How to become a famous guitar player using just the internet
I guess the first thing to ask here is this: Do you want to be an e-famous guitar player?
No, you don't.
Every e-famous guitar player you know on the internet gains their e-fame in one of two ways.
- Mentioning a brand name.
- Playing a cover song.
The most famous guitar player YouTube channels you know of gained their e-fame from one of those two or both.
It is totally true that guitar playing ability has absolutely nothing to do with how e-famous a guitarist is. None at all. It has everything to do with words and phrases that people are searching for, and having YouTube videos found from said specific search words and phrases.
The brand name way
Something you'll notice is that guitar stores grab a lot of YouTube views. Why? Because they have famous brand names of guitars as the titles of videos, and are constantly putting out new videos of guitars people want to hear.
If for example you worked in a guitar store, like Guitar Center, you could probably make several hundred video reviews just from the store's inventory without having to spend a dime - if the manager allowed it, of course.
The cover song way
Easy enough to understand. You post a cover song to YouTube, people search for that song, find your video and you get known that way - assuming your video doesn't get removed by the copyright system YouTube uses.
Does being an e-famous guitar player matter?
No.
Something you'll notice about e-famous guitar players is that whenever they try to sell original songs, it always falls flat. And the reason for that is because that's not what the guitar player crowd wants. They want to hear stuff about reviewing guitars and covering songs. When things stray outside of that, it just doesn't work.
If an e-famous guitar player releases songs, there is flash-in-the-pan sales and then sales drop off a cliff because being an e-famous guitar player never gets you anywhere.
What does get you somewhere is being a topical songwriter.
Topical songwriting defined
I'm sure you've seen some YouTube videos where some guy or some girl posts a song, the song is really stupid, but it gains millions of views real fast.
Some believe it's marketing that makes this happen. That's sometimes true. But other times it's because the guy or girl who posted the song found something topical that a lot of people resonated with, and it struck gold.
Topical basically means "significant to the moment".
For example, the video game Grand Theft Auto V was released on 17 September 2013, and a whole ton of "funny" YouTube videos were released a few weeks later about it. At the time, the game was still very hot, so of course those videos grabbed tons of views. Now they barely get any views at all.
You do not have to be a gamer in order to get e-famous with a song. Just post song about a hot-at-the-moment game, and the views will come.
All you have to do is keep up with the news, and if you spot a hot-button story that's gaining steam where a lot of people are talking about it right now, you quickly put a song together as fast as you can and release it to YouTube. If you're the early bird that gets the worm, you stand a very good chance of raking in lots of views for the right reason, that being for a song and not as a guitar player.
Again, being an e-famous guitar player gets you nowhere
It's songs that are remembered and not guitar playing ability. You probably don't work in a guitar store, and don't do cover songs since they're yanked from YouTube so easily, so how do you get e-famous? Be a topical songwriter.
The great thing about topical songwriting is that the songs basically write themselves, and all you have to do for a video is make a slideshow.
On a final note, here's a warning. Sometimes topical songs can backfire on you badly. If for example you write a song about something political and/or religious, it can resonate with the audience the wrong way because you tried to be funny, it didn't work and backfired in the worst way possible.
If you go the topical route, yes you can get e-famous quick, but be choosy as to what you write songs about.
on using email in 2014 and beyond
Email may be old, but it's still the best way to get a message from A to B on the internet.
Popularity vs. Technology
Traditional email is a messaging technology while social media like Facebook and Twitter isn't. Those places are flavor-of-the-moment web sites that can at any time fall out of favor with the masses and become ghost towns. Just ask anyone that used to use MySpace or LiveJournal.
You can think of email the same way as SMS (text messaging) on a phone. SMS is a messaging technology, just like email. It is not owned exclusively by anyone. It does not rely on one central place just to work. It does not rely on popularity to remain in existence. Email shares all of those traits, and that's good.
Social media relies 100% on popularity just to exist. That's bad. Really bad.
It's not all about the web no matter how many say it is
Email (POP3/IMAP4,) SMS/MMS and IRC is the stuff we have available to us as far as widely used non-web-based messaging is concerned.
