This is not an article about my opinion about what a guitar should have. This is not a battle about if passive pickups or active pickups are better. In the next lines I am going to summarise some points that you have to check in that guitar that you want to buy ASAP.

Woods

Depending on the wood your guitar is made of the sound will change. Depending on the music style and your role, you may want one kind of wood or another.

There is an article at Sound Limited [1] that describes lots of woods with the tone the wood provides to the guitar.

Neck

This is the most important topic for me. The first thing I check on a guitar, whether I am confortable with the neck or not. You will have to play several types of necks to have your criteria. Being cozy with the neck will help you to improve your technique with the instrument.

Neck radious affected me a lot. Fender guitars harmed my wrist. But Ibanez necks are the best for me. So, take your time to try different kind of necks.

The scale is the length of the neck of the guitar. There are two main factors that you have to take into account for choosing a larger or shorter scale:

1. Size of your hands: if you have very big hands, you will prefer a guitar with a scale bigger than 26.5 inches. On the other side, if you have smaller hands, and you play riffs that require to open a lot your hand, you will prefer 24.5 inches or 25.5 inches guitars.
2. Guitar tunning: very low tunnings, as C or B, require bigger gauges of strings. To counter the string tension on the guitar's neck, a larger scale is preferred to avoid damaging the guitar. Check information about baritone guitars - guitars designed for low tunnings.
3. Fret size: narrow, medium, Jumbo, X-Jumbo... depending on your hand and your taste, you will prefer one or another.

Another article at Gear Gods [2] deepens in how to choose a string gauge for your guitar.

Pickups

This is a matter of tastes. Active pickups tend to feel stronger that passive pickups. But this depends on the active pickup. EMG 81/60 pair have very strong feel, but EMG 57, which is also an active pickup, feels in a middle range between an active and passive.

Other popular pickups are the Seymour Duncan's SH-4 (for passive) and Nazgul (for active).

Depending on the music style you are going to play, you may want to appreciate one kind or another. Generally, but not the rule:

• Active Pickups: Metal, Hard Rock
• Passive Pickups: Blues, Jazz, Pop

There are many more brands, but Seymour Duncan and EMG are the only brands I have ever had. My old Ibanez had some Ibanez custom's pickups that I replaced by a pair of EMG HZ pickups.

Bridge

If you like floating bridges, or thinking about buying your first floyd... the only decent bridges I have found are those guitars which have an original floyd rose. Normally, guitars of low-middle range have licensed, or custom implementations of floating bridges, which suffer of a tunning alteration if you use too aggressively. If you want to make your guitar scream think about guitars with a budget of more than €1,000.

Ibanez builds its own implementation of floyd rose. I had an EDGE III bridge with an Ibanez guitar, and it was just OK. I had to be tunning the guitar each day. The high range bridges on this brand are the Edge-Zero bridges.

Tuners

Gotoh tuners are maybe one of the best tuners avaible. A good tuner leads to keep the tuning more time.

Some tuners have string locking system, which helps to stabilise the tuning.

Guitar Finish

Check very closely the colours and patterns used in the body of the guitar. Some guitars have under the bridge a line that "separates" the pattern of some guitars. In some guitars this is very striking.

The varnish applied to the body of the guitar can slightly change the sound of the guitar. Be also careful with vintage Nitro finish. Some guitar stands can damage this type of finishes.

And finally...

There are other many areas you will have to check, but in the previous lines I have remarked some knowledge that I would like have had when I was beginning in this world.

Other things that you will have to check are the pieces of the neck, frets, pickup positions, construction... among others.

Do not overweight the opinions on the forums. There are guitars that are overpriced for the R+D of the company. A big difference of price for two guitars that look similar in the specs is not "just for the branding". For instance, I was comparing an ESP guitar that was very similar to a Schecter guitar and there was a €300 difference among them. Some differences are that the ESP guitar was made in Japan and that the guitar finishes are better in the ESP guitar.

In addition, a lot of people can think that Ibanez guitars are no so good to pay the price their cost... but for me they have the most confortable necks I have ever tried - one exception may be the Hybrid series of Schecter :P.

Try to search opinions that compare objective points as sound clearness, wood quality, hardware... And be careful with the sound you hear in the videos. Search videos where the author says the amp and sound processors he uses. Trust in the authors that use equipment that is similar to yours.

If you are going to invest a lot of money on a guitar, you have to make sure that you feel completely confortable with the guitar. If the price is more than €1,500, think about traveling on your country to department stores for trying different guitars.

Reference

[1], "Guitar tone woods", https://www.soundunlimited.co.uk/blogs/articles/guitar_tone_woods

[2], "How to choose string gauges for your guitar", http://geargods.net/tutorials/how-to-choose-string-gauges-for-your-guitar/