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Now this may open up a very big door. But it doesn’t matter, because this is from my point of view playing for 30 years. What gear do you need? This is a loaded question. If you ask any musician, mainly guitarist. Most will tell you, you can’t have too many guitars. Why do you you need so many to begin with? Again, most will tell you, they are for different types of music. If you are a race car driver, you are not going to carry your everyday travel car to the track. You need a race car. If you are racing on a small track, you need a short track car. If you are racing a large wide open track, you need a car set up for speed. So the list goes on and on. Can you use one guitar for all. Well yea. But you can’t play certain music with an Acoustic guitar, like you can Stratocaster. Well you can, but it’s alot harder. Now I want to tell you about marketing. Many. MANY! Makers of guitars will market that you can’t play like Hendrik if you don’t have a $6000 Signature Guitar and Amp that he’d played. that’s not true. If you are playing and don’t know all the licks and frills that Hendrik knew you are going to sound like crap on a $6000k guitar. You can find some awesome brands out there, for less than $300 bucks that will sound great. you can even find some pawn shop deals out there for less than $100 bucks with a little up grades and tweaking to get you sounding 10+. Fender, PRS, Gibson, Taylor, Martin, Squire, etc, etc. They want your $$$$$. It’s BS, that ppl will smirk at you if you don’t play on these. Find new friends! I own about 16 guitars, there’s is not one of them over $600 in this group. Alot of them sound great. Your sound is going to come mostly from the Pickups, Amps and your fingers. That’s it. All this other stuff is show. Do your research. Don’t go blindly into this not knowing. When I started to play, it was 1991. It was all Books, VHS tapes and then DVD’s. And when you were around another guitarist, you watched and remembered what they did, and tried to copy that when at home. And some even had Vinyl Records they listend over and over and over again trying to find the sound. But the most gear you need, is your fingers. Play is the main thing you need. Build a habit doing it. So what your fingers hurt. My does too when I don’t play for a while. But after about 4 days, you will build fingers up to handle this. Play Play Play. sitting on the couch watching TV, play unplugged. You can hear and feel the strings. Alot of you house hold named guitarist. Never held a job. They spent all their waken hours, playing. Depends on what you want from your playing, but you may find it hard to have a Sweet-Thang and your guitar too. If you are still in school. You have not a Family you need to support. So Play. That’s my thing for you all. And guess what. You never really learn it all. I have been coming on here to LEARN more. So you never stop learning. God Speed to all. JB
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JB
I think that this a great post and great advice.
I’ve long been a critic of Fender over their marketing ploys. How many versions of the Strat & Tele have we seen over the years? Signature models galore. The new and improved Jimi Hendrix models!! Eric Clapton’ s Blackie… Eric Clap tons Brownie.
I love Robin Trower’s music. I’ve seen him in concert several times and his playing is still spot on.
Of course, Fender has the Robin Trower Signature Strat….typical red Strat, Robin always insisted on a neck with a larger heastock….OK no big deal…. Sperzel locking tuners
Pickups??? Bridge Pickup: Custom Shop Texas Special Single-Coil Strat -Middle Pickup: Custom ‘60s RWRP Single-Coil Strat – Neck Pickup: Custom ’54 Single-Coil Strat
All for the low low price of $4,000.00It would be easy to buy the individual parts and build this for well $1,000 and sad to say, A Squier with the same pickups would sound indistinguishable to most people
Gibson does the same thing as does other guitars makers.
Signature guitars in many cases are a total ripoff. I won an EVH red stripe Frankenstrat. $2,000 guitar. I’ve seen Squier Strats that were better quality. I played a few chords and sold it quickly
I’ve included a video of a Tom Delonge Strat being disassembled. You would think it would be a 2 piece body, right??? Oh no no no – it was 7 pieces of wood glued together with heavy paint – its listed on the Fender website for $1,300
A good acoustic or two by companies like Yamaha, Alvarez or Washurn; A Strat or Tele type guitar by whatever company and a dual humbuckers guitar, and a decent amp would be all that a person would need during the learning stage.
Put your money into instructional materials and/or private lessonsRant over
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Nice rant, JB. I love it when people do a good rant.