Everything else, meaning forums, comment areas and social media, is all web-based. Some believe that the future of all internet communications will be web-based, but I don't buy into that.
Internet communications that have survived the test of time thus far have been non-web-based, that being email/texting/chat. As for web-based communications stuff? It has no guarantee of any staying power. Web sites go up and down, and web browsers update too often and keep changing too much crap for anyone to keep up with it.
The web will survive, and of that I have no doubt, but as for it being a primary communications engine? That's where I have serious doubt.
Email/texting/chat can all be used with zero graphics, as in no binary data. All text, no images, no video. Text alone is the fastest, easiest and cheapest way to electronically communicate. Web-based is about shoving as much crap at you as possible and calling it "innovative," when the plain fact of the matter is that animations and glittery graphics do nothing but get in the f--king way of the message you're trying to read.
I say it's "not all about the web" because the web is inherently graphical. What matters in internet communications most is the text, and the best text communications is the kind that absolutely does not require a web browser to use it.
Email is old, but it still works better than anything else
The old stuff is still the best stuff for internet messaging.
You might think that I'm pining for the days of how the internet used to be, and that if it's not old, it's not worth using.
Not really.
I still use email because nothing has come along that's proven to be any better.
Take SMS, for example. That was developed in the early 1980s and the first SMS message was sent in 1992. Yes, really. And nobody complains that SMS is old, even though it's ancient in the way it works. Nothing has come along that's proven to be better than SMS for phone-to-phone messaging.
Similarly, nothing has come along that's proven to be better than email for computer-to-computer internet messaging.
Every guitar is on sale for Black Friday - except the Squier guitars
This is just a quickie reminder to guitar shoppers out there that if you were waiting for good Black Friday deals on Squier guitars, it's not going to happen.
I've been watching the big guitar retailers, and of course they're discounting all the really expensive stuff from Fender. Or to be more specific, American Fender and Fender Custom Shop. As for the deals on the Mexico Fenders? Not really much to save there.
And as for the Squier guitars, their prices aren't being touched.
What this means is that if you've been eyeing a Squier guitar and waiting for a big price drop this Friday, it's not happening.
You're better off buying it now while the guitars are in stock, because they're already priced as low as they can go.
Fans don't care what brand of guitar you play
In the end, from a fan's point of view, the brand of the guitar absolutely does not matter.
Something a lot of guitar players forget is that when it comes to what other people - as in NON-MUSICIANS - think of the gear you own, only two things matter. The shape and the color. That's it.
The two most recognizable solid-body guitar shapes are the Stratocaster and the Les Paul. As long as the guitar is one of those two shapes and has a color that looks cool, nothing else matters in the eyes of a fan.
And if you want to complete the package, so to speak, you can use any amplifier that says "Marshall" on the front with the gold-color control plate like this one, or any silver-face Fender amplifier.
The cheapest way to get that guitar look is to buy a Squier and a low-cost Fender amp. The total cost is between $500 to $600 USD if you bought everything all at once.
In reality, nobody cares what the amp looks like either, so you could probably slim the total cost down to $400 or maybe even less - again if you bought everything all at once.
What is a guitar that "looks cool" to a non-musician?
Answer: Any guitar that doesn't look like a children's toy and appears expensive.
If the guitar is of a standard adult size, the shape is correct, logos are correct, colors are correct and it appears upscale, that's a winning formula.
A guitar that absolutely nails it is the Squier Vintage Modified Stratocaster in "vintage blonde", which I did own at one point.
The only reason I parted with this guitar was because of finish issues (it had a few chips in the paint, and the paint on the back of the body looked iffy). However, I may pick up another one of these because I'm sure those QC issues have been addressed by this point.
This Strat is something non-musicians are easily impressed by. Very cool look, very cool color, proper black-and-gold logo, "swoop" STRATOCASTER logo, 3-ply pick guard, and so on. It's all there. It's also a fantastic sounding, fantastic playing guitar.
