ok, buying that new guitar.
DarkSymphony
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
ok, I made a post a while ago about buying a new guitar. I had the money but it had to used kinda-emergency like on something else that was much more important. I now have around $600 to spend on a guitar. I want, once more, to hear some advice on what I wanna be looking for. I've been playing for about 5 years seriously and I love the punk sound. Yes, I like pop punk too (yeah, I admit it, sorry to offend) and I kinda wanna go after that feel and sound. I have a decent Line 6 amp (it's great, has the effects I desire, but it does sound a little on the cold side). However, I am in the neighborhood for a decent guitar (obv. not something amazing that would require 2G +) around the $600 mark.
I love fenders and currently I have a mexican strat + an epiphone gibson. I like the gibson for the action and feel, but i like the sound of the Fender.
As I said in my post from before, I heard the Tom DeLonge strat was decent but extremely limited. Being that it was made for 1 sound and 1 sound only. However, would it be worth getting one? like, yeah it's limited, but does it offer anything at all at any better quality than a non-stripped fender for the same price? and if not, then why is it priced roughly the same?
I was told Gibson SG special is where it's at for that sharp punk sound. yes/no?
the music store near me has a decent selection of guitars and I've tried a lot of them. I just can't make the decision. I'm the kind of person who wants as much input as possible before making a purchase like this. If that makes sense. I just don't really know much about the guitar instrument itself, just that I've been playing for a while and I'm not bad.
I love fenders and currently I have a mexican strat + an epiphone gibson. I like the gibson for the action and feel, but i like the sound of the Fender.
As I said in my post from before, I heard the Tom DeLonge strat was decent but extremely limited. Being that it was made for 1 sound and 1 sound only. However, would it be worth getting one? like, yeah it's limited, but does it offer anything at all at any better quality than a non-stripped fender for the same price? and if not, then why is it priced roughly the same?
I was told Gibson SG special is where it's at for that sharp punk sound. yes/no?
the music store near me has a decent selection of guitars and I've tried a lot of them. I just can't make the decision. I'm the kind of person who wants as much input as possible before making a purchase like this. If that makes sense. I just don't really know much about the guitar instrument itself, just that I've been playing for a while and I'm not bad.
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Some bands will list the gear they use on their website or on cd booklets.
http://reviews.harmony-central.com/reviews/Guitar/product/Fender/Squire+Tom+Delonge+Stratocaster/10/1
Regarding gear bands use, this is a handy site. I think most of this information is from interviews with the band's techs.
Thing is, another strat (whether Mexican or American) is going to sound pretty much like the one you've got. I'm not a strat guy, but AFIAK the pickups are not much different in any new Mexi/American strat. If you want something completely different, then get a second guitar with a set of humbuckers instead of single-coil pickups like the strat.
If you don't know a lot about guitars, this is a good way to find the sound you're looking for. Plus it can be fun.
I would however strongly suggest looking into the Washburn line. I played a Maverick M2 way back when for a couple weeks while my guitar was in the shop and I was just about ready to trade my strat in for it permanently. They don't have the Gibson or Fender name to them, but they make some damned fine guitars. Looking at their website I'd wager that the X11B looks closest to the Maverick M2 I played, but I haven't touched any of their current models. Still, try a few of them out. I think you'll be pleasantly surprised by how the guitars feel and the tone you can pull out of some of them.
The pop punk tone you're looking for is pretty much what you're going to get out of any multiple single coil pickup arrangement on a guitar, but having a humbucker at the saddle and one or two single coils along with it will give you a bit of diversity to what you can do. You should try them out anyhow, but I suspect you'll find that very few dual humbucker configuration guitars will give you the tone you want.
CUZ THERE'S SOMETHING IN THE MIDDLE AND IT'S GIVING ME A RASH
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K-GVj6Q7Aac
At least watch the James Bond part of this video. Thats what sold me on it after I had played it myself.
CUZ THERE'S SOMETHING IN THE MIDDLE AND IT'S GIVING ME A RASH
The bitch of it all is trying to find a hardshell for it. I've got a gig bag that I can barely squeeze the thing in to. And the only hardshell's I've found are the Fender versions that go for $179. Thats my only complaint so far.
They briefly revived (around the same time that Danelectro started making really cool guitars) but making much better, and much more expensive guitars (similar to what Danelectro did) but then went back out of business (Danelectro is still in business but no longer makes really cool guitars).