I’ve never thought for one second that it would be worth spending more than about $1500 for any guitar. Those major guitar companies that charge close to $10,000 for a guitar do it because there are people out there who want to pay more, and the guitar companies are happy to make more profit. If you owned one of those companies, you would do the same thing.
On the other hand, if a craftsman luthier working flat out is only able to produce one guitar per month, they have to charge $10,000 each in order to stay in business.
So here’s my answer, which I learned from Mick Jagger: You can’t always get what you want. But if you try sometime, you just might find…..you get what you need.
Sunjamr Steve
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In my opinion there are only three important aspects to buying guitars, namely ‘Feel, tone and price’. Guitar manufacturers will of course produce endless options of signature models, retro models and the latest models mainly because their success or failure is judged on how many guitars they can sell in any given financial year.
I’ve always felt that the ‘feel and price’ are the main drivers of electric guitars mainly because the ‘tone’ can be managed by buying pick-ups and amplifiers of choice.
However buying an acoustic guitar is different, once you’ve gone through the different woods, top, back, sides, bracing, scale lengths, body shapes and sizes etc., it’s how it feels when you play it and the tone that really matters. The price will often reflect the range of manufacturers and quality of acoustic guitars but price is not always an aspect to totally rely on.
Headstock snobbery is sometimes aimed at us guitar players and can sometimes be a deciding factor in choosing guitars but I play a Martin D35 not just because it’s a Martin but because it feels right, sounds right and the price was right.
I often try out new acoustics in the shops in the U.K. and my first thoughts are always, irrespective of the name on the headstock, is this guitar better in ‘feel and tone’ than the guitar I normally play.
Richard
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I completely agree with Richard.
I play an expensive custom shop Fender strat almost exclusively at this stage of my journey. The main reason is that I love the feel of the sanded neck, the rolled edges of the fretboard, the radius and the frets. Every other strat I pick up doesn’t compare in feel. I also happen to like the look and the tone. Could I find a cheaper great feeling strat? Perhaps, but it’s not a make or break issue for me.
There are so many ways to adjust tone, live or recorded, that you probably only need a couple of guitars that feel great to play.
John -
“You can’t always get what you want. But if you try sometime, you just might find…..you get what you need”.
Hmm….
I don’t need a new Strat Ultra II Texas Tea..but I want one! 😵😬Or shall I just learn to be a much better guitar player until I deserve one? 🤔
DeniseMore Blues!
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If you want a real Fender, it would have to be a G&L Legacy – G&L is Leo’s final designs and thoughts on the incredible designs that we all know and have played over the years.
Leo came home from work on March 21 1991 and told his wife that he’d given everything that he had to the music world and he passed away in his sleep that night
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I have one acoustic guitar I bought over 20 years ago. I bought it primarily because it sounded good to my ear as I was shopping around and trying a lot of guitars. I have no idea if any others today would sound or feel better.
I can’t imagine spending the money it costs for guitars or amps when my playing is limited to my living room. If that changes one day, I might look into it. If my current guitar breaks, is stolen, or burns in a house fire, I might look into it.
I enjoy my guitar like an old friend. I guess I just don’t have the “gear bug”. But, if you do, enjoy the heck out of it.
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To learn to play it depends on your style of course, but I would say one guitar that you love and want to pick up all the time. For me it was an Epi Les Paul…sold it in my 20s and still wish I had it. I got by with just that guitar and kept trying different amps, but only ever had one at a time.
For my 41st birthday I treated myself to a nice guitar. I looked at Fender custom shop, but wanted something a bit more unique than a Tele or Strat. I found a small scale builder, Grez guitars, and placed an order. He customized the guitar to my liking in terms of finish, pickups, etc. the guitar flat out plays better than anything else I’ve ever owned. I’ve now got several of my sub $1000 guitars up for sale as I play mostly the Grez for electric work (see my challenge submissions all year).
I guess the point is, to start I was happy with one budget line guitar. As I’ve aged and my lot has changed, I was happy to splurge on a really nice guitar. I’m a better player now than when I had the epiphone, so maybe I look back at it with rose tinted glasses.
Anyway, to each their own. If you can afford a 10k Murphy lab Gibson or a $400 Squire and it brings you joy, go for it and be happy.
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