Acoustic Guitar Magazine has put together a list of guitar buying tips called How to Shop for Your Next (or First) Guitar. They asked owners of five well known music stores (Dusty Strings, Elderly Instruments, Gruhn Guitars, Gryphon Stringed Instruments, and Rudy’s Music) for tips on making sure your guitar buying experience is a pleasant one. The shorthand list is below or you can click on the article link for the full text.
1. Determine Your Price Range
2. Get a Solid Top If You Can Afford It
3. Pick a Body Size
4. Tonewoods: Listen to the Guitar, Not the Rhetoric
5. To Buy Online, Find a Reputable Dealer
6. Develop a Keen Eye for Quality Control
7. Treat Online Auctions with Caution
8. Get a Playable Instrument and Start Playing
9. Shop for Value, Not a “Deal”
10. Only Buy Used from a Reputable Dealer
11. Brand Names Provide Better Resale Value
12. Don’t Try to Invent a New Instrument When Ordering Custom
13. Bring a Friend of Similar Ability
14. Get a Pickup If You’ve Got a Gig
15. Buy Local for Better Service
16. Find a Store with a Knowledgeable Sales Staff
17. Court Your Instrument
18. Get a Guitar That Sounds Good Now
19. Keep an Open Mind
“The pointiness of a man’s guitar is widely known to be directly inverse to his couth.”
Pretty funny guitar poster available for sale at Gear Pipe. For the low low price of $12 (includes shipping). Seems like we’re starting to see more guitar humor out there and I’m all for it.
Just ran across this drawing of an Epiphone SG guitar on Reddit. The image is vector art that was created with Adobe Illustrator. I’d love to see a bunch more. It’s looks so crisp. You can see more of Gareth Fowler’s work on his site. The image was posted with the following headline “My photography skills suck. So I drew my guitar instead. Behold! An Epiphone SG.”
Gibson Lifestyle has put together a good article that provides a brief overview of ten different types of guitar effects pedals. They provide a little background info on what the pedal does and the songs or guitarists made them famous. Here is an excerpt about delay pedals:
The original delay units were tape-driven, like the Echo-Plex used by Jimi Hendrix (“House Burning Down”) and David Gilmore (Pink Floyd’s “Echoes”) in the ’60s and ’70s. But in the mid-’80s, as digital effects came into use, the delay and early delay/sampler pedals came into vogue. While many effect connoisseurs frown on digital stomp boxes, the plusses of digital delay and sampling over tape are obvious. Primarily, there’s no tape to snarl, wear out or sputter. Today’s delay pedals can also get effects that were once produced by reverb tanks, like authentic-sounding rockabilly slap-back, and hearing The Edge play arpeggios through a delay pedal on “Where the Streets Have No Name” is a sublime listening experience.
We had Peter Vogl shoot a video awhile back running through his effects rig. It gets more indepth than the Gibson article and gives you the sights and sounds to go along with the commentary. Add both pieces together and you should have a pretty good idea on which pedals you may be interested in.
1. Determine Your Price Range
