Hey guys. The going to a store and checking things out isn’t going to happen for me, as we talked about above. Nearest halfway-decent music store is more than an hour away. I don’t much like to talk about it, but long trips are difficult for me. HOWEVER, I did just discover that Guitar Center has a bunch of used guitars up online. It was fun browsing them. Some of them look kick-ass(Mmmmmmm, flame-maple!), and might have tuners that work, and might be in my price range. Anyone ever have any dealings with GC & their used on-line stuff?
Guitar Center focuses on moving volume; whether or not a particular used guitar is a decent model reasonably well-maintained and set up is a luck-of-the-draw thing.
That “kick ass” guitar should be avoided unless you really wanting to focus on metal shredding. It has a whammy - not locking, which is good, but still harder to maintain and sound good on for beginners. Also, it is likely that the guitar has pickups meant to sound good fully distorted. If you are a hard rock/classic rock guy, you want a guitar that loves distortion but can sound decent a bit cleaned up, too.
Well, they don’t really have much info on each guitar. Just a small pic, and a five-step rating system (to which I limited the search to the upper two). You have to look at the guitar and look up info on the model to know much about it.
So we’ve been talking strats quite a bit here, but we haven’t talked about tremolos, and the types to look for/avoid, or at all. I’ll admit to being a bit nervous and a lot clueless about them. I’ve been reading where they make it harder to stay in tune, and add to newbie difficulties. I was considering removing the arm at the start anyway, and maybe adding a couple springs to it - just try to stabilize it and leave it there for another day when I feel up to dealing with it.
I’ve handled that guitar, just briefly. The ‘flame’ top is at best a thin veneer over who-knows-what wood, and didn’t seem all that attractive to me, way too orange & clowny colored. In fact, I saw two of these together, and the finish was identical, which leads me to believe it’s some sort of printing of the ‘flame’ on the veneer. You see this sort of thing on Deans, where they print flames or camo or whatever on the guitar. Anyway, all that doesn’t speak to how well it’s made as an instrument, and I didn’t really play it but it seemed kinda cheap feeling - no surprise, it’s a cheap guitar.
Well, the obvious answer is to not get a guitar with a trem. Have you considered a Telecaster? I have one and love it. As a model they’re widely liked and dirt simple - in a good way - and you get a hardtail and can forget about floating bridges if you don’t really care if you have one. All that said: yes, a trem makes the tuning more fiddly and adds complexity for a beginner, and you won’t really get that much out of one as a beginner. On a Strat, there’s basically two trem types: ‘vintage’ = 6 screws, the modern one = 2 screws. Really, that’s it. There are other types of trems, Fender seemed to like a different one on every model, but the Strat trem is the most useful and widely copied trem. If you want to someday go with a trem that can do dive bombs and stay in tune, there’s the Floyd Rose locking trem, which is a perfect but maddening solution to staying in tune with a trem. And yes, you can just block the trem with a block of wood and it stays put and acts like a hardtail. Clapton famously does this.
Yeah, I’ve seen this a few places. They call it something like a “Flame-maple photo top”. I don’t mind a thin veneer, as long as it stays put and doesn’t lift up. Can’t get a full maple top in my price range, I know that. I’m not too wild about a photo paint job, but I guess it would be OK if it looked really good. No way to know that though, until it’s in front of me.
Yeah, I’ve thought about a Tele. I’ve thought about blocking the tremolo. Just don’t quite know what I want. No one WANTS to give up an option - never know when you might regret not having it - I’m just wondering if that option is going to be too much trouble. And yeah, I like Hendrix and other tremolo users, so it’s not far-fetched that I might want to have it. I guess I should just get recommendations on what to get, and understand that I’ll have to learn to deal with it like millions of other players have.
Adding extra springs or a block of wood is something that can easily be reversed if you want to try the trem bar later. Just remove the extra springs and/or block of wood.