Old Teiscos will be cheap, and absurd, and really cool, but may require work. I had to replace the switches, one of the pots and all of the wiring inside mine, and the tremolo should be replaced with a fixed position saddle and the neck is soft and could do to be replaced (but it's metric so a replacement would more or less have to be custom ordered and therefore three times the cost of the guitar itself).
Listen, the moral of the story is, try out weird looking guitars. Even if they're low quality Japanese catalog order only models from the 50s and 60s.
CUZ THERE'S SOMETHING IN THE MIDDLE AND IT'S GIVING ME A RASH
The great thing about the new Jaguars is that Fender has fixed up the bridges, so unless you're already planning on switching it, you don't have to. I'm pretty sure the only difference between the Japanese and American Jags was the electronics.
http://www.garageband.com/mp3player?|pe1|S8LTM0LdsaSkZla3ZW8
This is a humbucker tone. I find the tone better for pop punk then a single coil.
This is an Ibanez JS-1 or Ibanez SG-like clone ($199 guitar center special) with humbucker
I listen to a song and I hear the amp much moreso than I hear the guitar. I have a decent amp and my $200 Gibson epiphone that I got like 10 years ago sounds as good to me as a guitar worth twice as much. I don't really hear much difference most of the time. Which is strange because I'm starting to get good at hearing out different notes alltogether. I can hear the difference of an A note and a G note. That kind of thing. But like I couldn't tell you which guitars or brands of guitars that bands use and which style pickups they have based on listening to them.
That's why I have a hard time deciding. I know I want a new guitar because I understand that the quality of what goes into the higher priced ones are better electronics, better woods, better necks...etc. so I get that they are in fact better, I just can't hear the difference sometimes. Like, I hear a difference between my mexican Strat and my Gibson. That much I do know and I know I like the sound of the Fender better. The problem is that the action is all funky and even with light gauge strings it pulls the thing up a ton and the distance off the neck to the string is big. So I don't really know how to fix that.
However, someone here mentions that a more expensive fender (around the $600 mark) and the Fender I have (Mexican Fender Strat. ) won't give me much difference? unless I go different make? Is the sound differentials moreso in the pickups than anything else?
You can adjust the action. I've not worked with Fender floating tremolos (which is what I assume you have), but there should be tiny set screws next to where the strings contact the bridge. If your tremolo is getting pulled up when you perform string bends, you can install a Trem-setter. Or replace the tremolo with a fixed bridge altogether.
If the action at the nut is too high off the fretboard, you could file down the nut or replace it (they're like $0.50).
If you don't feel confident making these modifications, guitar shops can do it for you. For a fee, of course.
I dunno. Maybe I'm way off base, but if you like the sound of your current guitar, none of the problems you mentioned seem to warrant a new guitar.
There's nothing wrong with liking your cheap guitar, either. With some modifications I've made my cheap guitars play and sound excellent as I talked about here. It took a little elbow grease but the most I spent was $200, as opposed to $600. Of course, they don't have the cachet of more expensive guitars but I certainly am quite happy with them
Don't Eastwood do pretty good modern versions of guitars like Teiscos and Airlines?
as for "why is this guitar more expensive?"... alot of it is in the quality, the electronics, and the brand. more craftsmanship, better ergonomics, better hardware. once you are out of the budget lines, its more a preference thing than anything else. plus remember that you are (presumably) going to be playing this in a band, in a dirty club full of wankers who will spill beer/bodily fluids on it. will you be comfortable bringing a >1k guitar into a club?
and yeah, on the dirt end, you will hear more amp tone than guitar tone. its mostly on the clean end that you will hear more guitar. single coils will tend for cleaner highs, while humbuckers will get more chunk.
if you want to try swapping out pickups and see if you can get a better/different sound out of your current guitar, guitarfetish.com has some decent cheap pickups. also, dimarzio will let you swap pickups back to them within the first 30 days for a different model.
as for specific guitars, the jag HH is pretty neat. sounds pretty good. you can also look for non-fender non-gibson vintage guitars on the 'bay. i picked up a univox lp copy for $150, dropped some seymour duncan pickups in it, and it sounds loads better than stock epi's, and give some lower end modern gibsons a run for their money.