5 good, cheap acoustic guitars
Acoustic guitars are fun. Buy the right one, and it's a great songwriting guitar.
I'm going to state two things about this list up front.
- If you like any of these and want to electrify it, get a Seymour Duncan "Woody" pickup. It goes right in the sound hole. Simple and easy.
- The price range of the guitars below starts at $82 and ends at $200. Yes, that means every single guitar you see below at the time I write this is between $82 to $200. And they're all good.
With that said, here we go.
Epiphone really knows how to build a good, cheap acoustic, and it doesn't get much better than the DR-100. While most who play solid-body electric guitars scoff at the design of the headstock ordinarily, it looks right at home on an acoustic body.
The only really bad part about the guitar is that "E" logo on the pick guard. But that's nothing you can't replace or put a black sticker over to cover it up.
While not your typical dreadnought shape (it is a bit squared off,) this is a very comfortable player when sitting. Also take notice of where the strap buttons are, as this is a very easy guitar to play standing up as well.
When it comes to "looks expensive", the F335 from Yamaha nails it. Very nice acoustic that projects well and looks upscale, especially with the "Y flower" graphic on the headstock. This is one you'd be proud to have on your guitar stand.
This particular Fender comes in 3 colors, but the best of the lot is the sunburst. It's not the same as the FA-100 as you'll notice it has a slightly more curvy shape to it, and for the price, you really can't get a better sunburst on an acoustic.
I list this for only one reason. It has a cutaway body shape. Some players like having the cutaway to get easy access to the higher frets. The best part about this guitar is its price. This is the $82 acoustic at the time I write this. And surprisingly, it gets really good reviews for an acoustic that sells for this low.
Rich's picks
My first pick is the DR-100. While it may have that dopey "E" on the pick guard, it's a traditional dreadnought, easy-to-play and has very predictable playing characteristics. I like the fact this is cheap enough to be a "throwaway" acoustic, meaning you can bang the crap out of it and not care. It may only last 4 or 5 years, but that's fine.
My second pick is F335. It's more than the Epiphone is, but a great looker, and Yamaha builds some darned fine acoustic guitars. This is the guitar that could last you 10 years or more easily, which is a pretty sweet deal considering how low in cost it is.
Is there that much of a difference between the way Epiphone and Yamaha make acoustic guitars? In my experience, yes. The reason Yamaha acoustics last longer isn't because of wood choice but rather how their acoustics are made.
Does Yamaha use more glue or some kind of bracing that makes their acoustics last longer? I don't know. What I do know is that the only thing on Yamaha acoustics that usually breaks down first are the bridge pins (easily replaceable and dirt cheap) and the frets after years of play. So after something like 7 years, you can level the frets, get the guitar refretted or just buy another acoustic at that point. Either way, you get a lot of guitar for the money.
Maple vs. mahogany electric guitar necks
Is maple (like such as on a neck like this) better than mahogany or is the reverse true? Let's find out.
When guitarists debate maple vs. mahogany, generally speaking they're referring to Fender vs. Gibson, as most Fender electrics use necks made of maple and most Gibson electrics use necks made of mahogany.
That being said, let's get this out of the way first:
"They don't make 'em like they used to."
Fact or Fiction? FACT.
But it's why that counts here.
Where Gibson electrics are concerned, the necks used to be made of Honduran mahogany. Gibson doesn't use that species of wood anymore and hasn't for a long time now. The current wood type they use is African mahogany.
What this means is that Gibson literally cannot build 'em like they used to because there's no way to do it. The Honduran mahogany supply was depleted and Gibson had to go elsewhere to get another mahogany type similar to the Honduran stuff. They did, and that's what is used to make them now.
Where Fender electrics are concerned, the maple they use today is basically the same as it was years ago - with one rather important exception. The vast majority of Fender electrics made now use flatsawn maple instead of quartersawn. Why? Because flatsawn boards are far cheaper to source. You can visually see the difference just by looking. With quartersawn you will see the straight grain lines on the back of the neck (in the direction of headstock/pegboard-to-heel,) whereas with most flatsawn boards you won't. Why "most?" Because some flatsawn boards come from the middle of the log and those will have straight grain lines; this is why some Squier guitars do in fact have straight grain on the neck.
