What things do you think of when you want to buy a good guitar? Should it be expensive? red?!! or should it be a guitar that plays nice and tunes easily? If I want to buy a guitar I try to ignore the brand, name or logo… although it sometimes helps me to know the brand so I don’t spend money on a guitar with a bad rep! The most important thing to know before buying a guitar is what you want to do with it.
There are guitars for different purposes and different styles of music. For instance, if I want to play in a country band, I would sure pass on the idea of buying a “B.C. Rich Beast” model! I guess the name says it all!! After taking your musical style into account, you should also understand your expectations.
A cheaper ($150) guitar is usually good for beginners or amateurs who can learn how to play on it before graduating to their next one. The cheaper guitar might be a bit buzzy, the pickups won’t sound very powerful and for sure it would be difficult to play the “Master of Puppets” solo on it! Having said that, I have heard $80 guitars that could play as good as the real deal, so anything is possible.
In my opinion, there two things that indicate the quality of the guitar. First I would look at the neck. A good guitar neck should be straight, with high quality frets. A warped neck affects the playability. If the “action” (the distance between 12th fret and the strings) is too high on the neck, it makes it difficult to play. A bumpy neck creates areas with severe buzz because some areas are higher than the other. A twisted neck is the worst condition and when that happens, basically the guitar is gone for good.
The second most important character of a good guitar is the tuning ability. The interesting thing about cheap and low quality guitars is that, no matter how much you try, they won’t stay tuned or it’s hard to keep them in perfect tuning for an entire performance. Bad machine heads and low quality body material and hardware could cause this problem.
“…a good guitar for the budget is a guitar with the best playability and least tuning issues.”
Remember, a good guitar for the budget is a guitar with the best playability and least tuning issues. Off course we can also mention that it’s good to have a guitar with new and reliable strings! Never judge a guitar with old strings… even a brand new and expensive guitar could have dead strings on it. See my article about old strings and tuning for details.
One more thing, if you decide to buy a guitar from a supermarket or super store, DON’T!!! why?!! You are not buying a cookie or piece of furniture!! A guitar like a car needs maintenance and attention. Would you buy a car from Walmart?? People at music stores are able to provide the care needed for guitars.
-Babak
Tuning fork image credit: © Andrew Gustar – “Fortnight 6: F is for Fork” – creative commons 2.0