I have a Strat-like guitar (Ibanez Roadstar) with a trem bar. I don’t use the trem bar at all. So I just took the bar off and leave it in the guitar case and I have 5 springs; this is enough to make the trem bar a complete non-issue. And I can change my mind about this as many times as I like as it takes 5 minutes to go back and forth between having a working trem to having a blocked non-operational trem.
I mentioned it so you wouldn’t be surprised but it’s something that’s easily reversed.
Well, from my reading, that was what I was thinking of doing. Good to hear from someone who knows that it’s a workable, reasonable idea.
Here’s another possibly fun subject: I have the Snark SN-2 tuner in my Amazon cart, waiting to see what guitar I go with. Trying to avoid extra shipping & handling charges, I try to get everything organized and buy it all at once. The reviews are good, and it’s cheap.
I would also suggest getting one of these. Very handy for changing strings. It combines two functions into one tool - a string winder and a string cutter. The string winder part is a life saver when you need to put new strings on and wind them up to tension. I like this thing so much I have 2 of them.
I was not aware it was that big a chore.
/The more you know.
OK, my amp arrives Wednesday. I’ve been reading and reading, going back & forth. What do I get? What do I GET!? WHAT DO I GET!?!?!?!?
I’m not wild about the Squier Bullets. Don’t like that everyone is reporting that the tuning pegs suck. Don’t like the looks of the Bullets either, tbh. Thanks, Squeegee, for your report on what you found. You were moderately, guardedly hopeful, but that’s about the best I got out of anyone that sounded like they’ve ever held a guitar before. It was even money the damned thing wouldn’t stay in tune without new pegs.
Don’t laugh, but I looked around real hard for info on the Monoprice guitars. I’ve read some good posts about them, but half of those were drive-by posters with 1-3 posts to their name, so I suspect stealth marketing in action. The few Monoprice owners that have many posts to their name haven’t issued ongoing reports, so I know little beyond their first day of ownership. I tried to reach out to one long-time member of a guitar forum in a PM, but no response came. I suspect that, like Beetlejuice, if we were to mention Monoprice Guitars enough, like their Monoprice California Classic guitar, or their Monoprice Route 66 Vintage guitar, then someone will arrive to tell us about these fine California Classics and Route 66 Vintage guitars from Monoprice. Beetlejuice.
I like the Xavieres, but they’re a little pricy, particularly when shipping is added in. Just pushing it too far.
I’ve been looking at the Rondo SX Hawks, and this one on particular:
http://www.rondomusic.com/hawkmnash.html
Pick it apart if you would, please. Best to know now before I buy. In my searches, I didn’t come across anyone complaining they couldn’t keep it in tune, or that it just wouldn’t work. Some of their models have weird staggered string-holes, but this one looks to have them lined up right, if I want to replace the bridge. Also, word is, Rondo has good customer service, so if I have a problems that’s a plus.
I’m trying to nail down a choice, and after these past weeks, I think I have a grasp of the quality available at this price range. I don’t think I’m going to run into a great deal on a much better guitar, not without going the questionable 2nd-hand-purchase-by-internet route.
Finally gave up on the HSS thing. Found out Jimmy Page did a lot of his studio work with Strats, and that soothed that itch a bit. Also, I surfed Youtube to hear what people were doing with humbuckers these days. Fuck that noise, man.
Beetlejuice.
I’m trying to
Gratuitous text, ignore it.
Actually, Page used a Telecaster in the studio. The solo to Stairway to Heaven was played on a Tele.
So I don’t see anything remarkably wrong with that Hondo. I expect it’ll have similar qualities to the Bullet.
Yeah. I went by memory, then double-checked it AFTER the editing period was over. I have absolutely NO idea why I did it in that order, but for all the kids at home reading this, I don’t recommend it.
I’ve heard better things about the tuning pegs on the Rondo(as compared to the Bullet), but comparable things about nearly every other part, so there’s that. People complain about them or defend them all in a roughly equal manner. The Bullet uses Basswood, the Rondo uses Ash, FWIW.