Fender does offer certain guitars with quartersawn boards, such as the Eric Johnson Stratocaster model. That neck type is considered a premium option, and it is because it costs more to source.
Gibson had to get a different mahogany source. Fender decided to use a cheaper way of getting maple. The end result is that it is totally true that both Fender and Gibson don't build like they used to. This is not to say they build bad guitars. But it is to say that the way both companies source wood has changed significantly.
Maple is harder. Mahogany is softer. How does that affect your guitar?
In the world of woodworking, there's this thing called the Janka hardness test; this is a test to determine how resistant a species of wood is to denting and general wear and tear. Obviously, some woods are harder than others.
Honduran mahogany has a Janka hardness rating of 800. African mahogany of the Khaya variety is slightly harder at 845. The type used on Gibson guitars is most likely the Khaya type, or a species close to it that has a hardness between 800 and 900.
Hard North American Maple has a hardness of 1450. There is also ivory maple with a hardness of 1500, and soft maple with a hardness of about 1000.
What does all this mean to you?
It means that the guitar string tension when tuned to pitch is different between maple and mahogany guitar necks, and it also means maple will require less periodic truss rod adjustment while mahogany will require truss rod adjustment more often.
Where new string installations are concerned, some guitarists state to not play the guitar until a new set of strings has been on the instrument for 24 hours. Some even say to only change one string at a time so no significant tension on the neck is lost while performing a string change.
Do you need to follow this advice? You can if you wish. I don't recommend doing the one-string-at-a-time thing, solely for the reason that you'll never be able to clean your fretboard properly by doing that. At some point, you're going to have to take off all the strings to get all your finger grime off the fretboard. It doesn't matter how many times you wash your hands before playing, because the grime will get in there and it does have to be cleaned out periodically.
With hard maple necks, you can get away with a lot more compared to mahogany. Maple is harder and ordinarily doesn't require anywhere near the same amount of settling time that mahogany does. Maple allows to slap on a new set of strings, stretch, and in minutes you're ready-to-play instead of waiting for the wood to settle back into its proper bowed shape.
How does this apply to vintage electric guitars?
Over time, when a guitar neck is flexed back and forth enough, it gets to the point where strings, even for brand new ones, won't stay in tune anymore. The mahogany neck will be the first to become unplayable because it will flex out too much. The maple neck will have a different problem as it will be very difficult to get a truss rod turn out of it without a loud CRACK, possibly cracking the neck in the process.
If you have a vintage electric, see a luthier and have him perform neck stress tests. Trust me, he knows what he's doing. And he'll be honest with you as to whether the instrument is still playable or not.
If it's decided the instrument isn't playable, keep it for showpiece reasons, or sell the thing. (I suggest selling it, because what's the point of owning the vintage electric if you can't play it?)
Which is the easier of the two to live with?
Mahogany-neck guitars are more prone to having "off days." What this means is that you'll pick up the guitar and for some reason it just plays awful that day. But then on the next day, like magic, it starts playing wonderfully again.
What happened there? Probably a significant shift in the humidity in the air (like a rainstorm) that caused the neck to bow in a way that made your guitar buzz all over the place. The next day, the weather returned to normal, and as such, your guitar played normally again.
Maple typically handles humidity shifts better because it won't "flex out" as much. It still will flex, make no mistake about that, but not so much to the point where the whole guitar plays like crap and you have to wait a day until you can play it again.
Which is the better of the two for stage use?
Easy answer here: Maple.
The best for stage use is the quartersawn maple neck - if you can get along with its playing characteristics. The next best thing is a neck made from aluminum or carbon fiber.
Is there a sound difference between the two?
The only thing the neck material does on a solid-body guitar concerning how it sounds is how much it affects the string tension. Strings that are tighter at pitch sound different than strings that are looser at pitch.
This is how I can answer this question:
Does neck wood itself affect the tone? No.
Does the string tension at pitch affect the tone? Yes.
Does scale length affect the tone? Yes (shorter scale = looser string tension at pitch).
The point is that neck material, on its own, doesn't affect the sound for one simple reason. It's not where the pickups are.
