I want a new guitar

[Nabubrush]

So, as many of you know I've been playing for a few years. Everyone else here is undoubtedly more accomplished on the git-box than I am, but I'm trying. I'm starting to get more into it, and I think it's going to be my thing, because I really want to find something to do that isn't sitting around playing video games.

Anyway, I currently have three piece-of-shit guitars and one piece-of-shit bass. I'm really liking playing the bass, I think especially because my wife is playing the drums and it's kind of nice just to practice being the rhythm section - and I think it's nice to have that if anyone comes over and wants to play guitar. However, I'm not sure I'm really going to feel the difference between various basses that I've been able to recognize in different guitars (and my appreciation for the differences is increasing all the time. Another factor is that here at work, we've got a limited selection of instruments to play. I have a little $75 3/4 acoustic. There are a few other acoustics (one's a Yamaha). There's a Squire strat and a Paul Stanley Washburn, and an Epiphone Les Paul. No basses, but I could bring one up I suppose. The point of this is that I never practice bass at work (which may actually be good as it forces me to practice guitar more).

This is the guitar I want (at my buddy's shop), but a: there's no fuck*ng way I'm paying that much for a guitar (yet), b: I don't have enough experience to appreciate it, and c: that may not be the guitar that really fits me, because of b. I really like the Gibson sound. I have a buddy who loaned me one for a week or so. However, like everyone else on earth I have more experience with the strat-style of guitar. I currently have the loan of an SG knockoff, but it is beat to shit and doesn't stay in tune, and the action is pretty fucked.

So, I know (at least) Keith, inev, AW, and smick all play (something, anyway). There are probably more of you out there. Any advice, anecdotes, or warnings?

[AugustWest]

This is the guitar I want (at my buddy's shop),

Huh.  I have a 1965 SG Jr.  It's in pretty great shape, but I hardly ever play it because I don't really have an amp worth a shit.  A rough e-bay appraisal tells me it's worth about $3500.  I paid $250 for it in about 1986.  I call it my retirement guitar.

I have a Takamine acoustic, which I received as a Christmas present 30 years ago.  Nothing fancy, but I love it.  Greatest gift I ever got. 

I'm renting a cheap Washburn banjo until I decide what I want to get and save up enough to get it.

I try not to get too worked up about equipment.  Better equipment might make a good player sound better, but it won't make a crappy player sound good.  So I just try to sound good with what I've got.  Also, there's not a lot of money in the lowly civil servant's budget for music stuff when you've got two kids in college.  That being said, I think my next purchase will be some sort of preamp so I can record myself onto the computer.

[Nabubrush]

My BIL came over maybe a couple years ago and did a tiny bit of recording with us, but now that we're better and have some more equipment, I'd kind of like to do some more. And as for making a bad player sound better, I guess I'd just like something that was middle of the road. I'm not going to pay any four grand for a guitar, but right now between four instruments I probably have $500 tied up, and I do think I deserve at least one slightly better instrument. That and playing my buddy's Gibson just felt better.

[Nabubrush]

Well, plus my wife has a sweet-as-hell Pearl kit and it's not fair.

[KeithHernandez]

Man, I bought a pretty shitty Jazzmaster Classic Players, or something like that, used.  I changed the action, found the perfect strings, changed pickup height, made sure neck was straight, etc, and it sounded a billion times better.  So if I were you I would try to buy an epi sg on craigslist, do all the shit that is easy to do yourself (the stuff I listed) and then hopefully it sounds good?  If not take it to a place or have one of your guitar playing friends look at it.  Maybe change pickups, wiring after that.

You know a lot of bands.  Anyone you're close with play an SG?  If they have been seriously playing for a while they should know how to do these things.  It won't be as good as the $4000 guitar I'm sure, but you can probably make it sound pretty awesome.