Believe me, Squier really nailed it right with this particular axe. And as far as non-musicians are concerned, this guitar is 100% coolness defined. If I weren't so much into Jazzmaster guitars, I would have bought another one of these already.
And speaking of the Jazzmaster, While I prefer the red one I currently own, if I was going to buy one specifically to impress non-musician types, I'd get the sunburst version.
The Jazz isn't recognized like the Strat and Les Paul are, but in sunburst it looks like something that came straight out of 1964 - and that's not a bad thing. It has a big, leaning body shape that's very curvy and almost has a "fast" appearance to it. It's just a cool shape all around, and quite the comfortable player.
I don't recommend the Jazzmaster nor the Jaguar (available in the same sunburst color) to beginner players because the guitar has a lot going on with it. But if you're willing to sit down and figure the guitar out, it's a great looker and great player.
On a final note, let's talk about the Les Paul.
Now although I'm not into Les Pauls (I traded mine out), and not really into Epiphone brand either, there is one Les Paul they make that absolutely nails the vintage vibe, and that's the "Collection" Les Paul in a finish called Honeyburst.
Now you might be thinking that the classic Les Paul look is to get one in Heritage Cherry Sunburst - and you'd be right, as that is the classic Paul look.
However, the mid-priced Les Paul in Honeyburst has more vintage flavor going on with it. There's no obvious red in this finish, giving the guitar more of a gold color. As such, it has a more upscale look.
Not my kind of guitar, but it's gorgeous. And to the non-musician, it's the kind of axe they would look at and say "Wow!" because yeah, it looks that good.
Another thing I should mention is that while Heritage Cherry Sunburst is a classic look for a Paul, the way Epiphone does it doesn't really look that great in person. I know this because I've seen and played one personally. The best way I can describe the color is that it's almost orange-like. Gibson's red actually looks red on a burst. Epiphone's doesn't.
Honeyburst on the other hand has the gold look to it, and that's a finish Epiphone totally gets correct. If it's gold or gold-like, Epiphone is good. If it's red with a burst, I've not seen an Epiphone yet (not on a solid-body anyway) that really made it work.
The "safer" of the colors, and the better one in my opinion, is the Honeyburst over Heritage Cherry Sunburst.
My take on Rondo electric guitars
I sometimes get asked on what I think of Rondo guitars.
That answer depends on the kind of Rondo guitars you're talking about, because they basically make, well, everything.
Rondo has several brands of guitars they make, such as SX, Agile, Hadean and Sprite. As far as where Rondo guitars are made, my guess is that they probably use a few different guitar factories across the world. As far as build country of origin, that I don't know. But it wouldn't surprise me if they used Korean and Indonesian factories.
The price range of Rondo goes all over the place. They make cheap kids guitars for under $50 all the way to pro-level guitars like the Pendulum Pro that are just under $1,000.
On top of all that, Rondo even offers what they call "Semi-Custom" Agile guitars, which is their version of a guitar custom shop.
Now as far as my personal opinion of Rondo guitars, I don't know them all, but I know some, so here's my take on them.
Solid-body classic designs
The only two good brands Rondo has here are SX and Agile.
SX brand
The Furrian Tele copy and the Hawk Strat copy in full-scale models are at the same quality level as Squier Vintage Modified and sometimes exceeds it. When you go above the $200 range, you start seeing some really good stuff.
On the Strat side, the best SX model is any LEO model, and the best Tele is the Furrian "MN Ash NA", which means "Maple neck with North American Ash body." The SX LEO is the better looking of the two.
Agile brand
For most people, this is the only brand from Rondo worth checking out.
When you go above the $300 range for Agile axes, you start getting into pretty-darned-good territory.
When you go over $400, you see Agile Les Paul copies that have a Floyd-Rose tremolo system on it. Yes, Agile does that. On a Les Paul.
When you go over $500, which is Agile AL-3200 model territory, you get things like 5-piece neck-through design, contour "belly" cuts in the body for easier play, AlNiCo magnet humbuckers, mahogany body (arched), binding everywhere, flame top, nickel-plated hardware, graph tech nut, ebony fretboard, real mother-of-pearl inlays (not pearloid), the works.