You can hem and haw all day about "warmth" (a stupid argument because sound is not defined by temperature) and "sustain" (also a stupid argument because nobody needs a 13-second note decay.) But at the end of it all, it's the string tension at pitch and scale length that are things that actually affect the sound in a way that you can hear when it comes to comparing one electric guitar neck material to another.
On a final note, am I saying not to buy guitars that have a neck made of mahogany? No. What I am saying is that it's good to know mahogany's particular quirks, and that generally speaking, maple-necked electrics are easier to deal with.
Can you make an entire song using just one riff?
Writing songs truly is easy, and yes, it is possible to construct an entire song and have it sound good just using one riff.
Guitar players in particular have a really difficult time completing songs, and one of the main reasons for that is because they keep wanting to add in unnecessary crap. Since guitarists have all these notes and chords available to them, they feel they should stuff in ridiculous amounts of phrasing, melodies and so on. Why? Because of the thought "that's what people want to hear", when in fact the exact opposite is true.
In the guitar player's mind, simple = amateur. Guitar guys see all these other guitarists that know every part of the fretboard and play fantastically complicated stuff, so they in turn get fooled into the belief of, "If those other guys play complicated stuff, I should too if I want to get any respect".
If it were true that playing complicated crap did "get you respect," guitar shredders would be the most-listened-to musicians, right? Well, they're not. In fact, they're at the bottom of the barrel and absolutely none of them have any songs that anyone listens to other than other guitar players. Remember how I said a while back to not play for other guitar players?
An example of a song that uses just one riff
Okay, technically, this example is one-and-a-half riffs (just barely). But the point is that the song Shut Up and Let Me Go by The Ting Tings is just one riff the whole way through. All you have here is a simple bass guitar line with accompanying guitar on top, drums, simple keyboard accompaniment and not much else.
When the song needed to separate into a different section, the riff was just changed around slightly but still essentially played the same way. It was either shortened, lengthened, stopped and started again, and so on. But it's all still the same riff.
I've given the tip before that you should try songwriting with a bass guitar, for the reason the restrictions of the 4-string bass (i.e. no soloing or other needless crap) make for a better songwriting tool. And you'll notice with Shut Up and Let Me Go, the main guitar heard more than any other is actually the bass, indicating the song was probably crafted originally on the bass guitar.
So yes, you can craft a whole song using just one riff. Take that one riff and just change it around a bit to establish verses/choruses/breaks and that's pretty much all there is to it.
Do you have to write songs this way? No, of course not. But if you've been struggling with songwriting, if you have just one riff, now you know how to take that and make an entire song out of it.
Is guitar pickup modding stupid?
Woe be to those by those who perform ill-witted guitar "upgrades".
Guitar pickup modding is something a lot of guitar players do to make a guitar "better", but ultimately results in making a guitar sound awful.
Most modders know little to nothing about how electric guitars are supposed to work
I've seen a lot of guys on the internet do mods, and very few of them end up with an instrument that sounds any better than it originally did.
A quick list of classic modder mistakes:
Installing "hot" pickups in a Strat
End result: A Strat guitar that sounds like an overpowered, over-trebly mess.
What he should have done: Used a cheap compressor.
There are many Strat players who firmly believe that "hot output" pickups are the only solution to getting good Strat tone. It isn't. "Hot" pickups make a Strat sound awful because of the nature of the skinny single-coil sound.
Now of course, the modder will try everything to get that Strat "hot". He'll try hot-output, realize it sucks, and junk it. Then he'll try a stacked single-coil, but then get frustrated because the pickup "doesn't sound like a Strat".
In the end, all he needed was a compressor. That's it. He wanted the sound to be boosted, and be able control the amount of boost. The compressor will do that. No mods required. And a lot cheaper.
Or, if you want to do it real old-school style, use a simple booster pedal. There are even tutorials on the internet that show you how to build a booster pedal yourself, due to the fact they're so easy to make and only have 1 knob on them.
Or if you want to take the really, really easy way, just buy a Blacktop HH Strat and call it a day.
Installing a preamp
End result: No appreciable difference in sound compared to a passive setup.
