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Original message:616 days 20 minutes ago

Member: Captain Fantastic

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I guess aside from the obvious things, what do we do when picking out a new instrument? A guitar above and beyond production line guitars...

The things I think of, and look for, are quality of woods, weight and balance, bad notes (wolf-tones), resonance, tone (bright or dark, good or bad), action, neck/fingerboard straightness, and overall cosmetics.

What else do you cats look for?

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I enjoy skinny skiing, heckling figure skaters, flamenco guitar, the blue stuff you put your combs in, good drummers, focaccia bread and coffee out of a french press

Reply:615 days 20 hours 16 minutes ago
Member: mattguitar

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first and foremost i look at aesthetics. if i don't like the way it looks i won't pick it up in the first place. then i typically do the normal checks...is there any neck bow/warping, are the frets of equal height, is the back of the neck smooth, etc.

on vintage instruments i look for alot more. in addition to the above, i look at the tuners, the bridge, and the saddle. i also look to see if any screws are stripped. if so i may have to do some research to find a replacement part. if it is a vintage electric guitar i request that someone remove the control cavity and i look at the wiring.

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Reply:612 days 11 hours 38 minutes ago
Member: Captain Fantastic

+ 1

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Kudos on the stripped screws inspection. You're absolutely right about the wiring thing. I've heard of too many a guitar playing cat that has been burned by a 'Vintage' dealer as they had realized that their recently purchased 60's gold top is a 60's gold top with a new wiring harness and a set of PAF knock-offs from '87.

¡Argh!

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I enjoy skinny skiing, heckling figure skaters, flamenco guitar, the blue stuff you put your combs in, good drummers, focaccia bread and coffee out of a french press

Reply:608 days 13 hours 53 minutes ago
Member: Tybalt

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I'm gonna have to go with action on the guitar. If a guitar interests me enough to pick it up and try it out I've obviously already made some rudimentary decisions about the instrument; but if I can't play it comfortably, I'm not going to consider it. I won't even get to the part of deciding if I like the tone, or even the way it feels in general, if something in the action is causing me enough grief to take my mind off of these other equally, or argueably greater, considerations.

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Reply:606 days 23 hours 9 minutes ago
Member: johnmarkh

161
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Yeah...wood, tone. Action too i guess. Though, it can be changed. Action can really kill a guitar. Even if its not buzzing or anything. i know i can immediately tell if my guitar has gone through a moisture change and made the action a little lower. it gets a bit boomy and thins out the high end. That may be partially due to the strings being moist, but you can feel it in the playing too.

actually...right when i said i wanted to buy my guitar they asked if i wanted an action change. He re strung the thing and took a hair off of the action. it was a great little acoustic shop

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