BUYING GUITARS

Buying guitars can be a stressful experience.

There isn’t a “best” of anything, it all will come down to personal preferences but there are certain things you need to look out for.

Buying Acoustic Guitars

Buying acoustic guitars is not that difficult.

All you really need to do is pick it up and see if it feels good and it sounds good. Even if it has pick-ups (usually piezo), generally an amplified acoustic guitar is only done so to make it louder, not as an inherent part of the instrument, which makes the interaction between the guitar and the amp less important of a factor.

Buying Electric Guitars

Electric guitars are a bit harder to try out than acoustic guitars. For one thing, the amp is actually just as big a factor in the tone as the guitar itself. A guitar plugged that sounds great in a high end boutique amp at the store isn’t going to sound the same when you take it how and plug it into a practice amp. Comfort is still important and should be the main thing you look for when getting an electric guitar.

If it isn’t comfortable to you, it isn’t worth worrying about whether it sounds good. Also, unlike an acoustic guitar, it is possible to change the sound of the guitar by putting in new pick-ups.

Buying Guitar Amps

As a note, there are separate amplifiers designed for acoustic and electric guitars, while they can be switched, generally you want to match them up because they are designed slightly differently.

With an acoustic guitar amp, basically you are looking for something that retains as much of the original acoustic guitar’s sound, just a louder version of it.

Electric guitar amps, on the other hand, are just as important a part of the sound as the guitar itself. Playing around with the amp before buying it is quite important to get a feel of if the tone is one that suits your needs. One thing to keep in mind is amp wattage only vaguely reflects the approximate volume, it isn’t an exact measurement of it.

Despite the rumors, tube amps are not louder than solid state amps with the same wattage. Changing volume does have an impact on tone, and on many tube amps, the more desirable tones tend to be at higher volume settings than on solid state amps, but they are not actually louder.

Buying Other Pieces of Equipment

There are two more pieces of equipment that every guitarist that wants to learn to play blues guitar really should have.

• The first is a metronome, which is important to developing a good sense of timing, a skill important to any musician.
• The second is an electric tuner (as a note many have microphones so they can be used with acoustic guitars as well). Playing in tune is critical, especially early on. Tuning by ear still requires carrying something around for a reference pitch, an electric tuner simply saves time and reduces the amount of error for a starting guitarist.