What he should have done: Used a properly-voiced passive pickup instead.
There are certain types of guitars where a preamp works great and others where it makes no sense at all.
In bass guitars, a preamp makes total sense. Why? Because the vast majority of the time, bass players use nothing but clean signal with little to no effects applied. In that kind of sound environment, it makes sense for a bass player to have a preamp, which allows for an on-the-instrument 2-band or 3-band EQ.
On 6-string electrics however, preamps ordinarily don't serve much of a purpose. If using it for signal boost, the distortion pedal is already doing that. If used to "clean up the signal", that suggests your existing wiring is total crap and needs rewiring. If used for frequency band adjustments, um.. ever hear of a tone knob? Yeah, that thing. Try using it. Or just use a linear taper potentiometer for the volume control to get easy-access treble cutoff with a small turn from 10 to 9.
The moment a 6-string guitar has distortion or even a light overdrive applied to the signal, the preamp at that point has become totally useless. Why? Because the dist/od effect almost completely negates any tone shaping the preamp did before reaching the amplifier.
Like I said, no appreciable difference. For "hot" output, either use a booster, a different distortion pedal or just outright use a dual coil (as in a humbucker) pickup that has high output, such as the DP100.
Where does a preamp actually make sense on a 6-string electric? Jazz and country music. Guitarists of those styles play clean, and the preamp actually does make a difference when they play, because the clean tone has to be as crisp and clean as possible. But for rock or metal, preamps are useless because the dist/od applied to the signal just destroys (in a bad way) the pre-amplified signal.
If you play rock or metal, don't pre-amplify at the guitar. Not necessary. Just get a properly-voiced, high-output dual coil pickup.
Not matching pickup output levels from neck to bridge
End result: Blaring rear (bridge) pickup that totally overpowers front (neck) pickup, making the middle and front pickup selections totally useless.
"Metal" guitar players do this a lot.
The modder installs a ridiculously hot-output pickup in the rear position, but to save money does not buy a front-voiced pickup of equal output level for the front position. This in turn makes the guitar only playable on the rear position and nowhere else.
If you've ever picked up a used guitar at the guitar store, strum a few chords with the rear pickup selected, but then when switching to middle or front the guitar "totally goes dead", that's most likely not a worn-out front pickup. Some idiot modded the guitar and put a rear pickup in it that had way too much output. Either that, or he put in a junk pickup in the front position and traded it out that way.
All you need to know here is that if you're going to install an aftermarket pickup, make sure its output level at least somewhat matches the other pickups.
For example, on certain Gibson guitars you will see the pickups listed as a 490T and a 490R. What does that mean? The T is for treble (rear/bridge position) and the R is for rhythm (front/neck position). Each pickup is voiced specifically for their respective mounting positions.
Heck, even Squier does this. The Squier Jaguar uses a Duncan Designed JG-101B (rear/bridge position) and a Duncan Designed JG-101N (front/neck position). So even they know to do it so the guitar is voiced properly.
Are you matching up your aftermarket pickup output levels properly when you mod? You should. The big guitar makers do it for a reason. And that reason is that it ends up making for a proper-sounding electric guitar.
A quick cheat sheet for proper pickup mods
These are really easy to follow.
1. Stick with one brand
Which brand? That's your preference. But stick with one, be it DiMarzio, Fender, EMG, Seymour Duncan or whatever. Just stick to one brand so you have some consistency going on.
2. Pay attention to position
Don't put a pickup meant for front/neck use in the rear/bridge position and vice versa. Pickup makers voice pickups for certain positions, and it's just not just mentioned for the heck of it. When a pickup maker states a certain model is for a certain mounted position on the guitar, they mean it.
What happens if you put a pickup voiced for a specific position in the wrong position? One of two things. It will either be a trebly mess, or "sound like mud". No, your guitar won't blow up or anything like that by mounting a pickup in the wrong spot. It'll just sound bad.
3. Pay attention to output level
Match your output levels between pickups, as noted above.
4. Shield, shield, shield
Get a roll of self-adhesive copper shielding tape. You'll need it. It doesn't matter what pickups you're using. Shielding is necessary.
