-
I just bought a used Ibanez archtop, which plays great, sounds great, looks great.
I could have stretched the budget and bought an ES175 for four times the price. But I chose to ignore the advice shown in the title of this post, coming from a bigtime studio player, which I read in a guitar mag.
Your thoughts?
-
01-06-2013 11:15 AM
-
The sound and feel of the guitar is more important than the price. I've played (and own) $100 guitars that feel and sound better to me than some $2 or $3k guitars I've played in stores. Maybe they were high quality guitars, just not for me.
Ben Monder has been playing that same Ibanez Artist for decades.
-
I think your logic is fine. That saying was probably quite true 30 - 40 years ago. In the 60's and part of the 70's, you either bought junk guitars from Asia, or something from Gibson/Fender/Guild/Gretsch etc. There really wasn't anything in between.
But today - it's completely different. You can buy a perfectly good guitar for several hundred $, even though you might be able to afford several thousand $$. If you had bought the ES-175 for 4 times what you paid for the Ibanez, you would not be getting proportionally more guitar. You would would getting a different guitar, made by Gibson, that may or may not be better than the Ibanez.
-
Depends on how you define "best." More expensive for the sake of being more expensive isn't better.
I got lucky...for my purposes, my Heritage was a better choice than a more expensive ES-175. Problem is, a smaller bodied set humbucker archtop is only one of a few types of guitars I enjoy playing...so the GAS shifts...
One thing's for sure...if you buy a cheaper guitar and find yourself still thinking about (and regretting not buying) a more expensive model, you'll eventually give in, or end up feeling yours is inadequate.
-
I think you did well. That is the only "G" word that I look for.
Originally Posted by Thoughtfree
Let your playing speak, not the brand. IMO
Cheers, Ron
-
Guitars are all individuals
I own a 63 335 ......... silly money these days ... don't play it much
I play a used £250 Ibanez AF120 all the time
and a £220 Hofner Acoustic President
Get something that chimes with you which could be expensive or cheap
Important note Have it properly set up
(nut , relief , action , intonation , smooth and the frets , with your guage of strings
get rid of all the rattles , balance the PU poles, get the PU to the right hight etc)
Look what Jake does with his cheap Ibanez , awesome
-
"Buy the most expensive guitar you can afford". ...that's just silly.
Buy the best guitar you can afford! And what is "best" depends on your needs. I have some ridiculously expensive guitars and they're just great. But I also have an $85 Squier mini Strat that plays pretty good and fits in a carry-on with the neck off. And I don't have to worry about it.There are some very playable, inexpensive guitars out there these days.
-
Last year I bought a Squier Tele and I love it. I tried it out in the shop and I just had to have it as it played so well sounded great and looked great. I've had Gibsons and real Strats in the past but this one beats them all. Maybe I just got lucky.
The only modification I did to it was change the neck pup to a Seymour Duncan, but in hindsight,I sometimes wonder if I should maybe have left it as it was. There's a bit more clarity in the sound but thats It I think.
I think that one good reason to spend as much as possible on a guitar would be for either a handbuilt classical or flamenco instrument from a well known luthier, but electrics nowadays mostly sound great and good build quality, cheap or not.
Hugh.
-
I wouldn't use the word 'expensive'. I would say buy the best equipment you can afford.
Meaning, find the gear that speaks to you from first choice and runner-ups and get the one of those that you can best afford. If your best is a Squire Tele and you can afford it then you are set.
If it is a Super 400 and you can't, then go to a runner up and see if that is in the budget. That's my approach anyways.
-
If I spent all my savings (which I don't), I might eventually be able to buy an original D'Angelico or Stromberg. But I doubt they would sound any better than the guitars I already own - with my modest talent. Besides, I wouldn't dare take them out of the house. Heck, I might even keep them downtown in the vault of the bank - and how good do they sound there?. No, utility guitars for me.
-
Very good point. Unless you are a collector, get equipment you will actually use. Originally Posted by oldane
-
I think the process of finding your sound and the right instrument for you is a process that you can't find a shortcut for. You have to actually do it and be willing to follow your ears and playing style.
So buying a really expensive instrument at the very start might not be a good idea at all.
