GuitarFAQ

The Christmas market means that most musical instrument retailers are heavily promoting guitar packages for gift giving. Are they a good deal?

My thoughts are that they are often low enough priced to be less expensive than buying similar stuff separately, but the quality is also hit and miss that I don’t encourage buying them. If you are buying for a child or friend who is thinking about learning to play the guitar they are not the best way to go.

At the Guitar Buying FAQ web site I present some other, pricier options that I feel will give a beginner a better instrument to learn on. But I also know that not everyone can afford the prices of what I consider to be good basic stuff. So here’s a run down of what you can do when stretching to a $200 or less guitar package is really all the stretch you can make.

First off if you can devote more time than money, consider used. Take a guitar playing friend along if you don’t play and make the rounds of stores that carry used equipment. When shopping electric guitars, remember simple is good and unless are OK with basic repair everything should work. If shopping acoustic, remember that acoustic guitars allow much less leeway for adjusting the “action” (string height up and down the neck, a key factor in playing ease). It make take a bit of time, but you can gain value.

If you are shopping new here what I suggest instead of the pack. First read the Guitar Buying FAQ site for background:

Acoustic:

Go through a store or two with a large selection of inexpensive guitars and choose an  instrument based on how easy it plays, how well the dimension of the body and neck feels to you, if it lacks any annoying buzzes or rattles and lastly how well it sounds. If it’s a gift and the person you are buying for is not “full sized”, consider a smaller bodied guitar if the store carries them. Tell the staff you want to see something more of a “OM” or “000” sized. If you don’t know how to play, take a friend who does. If you have no guitar playing friends, learn to make and E minor chord and play it for all you’re worth. Oh, and take tuner when you go shopping if your ear isn’t great. Any out of tune guitar sounds bad compared to an in tune guitar, and that one tuned a couple of steps flat will feel like it plays easier than one that is sharp. Everything else in the pack is cheap and really doesn’t add much, except for the tuner. Korg makes the best cheap tuners, with a couple of models that sell for less than $30. Get a new set of strings or two (any brand, phosphor bronze light). Go to Frank Ford’s Frets site and learn how to restring the guitar. Restring right off, as the strings on the guitar as shipped are probably dead.

Electric:

Go through a store or two with a large selection of inexpensive guitars and choose an instrument based on how easy it plays, how the neck feels to you, the lack any annoying buzzes or rattles, volume knobs that rotate well, and lastly how well it sounds. If you don’t know how to play, take a friend who does. If you have no guitar playing friends, learn to make and E minor chord and play it for all you’re worth. Oh, and take a tuner when you go shopping if your ear isn’t great. Any out of tune guitar sounds bad compared to an in tune guitar, and that one tuned a couple of steps flat will feel like it plays easier than one that is sharp. OK, you’ve got a guitar and a tuner and I’m going to assume you haven’t spent more than $150. Now on to the amp. Remember with an electric guitar plan to spend at least as much on the amp as the guitar.

Decide if you need an amp or can make due with a headphones only device. A headphone device will allow silent practicing an amp allows playing with others. In order of ascending price, these are the best three cheap amps I’ve played: The original Pignose, Roland MicroCube, Vox Pathfinder, Vox AD15VT.  These are all solid-state amps, but they can make convincing electric guitar noises. Alas, only the Original Pignose is under $100 and it is not really loud enough to play along with anything but a very quiet band.

For inexpensive headphone amps I like the Pocket Rockit model. It’s about $70.

If you want to stay under $200, pick out an amp at the store that fits your budget and doesn’t sound too bad to you.

Along with guitar, get a patch chord (a cheap one will do) and you already have a tuner.  Get a set of strings or two (any electric guitar set that starts with .010 or .009 sized high E). If you are handy with tools pick up Dan Erlewine’s book to learn how to set up the guitar yourself.

What have you accomplished by skipping the “pack”? You’ve been able to select a guitar that hopefully isn’t way out of adjustment or just not made right in the first place. Quality control at the bottom end of the market still varies quite a bit, so the difference between the best and worst instrument is considerable. I you stretched a bit on the electric guitar amp you’ve ended up with an amp that can remain a decent recording, portable or low volume practice amp option even if they later upgrade to a bigger amp.

Of course to friends, families and co-workers this is a particular tragedy. Being none of the above I also note a couple of more general things from this event.

Compare the death of John Lennon to Darrell Abbott's death and how waste the difference in cultural impact. Now of course Lennon was an important member of the officially recognized "most famous/influential group ever" and Abbott or anyone is not going to measure up there. But I think the vast difference in fame and the impact of the two murders is illustratative of the decreasing influence and increasing compartmentalization of music. One passing thought I had when I heard of the killing was "I wonder how many people will even know who Dimebag Darrell is?"

The second thought is how rare this kind of thing is. In the aftermath I tried to think of another musician murdered on stage. The one that came to mind was Robert Johnson (generally thought to have been given a poisoned drink while playing a road house gig. Someone reminded me that the hard bop trumpeter Lee Morgan was shot on stage in 1972.

Other notorious musician murders (Lennon, Tupac, etc.) happened off-stage.

I just finished Bob Dylan's Chronicles Vol. 1, his recently published memoir.

It took me awhile to warm to it, and in fact when I read the excerpt in Newsweek that deals mostly with his “New Morning” era thoughts on fame I figured I would dutifully plow through if only because it was likely to be the only available account of certain things.

The more I read, the more this feeling passed away. In fact, I think Newsweek published the least interesting part of the book. My impression after completing the whole thing was that this is the only part that contains any mean-spiritedness.  Look, I understand it must have been such a drag being Bob Dylan, Prophet of His Generation, but it’s also difficult to be interesting talking about something that the author thinks is so lame. That makes it a weak part of the book for me, even if it’s perfectly understandable on human terms.

I’m not sure why that was the section they used. Perhaps Newsweek thought it was the thing that most interested people about Bob Dylan: that, well, he’s like so famous and all. If so, it’s sort of a self-referential, self-proving loop now isn’t it?

In the context of this part of his story, the interjections of Dylanish language seemed somewhat forced to me as well.

The rest of the book shows me that I was wrong in that first impression. It’s generous. It’s well observed. And when Bob wants to step back and hit us with a phrase to sum things up, I soon welcomed it. Though I look forward to the new Dave Van Ronk bio soon to come out, the section on the years in the early 60s Greenwich Village is as vivid a description as any I’ve read.

If you’ve got any interest in the man who changed songwriting, it’s well worth your time to read though Bob Dylan’s memories.

Here's an open thread to comment on the Frank Hudson Web site or the Guitar Buying FAQ there.

But my web site (http://www.visi.com/~fhudson/) and this blog will touch on other stuff too. Music for one thing. My music related writing for another. And other personal interests too.

Right now the big personal interest is my new child. Robert (Bert) Christopher Hudson.

Here it is, the blog to support the Guitar Buying FAQ.

What's the Guitar Buying FAQ? A "FAQ" is a collection of answers to Frequently Asked Questions about a subject. Late last century I noticed that common questions kept coming up on Usenet and other forums about buying guitars and guitar-related equipment. Ah, the perfect reason to collect, write, and publish a FAQ!

Starting with my personal web site on USWEST.NET and continuing with the current site http://www.visi.com/~fhudson/guitarfaq.htm I've put together what I hope is a useful guide to those who are trying to make sense of the guitar marketplace and find that great guitar to learn on or to purchase for a beginner.