If you're modding a cheap guitar, you will find little to no shielding where there's supposed to be some, so get a roll and be prepared to use it.
What happens when you don't shield? Signal noise. Does copper shielding eliminate all signal noise? No. But it can decrease a good amount of it. Better to have it than not have it.
5. Mind your string spacing, or get blades/rails and don't care
You'll notice some pickups are labeled as being "F spaced". That's Fender spacing, meaning the string spacing Fender guitars use.
If you want a pickup where you absolutely do not have to care about string spacing at all, use a pickup that has blades or rails in it.
An example of a blade pickup is a Lindy Fralin Strat set. The blades are really easy to spot because the pickup has "lines" on it. Those are the blades. Other pickup makers made similar styles.
On pickups with pole pieces, as in those circle things, the string is supposed to hover directly over the pole. If it doesn't, the string will barely be heard. Blade and rail pickups take care of this potential issue where if the string hovers anywhere over the blade/rail, it will be heard. Problem solved.
While true that blade/rail pickups don't have a "classic" look to them, they're a lot easier to deal with because string spacing is a non-issue.
Pickups described as "vintage" are usually the best kind
I'm specifically referring to new pickups where the sound they make is described as vintage and not the look, meaning not that "relic" crapola.
"Vintage" means "normal". It means a pickup that's voiced without any special or "enhanced" junk going on. It means a traditional pickup with traditional windings that in most instances has a very predictable sound to it. And yes, predictable is good.
Throughout the 2000s and still today, pickup makers have tried some seriously wacky crap with their pickup offerings, all in the name of trying to be "innovative".
An example of this ridiculousness is the Seymour Duncan "Black Winter" pickup. Everything Seymour Duncan used to describe this pickup is total marketing schlock. Words like extreme and hardcore and crushing are used, which of course makes no sense at all to describe how a pickup sounds.
In other words, it's a pickup for people who fall for marketing hype. Remember the EXTREME computer video graphics cards of the 2000s? Yeah, they're all in landfills now. Guess they weren't so EXTREME after all. Neither is the Black Winter pickup. It's a frickin' pickup and not as "dark as the winters in Scandinavia", as Seymour Duncan's web site says. And yes, that is an actual quote from their product page on it.
Conversely, the Seymour Duncan SH-1 set, which does not use all that dopey marketing crap, is a better pickup. It has a product description that actually makes sense, such as "Classic appointments include plain enamel wire, long legged bottom plate, vintage single conductor cable and no logo". YES! THANK YOU! That is useful information.
Again, "vintage" means "normal". It is an output rating that will give you more control over your sound because the output is not blaring all over the place. Mate those pickups to properly wired potentiometers in a housing that's well-shielded, and you've got yourself a guitar that sounds great for any kind of music.
Mod if you must with aftermarket pickups. But choose the right pickup(s). And don't go "extreme". You'll hate it. Stick to "vintage".
Best cheap guitars for 2015
It's 2015, and it's time to list what's best for cheap guitars for this year.
What's new?
For the 2015 year, not too much. 2015 rolls off with the reintroduction of models that ran out due to good sales in 2014. Guitar companies are rolling out what sold well last year, and that's actually a good thing because you can find guitar reviews on just about all of what's below very easily.
The list
I've got 10 of them this year, all of which receive high customer satisfaction ratings.
This list starts with the cheapest guitar that's under $200, and the rest stay well below $500 USD.
That being said, here they are.
We begin with the cheapest guitar on the list, and arguably one of the best, because this is a can't-go-wrong guitar. No vibrato system (meaning no "whammy bar"), two pickups, great weight, great look, stupidly easy to maintain, pretty much a set-it-and-forget-it guitar and ridiculously easy to string up and play. That's the Squier Affinity Telecaster. Not easy to find in stores because these sell out quick.
This guitar works for anyone, no matter the skill level. Whether you're a beginner, intermediate or a pro player, this guitar totally gets it right in every way.
Squier Vintage Modified '70s Stratocaster
I'm listing this specific Squier Strat because it already has the visual modifications that most players would do to it, that being black knobs and black pickup covers. Can these be switched out if you wanted to switch to white or off-white? Yes, of course.