Actually, looking at Portland craigslist, Epi SG's go for about 250, Gibsons for $750.  I'd go Gibson.  I don't know anything about any guitars other than Fender Jazzmaster, Jaguar and Mustang though.  But you spend $750 on the red one, spend 1-2 nights tuning it yourself and then have a couple hundred to get it more fixed up if need, then have a bad ass guitar for $1000 or less.  Or if you go with the epi-$500.

http://portland.craigslist.org/mlt/msg/2288905574.html

http://portland.craigslist.org/mlt/ele/2280711519.html

http://portland.craigslist.org/wsc/msg/2284065957.html

[Nabubrush]

My buddy's store has a jaguar right now that is a bit more reasonably priced, but still too much. My really good guitar buddy has transitioned from Gibson to playing a tele, which I thought was interesting. He said it's kind of hard for him to play it.

I do want to get into fuck*ng around with the guts of guitars too - I think this would be a good time to start that and I do have friends who know lots about this and could help. I was thinking I would start by going home and taking apart my faux-strat just to check it out. I'm also thinking I might go to the store and just hang out - one of the co-owners is the guy who does all the guitar work, and he's very nice and receptive.

I feel like a snob but I haven't even been considering epi, so I'm with you on that I think.

[KeithHernandez]

Yeah, what I was trying to say I think is set it up yourself so you can make adjustments to it and that is probably the best thing you could do with your guitar playing.  Also, yeah, I would definitely buy the Gibson.

[pmcd9]

I need to start practicing again.

[theinevitable]

I know very little about guitars, really. I love my Jaguar reissue (this picture is almost 5 years ago), but lately I am thinking that I should have played a lot longer before buying an expensive guitar. Lately I am lusting after a big ol' hollowbody, 80s jangly style. I wish I had tried a much wider variety of guitars instead of 1 strat and 1 jag. Should have tried things with different necks, humbuckers/single coils, etc.

I am realizing, though, that most of my problems with the guitar's sound are really that I don't know how to get good sounds out of my amp. Lately I am spending time with the manual and figuring out some good tones.
I have a really bad tendency to want to turn things (treble, reverb, gain) up to 10.

I was just thinking the other day about how I don't really know anything about SGs, or bands that play SGs. The guy from AC/DC is all I can think of.

[miles]

I was just thinking the other day about how I don't really know anything about SGs, or bands that play SGs. The guy from AC/DC is all I can think of.

Hmm, yeah. Only other one I can think of is Robby Krieger.

[theinevitable]

GuitarGeek says:
Eric Clapton with Cream, Pete Townshend, Carrie Brownstein, Dave Grohl, Ian MacKaye (DUH), Tommy Iommi.

[robot_god]

If all you SG owners/wanters would excuse my frankness, I think the SG is a crappy model.  It was pretty much Les Paul's failed experiment that Gibson never stopped producing.

If you really want a solid, high quality (read: expensive) double-cutaway, you should get a PRS.  If you really want a Gibson, you should get a Les Paul.  Also alot of Les Pauls aren't good, you got to find a good one.  And PRS's are ugly and boring.

It's just that the SG body feels so weak to me.  I'm sure you can find ones with good sustain, but I dunno... I just find the bodies too wafer-ish and small.  But when I play a LP it makes me think, "I could kill a man with this.  And not just by hitting him with it, also by playing the perfect note."

And SGs are red.  red.  red.  red.  I don't dislike it, but when I see a LP with the just the perfect finish...  I feel my soul cum.  Natural sunburst.  Honeyburst.  Heritage cherry sunburst.  White (gold hardware).  Black.  Fuck.  Looking into the finish of a Les Paul > looking into your lover's eyes.



But when it comes down to it, I think all electric guitars should die.  I could go the rest of my life not hearing distorted guitar ever again and be perfectly happy.  Sick of steel strings too, my next guitar is nylon acoustic electric, probably a Yamaha.  Everyone should be playing acoustics, but as soon as the crap you're playing starts sounding like folk music, the guitar should be kicked in and destroyed.

Ideally I would have all guitars destroyed except for fretless basses and lap steels.  Get with the times people.

[Choop]

Ideally I would have all guitars destroyed except for fretless basses and lap steels.  Get with the times people.

the 1910s?

[AugustWest]

I just find the bodies too wafer-ish and small.

It's only wafer-thin.

[pmcd9]

I think the SG is a crappy model.

Dude, you've lost your damn fool mind. Gibson SG Rocks! Acoustics with nylon strings are cool too.