Why the $129 Hondo vs the $99 ones? They seem identical to me, but I can’t say I dug that hard.
It’s PUUURRRTY!
Well, purtier than most in that range. The extra $30 apparently buys me some sort of mystical “rosewood reinforcement for added stability” in the neck. In the MAPLE neck. I dunno. It’s purdy. The $30 doesn’t seem to buy me any more quality anywhere I look, might as well buy some purdy.
OK, I’m never using that word again.
Also, why are you calling them Hondos? Louis L’Amour fan?
Well, if having a pretty guitar makes you excited to play it, and that keeps you learning, then that’s worth something.
Also, oops: Rondo. Hondo was an old Japanese guitar brand that may even still be around.
I’d sooner spend it on quality, but I can’t find any one model that clearly outshines the others at sub-$150. As loudly as a group shouts about one model, other groups shout about other models, and none of their arguments outweigh the others. Hell, that guy finally wrote me back about his Monoprice guitar and told me I needed to buy three yesterday.
Short of quality, I might as well get one I like to look at. I started this by wanting to build a kit guitar with a flame-maple veneer, and make a cherry sunburst - well sort of. I was going to go from yellow to cherry red to dark red to black. I tend to get ambitious when it’s still all theoretical. At least the above guitar is reminiscent of the idea that started this, and Rondo is supposedly really good with customer support.
I hear someone just recently got themselves a minty cherry cola strat. Looks count for something, I’d say, even if they aren’t everything.
My amp arrived today! Yup, it’s an amp. Now it’s waiting for a guitar.
Well, there’s no way in heck I’m innocent of gear lust. Guilty, your honor. 
Good luck with the Rondo if that’s the way you end up deciding.
Yeah, I went with that. After a month or so of this, I was simply unable to find a compelling reason to go with any particular model in my price range - too bad Xaviere had such pricy shipping - and felt there was no more info out there that would help me decide. In the end, it was more of a, “Why not?” I waited a day, and didn’t have a compelling answer, so now I have a guitar, and my mid-life crisis has begun. Cheaper than divorces and sports cars, anyway.
I picked that model because, being a baseball fan, Ash is a wood I’d previously heard of. I was unfamiliar with Basswood, Swamp Ash (which is actually a couple types of wood, if I understand it right), Agathis, Tobacco Stems, Vintage Jack Daniel Cask, Antebellum Outhouse, Quilted Fruit Cake, Book-Matched French Toast and Flame Russet Potato. Besides, I like the having the option of slapping a few grounders if I get frustrated. Maybe I’ll call it Wonder Boy and make up a nifty waterslide label in Photoshop. Or maybe Hondo, and have a line drawing of John Wayne on it.
Now I want to make a guitar out of a used Jack Daniel cask. Or an Antebellum Outhouse. If you book-matched the door, the crescent moon would make a cool semi-hollow-body top.
I dunno about you, but book-matched french toast sounds really appealing right now.
Let us know how it works out for you, it is especially purdy for the price. Don’t worry about tuning keys. They’re the easiest thing in the world to replace next to strings, plus they’re often pretty cheap on expensive guitars (I’m looking at you, Kluson equipped Gibsons), and they break all the time anyway. Seriously, I bring a second bass to gigs not because a string might break (I’ve never broken a bass string, ever), but because I might break a tuning gear (broken at least 2 on bass alone).
I’m actually really, really happy someone bought an off brand guitar. I treasure all of mine that play well. I am glad I kept out of the earlier discussion, because my favorite acoustic was built in Indonesia (half of its tuning pegs are replaced), and a favorite bass was made in China (yet, my favorite electric was made in Korea!) I still love the wife’s SG, but I play all of my guitars enough that she still asks me if I like her guitar :).
Hey, if you don’t like it, sell it to me for half price, and I’ll make it a slide guitar! (Hell, if you like it, I should get myself one.)