This is a great Strat all around and has the better Duncan Designed pickups in it, which is a step up from the Bullet series.
The guitar needs nothing except setup (as does any guitar you would buy no matter how much you paid for it). Plug in and go.
The LP-100 is a Les Paul guitar that, as I've said before, is a Les Paul that's not missing anything. It has all the controls where they would be on a Gibson Les Paul and comes with the pick guard - which is something even several Gibson models don't offer.
This is, more or less, a "Studio" version of the Epiphone Les Paul Standard. The only thing separating it looks-wise from the Standard is the lack of binding and dots on the neck instead of trapezoid inlays.
When you want a Gibson SG in an Epiphone flavor, the G-400 is what you want. This guitar absolutely and totally gets right everything that makes an SG an SG. It has the "fast" slim taper D-shape neck, has the smaller pick guard under the pickups, has 4 knobs instead of just 2, it's the correct cherry color, has the trapezoid inlays... it has it all.
When you want a proper SG for a nice price, the G-400 is it. Nobody else makes anything that even comes close to it other than Gibson themselves.
This Agile is, without question, the most Les Paul you can get for the money. It is absolutely loaded with goodies. Too many to list here. Let's just say that if this had "Gibson" on the headstock, it would sell for about $3,000 easily. But it's way, way less than that.
Fender Modern Player Tele Plus
Yes, we have a real-deal Fender Telecaster in the under-$450 price range, and this one delivers.
It is an HSS, but you'll notice there's a little switch between the volume and tone knobs for splitting that humbucker to single. Pictures do this guitar no justice as the Honey Burst finish looks incredible in person.
If you looked at the Squier Affinity Tele and thought, "I'd like a Tele with more to it", this is your guitar. It's loaded and it has "Fender" on the headstock for bragging rights. Can't do much better than that.
Why even bother with the Epiphone LP Standard when the Agile is a better guitar that sells for less? There are only two reasons.
The first is color choices, such as Cardinal Red shown above. A Les Paul in that style of red just looks cool.
The second is resale/trade-in value. If you're interested in buying a Les Paul but may sell or trade it out later on, the Epiphone will hold more value than the Agile will, even though it's not as good as the Agile is. For some, resale value matters. And if it's a choice between Agile and Epiphone, Epiphone wins when it comes to how much someone would be willing to pay for a used one, or how much a guitar store would offer in trade value for it.
This special model from Schecter is the best value for metal players. It comes stock with an EMG 81 pickup in the bridge position and an EMG 85 in the neck position. It also has a Graph Tech TUSQ nut and cool "fire" inlay work.
The Damien Special is a crazy-good metal guitar for the money, no question about that. It's also built right, meaning it can take a beating and keep coming back for more.
Danelectro D59 Modified Hollow-Body
I'm listing this specific guitar for those out there that want something different but won't put you in the poorhouse. Danelectro delivers with the D59MOD in black. Yes, it is a hollow-body, although it doesn't look like one. And yes, that means it's lightweight and the neck won't dive on you.
This is technically a reissue of the D59. The only thing you have to be aware of is that it has a "wraparound" bridge, meaning strings are installed by going under the bridge, wrapping around the top, then back to the headstock. Yes, it's easy to figure out.
How does it sound? Jangly and twangy, kind of a Telecaster but with more treble because of the lipstick pickups.
Fun guitar all around, and easy-to-play.
Wow, what a guitar. Truly.
This particular Epiphone is built overseas, but set up in the USA before you get it. I'm amazed at the price this thing sells for, because it could easily pass as a $2,500 USD instrument. The look is totally correct, the sound is totally correct... pretty much everything on this guitar is totally correct.
The ES-339 has something else too. Sex appeal. Yes, really. Anyone that sees you playing one of these makes it look like you have money and drive a BMW. Are those reasons to buy the guitar? Not really, but it's a nice bonus! :)
The real reasons to get the ES-339 is that it has that classic semi-hollow body sound for rock, blues, jazz and country. It's also the size of a Les Paul, which to many feels better than the bigger body of the ES-335.
If there were any one guitar on this list you would be totally happy with, the ES-335 is it. Yes, it's the most expensive on the list, but still well south of $500.