That was my experience anyway. Buy the guitar and play it until you know what's wrong with it. Then when it's not doing the job you'll want to find another one that's an improvement but you'll know why you want that and what improvements / changes you want vs. just throwing money at an instrument and hoping it fits.
Good luck - embrace the journey!
-
Funny enough, the guitar I play nonstop was a very uninformed purchase. haha.
-
That's a very good point. That phrase was mostly used by collectors referring pretty much to collectible guitars and investments. In my opinion, it doesn't hold true for utility guitars as a lot of you already stated. Besides that, like Oldane mentioned, a lot of the guitar's sound is dependent on each of our own individual skill levels. My D'A is only as good as I can play. I'm sure a lot of you more advanced players can make it sound better than I can. To get an expensive guitar like that for a utility instrument is a big mistake. Originally Posted by oldane
-
If you have a "fetish guitar" that you really dig, I think that buying the thing that is "almost as good, but for soandsoless" will eventually make buy two, three, four other guitars until you eventually buy *that* guitar and have spend a lot more money. From a strictly utilitarian point of view, of course, a couple of hundred bucks buys you a guitar that leaves little to be desired (... well, but that rarely is the point of the gear forum :-)). The law of diminishing returns really does apply (at least in my experience).
Cheers, Frank
-
In my view, "buy the most expensive guitar you can afford" may be good advice for a serious pro guitarist who is building a career and a reputation. Even for that player, the most expensive instrument might not be the best. I'd say that guy should buy the "best" guitar for his own purposes that he can afford.
The rest of us need to temper these decisions with real world realities and personal responsibilities. If you're making $50k a year, you only play at home and you've got a couple kids to put through college, buying a $6,000 archtop is a little nuts.
The comments about good, cheap guitars were right on in my opinion. I've got several guitars, including a Holst that I just had built and a $200 Yamaha tele. I take the tele on some gigs just because, for that gig, it's my "best" guitar. You can't always measure the quality and utility of an instrument by its monetary value.
I also agree about the importance of a good setup, which can jack up the utilitarian value of a guitar significantly. Whatever works is what works.
-
1) Playability
2) Tone
3) Looks
4) Value
-
I think it is bad advice which, as someone pointed out above, was probably good advice 50 years ago.
These days I think it is better to go with "buy the best tool for the job".
-
I've always heard that "buy the best instrument you can afford" as advice to students, particularly classical students beginning a full-time diploma or degree course or similar, and it makes sense in that context - if you're dedicating several years of your life and tens of thousands of insert-currency-here, it's a bit silly to let a bit of unthinking stinginess hold you back from realising your full potential.
-
At 2 hrs practice/day for four years, that ES-175 that everyone dumps on (but secretly covets) costs about $1 per hour.
I don't know about you, but that's not much!
-
[ QUOTE=$originalposter]{$pagetext}[/QUOTE]
Agreed re: stinginess, but it is perhaps just as foolhardy to think that a "better" instrument (beyond a threshold which is probably not nearly as high as most of us believe) is what is needed to realize that potential. Again, I'm talking "better" as in quality vs. "better" as in fit. The instrument must fit and be task-appropriate, and addressing those two things will certainly help achieve potential.
-
Well, that was why I referred to classical instruments. If you're studying classical, your aim must be to get to concert standard, and you need a good instrument, because "proper" music (that's a joke) involves dynamics and techniques like vibrato for which cheap instruments simply don't cut it. For example, the volume range of a cheap acoustic instrument is inevitably way below that of a more expensive one, always. I suppose much the same thing must be true for at least some electric instruments, but I don't know enough about that to offer an opinion.
-
Lorne Lofsky plays an old Ibanez strat copy. You could probably pick one up for a couple hundred bucks. I took a lesson with him once and played the guitar, and it's nothing special. It doesn't seem to have held him back:
-
No it definitely didn't hold him back. Then again, he's played with Ed Bickert and that CD I have just about worn out. If Ed can make a Tele sing, then Lorne can make a Strat copy sing.
-
[ QUOTE=$boatheelmusic]At 2 hrs practice/day for four years, that ES-175 that everyone dumps on (but secretly covets) costs about $1 per hour.
I don't know about you, but that's not much![/QUOTE]
Hmm, I never thought about it that way but thank you very much for giving me a new way of justifying my excesses.
Reply With Quote
Moffa Mithra
Today, 08:31 AM in For Sale