TV or radio on in your room with your significant other sleeping right next to you if the volume knob (pot) is set to 10!

What about digital technology? I mean, in the 21st century most of the TV's and Radios do not have a knob, instead they have buttons. If you think of pots as faucet keys you can think of the digital buttons on your TV as digitally engineered pots; there you have it. (This circuits can be designed with some D/A converter followed by a power section that will translate an increase in one bit to more voltage or volume).

Resistors

All electronic devices have some kind of resistor. In fact all things have an electric resistance factor including air. But what is electric resistance? Think of it as a barrier that obstructs the flow of electrons. If the barrier is too strong (high resistance) no electrons will pass through. If the barrier is too week the flux of electrons will be high. Of course this is a simplification as Voltage is another factor that will determine if the flux will happen or not, but that´s subject for another time.

So a resistor is a barrier to the flux of electrons.

An interesting thing happens when a flux of electrons goes through any resistant medium: Heat! The movement of electrons transforms itself into kinetic energy that dissipates throughout all the medium that it's crossing through and beyond. This energy is felt as Heat!.

By this moment you may have come to realize that Potentiometers are also electric barriers so, aren´t they also resistors? YES!. Potentiometers are variable resistances indeed... but we have already discussed much about those. Lets focus on resistors, non variable resistors.

The heating wire, tube or coil that bakes your bread inside your toaster is no other thing than a Resistor. Inside your TV or Radio there are many resistors used to make the circuitry operate. And of course inside your electric guitar there are at least 2 resistors... you've guessed it right, the volume and the tone knobs. There could be another resistor added on a guitar to configure an HP bleed circuit and several other things but that's also another story.

I could continue on and on with all the electric/electronic stuff: Capacitors, Cables, Coils, etc, etc, etc. but I think you get the picture. All electronic devices have similar components used just differently depending on the task needed to perform.

The Hipster version:

All things are made of energy so in a sense all four items are part of the same field that because of causality ended up appearing as such to our consciousness.... (Say WHAT?... well... nevermind)

The Toddler version:

Things that my parents get nervous if I get to close to... (hahaha... been there huh?)

My version:

When you turn the volume of your Hi-Fi Home Theater (that has a radio tuner) and you are watching the Jimi Hendrix at Berkeley concert video, enjoying a roast beef sandwich with the bread toasted just right... that's when i understand what this four things have in common: "They make my life happier!"

Answer 2

they all have 6 strings

and pickups