The AL-3200 model in particular is, without question, the most Les Paul copy for the money you can buy. Feature-wise, nobody else makes a Paul that even comes close for the price it sells for.
What about Strats and Teles that are Agile-branded?
There are no Teles that Agile makes, and only a handful of Strats which are nice, but not all that better than the SX models. I would only get an Agile-branded Strat if you specifically want a baritone guitar in a Strat shape, which Agile does make. It's a 30-inch scale and weird, but yeah, they make it.
Multi-scale guitars (8-string and above)
I'm not into multi-scale guitars and have no use for them. But I do know one thing. For players that are into multi-scale guitars, it's Agile or nothing because it's the most affordable brand that actually delivers the goods.
The question is not "Why buy one?" for multi-scale players, but rather "How could you not buy one?", given it is such an obviously good choice for multi-scale players on a tight budget.
At the time I write this, these are the lowest-priced offerings per each string configuration:
8-string: Starts at $399
9-string: Starts at $699 (although can be had for under $600 with "B stock")
10-string: Starts at $995
If you think the prices are high, they're not.
The lower-cost 8-string Agile makes (Septor 827) is the same price as an Ibanez RG8, and is arguably the better guitar.
The 9-string Agile makes is slightly more affordable than the Ibanez RG9.
In the 10-string department, that's pretty much Agile-only territory. I'm sure there must be other makers who build 10-string guitars, but Agile makes one that's readily available right now at a price that's below custom shop level.
Is Rondo better than Fender, Squier, Gibson or Epiphone?
I'll split this into separate questions and answers.
Better than Fender?
No. At best, what Rondo makes is on par with Squier Classic Vibe Series as far as Fender copy guitars are concerned.
Better than Squier?
Yes and no. Yes, in the respect you get more choice and more configurations. No, in the respect that there's nothing Rondo makes that captures what I call "Fender essence."
What I mean by that is that if you bought a Squier Classic Vibe Telecaster '50s, that's one awesome Telecaster that totally feels and sounds like a Fender Telecaster should be. You're not going to get that kind of Fender essence out of a Rondo.
Better than Gibson?
Yes and no. Yes, in the respect you save tons of money and get all the goodies. No, in the respect the neck feel is different. Agile Paul copies use a very-flat fingerboard radius, and the neck isn't asymmetrical like on a Gibson.
However...
For the player that likes to solo a lot, the Agile is the better guitar because you fret out less on a flatter fingerboard. One could arguably say the Agile Paul copy is the "best shredder Paul" that exists. I don't shred, but if that's your thing, the Agile Paul copy is the better guitar for that sort of thing.
Also, for the player that likes a Paul "how they used to make 'em", most of Agile's Pauls are solid-body, as in no chambering, just like Gibson used to make them.
Better than Epiphone?
Concerning the Les Paul guitar, yes, Agile is better than Epiphone.
Epiphone makes nothing that comes even close to the goodies and features you get on an Agile Paul copy for the price it sells for. Epiphone simply cannot match the price point of an Agile AL-3200 and never will because they don't sell direct like Rondo does.
Concerning the SG model, Epiphone is still top dog for "correct low-cost SG guitar".
Concerning the Explorer model, Epiphone makes the better guitar - when they're in production, that is. The most recent two models were the Epiphone Explorer Pro and the 1984 Explorer model. Both are now out of production, but can still be bought new at the time I write this until the remaining stock is all sold out.
Final notes
Rondo makes good stuff. They make the best Les Paul copy and for multi-scale guitarists, Rondo's Agile brand is basically the only game in town.
As for the Paul, I think the best way I can describe this is that most Epiphone Les Pauls have a nasty habit of feeling toy-like, whereas an Agile AL-3200 goes up so many levels above what Epiphone can make. The AL-3200 is the kind of guitar where you don't feel like you settled for less.
For multi-scale stuff, it's like I said, for most players who like axes of that kind, it's Agile or nothing. Rondo has the balls to produce relatively low-cost multi-scale guitars that are available right now.