Now playing guitar induces G.A.S. as we all know, but even at the early stages in your guitar career you are not immune to it. If you teach you guitarists the most asked questions are:
What is the best guitar?
What is the best amp?
Which effects are best?
Are tube amps really better than modellers?
......
You can imagine the rest of the questions. The reason for these questions is also easily found, we tend to look for easy answers, don't we? Other people might wonder: What is the best tennis racket, what is the best car, etc.
The cold hard truth however is as always: there is no best, period.
Do not get me wrong however, there is good and bad here. There are guitars out there that are total crap and that will make you play worse and these are not necessarily the cheapest guitars.
Now of course young players wonder, how to chose the right gear without a masters degree in "guitar gearology" and when they are still not playing that well?
Thankfully there is an answer and here is what I tell my students on how to approach the whole thing.
Firstly you need to identify the crap stuff. This can be done by going to a store that has a good reputation. Yes they are still out there and there are even people in such stores that actually play guitar and know their stuff. This can only be done by asking around as much as you can and gathering intel. Thankfully you do not need to be an expert player for this, just good at asking around and knowing from what people you gather that intel. If you followed my advise on how to get a good guitar teacher, you might as well ask that teacher. If he is well in the trade he won't screw you and not send you to the store where he gets a commission.
Now is for that hard part, what should I get. Finding the right guitar is all about your personal taste. Now you might say that you have just begun to play and do not know your taste yet, but there is an easy way to start out. Get the 10 (yes that many) guitars in the store to test out, that suit your budget and that you prefer look wise. This is more important than it sounds as the rules say: If you like the looks of your guitar, you are more likely to pick it up and play, hence get more practice hours. Now do not and NEVER EVER look on the headplate and take that guitar only because there is "Fender" or "Gibson" on the headplate. With guitars, the company that makes them and their name has little to do with the quality and sound of the instrument. Fender makes as many crap guitars (or more) than good ones and the same goes for almost all the companies. There are only few guitar making companies that have not at least one model in their lineup that is total crap. Always consider this, even if it is a Les Paul.
Secondly you go with that ten guitars, and play them for at least 15 minutes each. Make that 5 minutes dry without an amp and 5 minutes through the clean channel and another 5 through a distortion channel of a good setup amp. If you do not know how to do the setup yet, let someone in the shop dial 2 good sounds in for you. After that time you should get a feeling of the overall sound of the guitar you played and you should notice if it fits your hands at all. If the guitar cramps your hand etc. Do all this standing up and having the guitar setup on a strap. This way you notice if the weight of the guitar bothers you after 15 minutes of playing, as you should consider during a gig you might have to play for a few hours a night.
During that rather lengthy process filter out guitars that do not sound to your liking or that make you uncomfortable playing. You should narrow your search down to 2 or 3 puppies by now. These are your main goal. Sadly for the shop owner you should now tell him that you come again tomorrow as you cannot decide yet, which is the truth. After testing so many guitars you are emotionally heated up, the shop assistant will have told you a dozen stories about each of the guitars and why you should chose them and so on. So now it is time to step back, take a deep breath and sleep over the whole thing.
After a refreshing sleep, you should have a little more perspective. If you can take now someone with you who has the same taste in music as you. It has not to be a good guitar player, just someone who has good ears, it can even be another musician or guitar player, but nail it down to someone with the same tastes as you. Head back to your shop and to the puppies that you selected for closer observation. Play each of those for about half an hour and let your buddy or the teacher you brought with you listen to your sound. Take their advise on how the guitar sounds and mix it with your own impression. It is more than likely that you will nail it down then and chose your new pet.
Congratulations you just bought the first guitar suited to you and your very own tastes and style. Now will it be the best guitar for you? Sadly, probably not. Maybe for some time, but even your tastes will change, GAS will get you and as a guitar player you will always want more guitars.
But the lesson you should learn from this blog is: Buy stuff that suits your tastes. Do not try to be anyone else. Reviews on the internet are crap, because chances that the persons writing them have the same taste as you are very slim and most of the time they are not objective. Now did I mention do not try to be someone else? You should sound like you and not like a copy of Mr Best Guitar Player in the World.
Wow and this from a person like Tank who plays a JEM as his main guitar?
Yep. As for me it is the same. I know I am not Steve Vai and I never will be. I do not even overly like his sound on many recordings. But the guitar suits my fingers best, I like the look of the guitar and I can get the sounds that I want from that guitar. I love the Evo pickups etc. Now my own sound is not even close to Vai, I just happen to play a guitar that is quite similar to his. Just like Blackmoore and Hendrix both played Stratocasters and they do not even sound close, hell Satriani sounds more like Hendrix than Blackmoore and he plays an Ibanez.
Now playing guitar induces G.A.S. as we all know, but even at the early stages in your guitar career you are not immune to it. If you teach you guitarists the most asked questions are:
After a refreshing sleep, you should have a little more perspective. If you can take now someone with you who has the same taste in music as you. It has not to be a good guitar player, just someone who has good ears, it can even be another musician or guitar player, but nail it down to someone with the same tastes as you. Head back to your shop and to the puppies that you selected for closer observation. Play each of those for about half an hour and let your buddy or the teacher you brought with you listen to your sound. Take their advise on how the guitar sounds and mix it with your own impression. It is more than likely that you will nail it down then and chose your new pet.
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