Is Pickguard Essential When Custom Acoustic Guitar?

Do You Need a Pickguard to Custom Guitar?

The question is actually for any order of acoustic guitars. That is, we can find some types of acoustic guitars are with pickguards on the surface of the tops, and some don’t have any. Thus, for many even us can’t help thinking is pickguard essential for building guitars or guitar customization?

To confirm the reality, we need to figure out what is the purpose of the pickguard before further digging. This is what we will discuss in this article at the beginning.

Since some said that the pickguard protects acoustic guitar from scratching. Is that true? Then why we do not usually find the pickguard on classical guitar?  If it is not true, why use pickguard?

Well, let’s move on with those questions and find the answers in the end. And more importantly, we will share our idea about the pickguard when custom acoustic guitars.

What Is the Purpose of Pickguard?

Basically, a pickguard protects your guitar from the damage by the pick. As we can see that when strum the guitar with a pick, the picking hand usually finishes on the soundboard below the soundhole. It means the tip of the pick touches the top directly every time. As time goes by, that can easily result in scratches, wear and tear appearing on the guitar.

Therefore, that is right, a pickguard protects your guitar.

The wood of the top is usually lightweight but hard. However, the surface of the wood is soft and the pick is frequently made of harder material. That is why the surface of the top is frequently found scratches. To make a longer life of the guitar, it is essential to equip a pickguard for the protection.

Why No Pickguard on Some Acoustic Guitars?

Well, we think we need to separately talk about acoustic guitar and classical guitar.

It is true that for some types of acoustic guitars (folk guitars) are not with pickguards on their tops. We think this is related with the style of playing. For gentle playing style like always playing with fingers, pickguard won’t be necessary.

This is also the reason that most of classical guitars don’t use pickguards. As the purpose, structure of the construction and required playing techniques, etc., classical music is played by fingers as always. Thus, the top won’t be hurt so badly.

There is the third reason, it is said that the pickguard will affect the tone. Well, any additional element will affect the tonal performance of the guitar. The difference is how much it will affect. For pickguard, it has its own influence. However, the influence is too tiny to be found or heard or identified. At least, we did not find any by our ears. Thus, in our opinion, the tone affection won’t be a reason not to use the pickguard.

To Custom Guitar, Is It Necessary to Use Pickguard?

For most of time, our clients won’t ask our opinion about the application of the pickguard. They usually have their own idea already. However, if you want to ask our opinion, we will suggest to use pickguard to custom guitar.

Based on our opinion, we cannot be sure or even our clients can’t make sure that if the acoustic guitar will be played in which style of playing. Therefore, pickguards are always necessary if this won’t against the designation. If so, there are clear (or transparent) pickguard for option which will always shows the beautiful grains for the wood. Besides, pickguards won’t have a strong influence to raise the cost of the customization. And as a custom guitar company, we are also able to satisfy the needs for special designed pickguards.

But we won’t recommend to use pickguard on classical guitars. It is not so necessary as explained above. Besides, the top of the classical guitar is thinner and the inside bracing system is different than acoustic guitars, any additional element on top will increase the risks of performing and stability of the guitar. Let’s respect the tradition here.

If you have any question or want to custom acoustic guitar with unique pickguard design to increase the selling, please feel free to CONTACT US for free consultation.