Guitar Shopping For Dummies

Going into a guitar store is daunting. You've got the sales guy trying to sell you $4500 custom guitars, all the while trying to make you feel like a retard and scaring you shitless. You've got a million choices, and waaaay too much to think about. Here's where you start. In applicable parts, the bottom section will be an additional aid for first-time shoppers.

Part I - What You Want

Before you go into a guitar store, try to figure out what it is you want in a guitar. Figure out what you like aesthetically, the sound you want, and how much you're looking to pay. Do you prefer single-coil or humbuckers? Bolt-on or set necks? What weight and body contour feel good on your body? Do you want an uber-shredder or a jazz ax?

If you're not quite sure what sound you're looking for, think of some of your favorite players, find out what they use, and go in and try it out. If you like it, sweet. If not, you'll just have to shop around more.

-First Timers Only
If you have just started playing guitar and have never purchased one before, I would recommend spending no more than $300 on a guitar. Less if possible. If you can't play really well when looking for a guitar, chances are you're going to pick out a guitar at first that you will grow out of very quickly. Or in my case, realize that the guitar you thought was awesome three months ago is now a recognizable piece of crap. Moreover, who knows how long you stick with the guitar? After a few months you may decide it's just not for you.

Contrary to what you might think, buying a cheap guitar does not mean buying a crappy guitar. You just have to get your money's worth. Used is also a great way to go, but you have to be more careful shopping used. An honest used or vintage guitar store is a haven for new guitar players. Look for employees that respond to your questions quickly and with a lot of information. Shy away from places in which the person is offering you the minimal amount of help to point you towards something you'll buy.

Part II - Picking Out A Guitar

You're going to want to consider a few things when picking out a guitar to try out.

Assuming the guitar has been put on the sales floor, it should have a proper set up. If not, this does not apply. However, if the guitar is set up well, you should be able to get the sucker in tune, and without much of a fuss. If you can't get a guitar to stay in tune, ESPECIALLY if it has a locking nut/floyd-rose system on it, leave it on the rack. This is also assuming, of course, that you know how to tune a guitar.

Scan over all of the hardware on the guitar and make sure that everything is in place, aligned, and in relatively good condition. Some things are easy to replace, but for the most part, crappy hardware condition is an indication of a shitty guitar (if it's new) or a guitar whose previous owner beat the crap out of it (if it's used). Either way that's a bad sign. Check the tuners to see that they are sensitive, that they don't give way if the strings are yanked. Beware that most guitars in stores tend to have pretty baked strings already from all the client use, so it's probably not the tuner's fault if a string gets slightly out of tune. Make sure that there are no threaded screws in important parts of the guitar (the screws on either side of a pickup's horizontal axis are exceptions. They don't come out).

Now take a look at the fretwork. Frets should not have chopped tops (i.e. the curve of the fret should be constant, no pronounced flat fret tops). Frets should also be set at the same height, to check this, test each fret for buzzing (not the natural buzzing/slapping that can occur, but a really annoying buzzing that totally distorts the note sound) when played. You'll know if you hear it. Alternatively just play the guitar for a while and make sure that no frets buzz. MAKE SURE THAT IT IS THE GUITAR AND NOT YOUR BAD PLAYING before blaming it on the guitar. A partially depressed note will produce buzzing as well. Particular areas to test are the first couple of frets on all strings and the frets right before and right after the 12th fret. No fret wire should protrude off either side of the neck, and if you were to run a finger up and down either side, all should be flush and smooth.

Feel the neck contour, running your hand in playing position up and down the neck...no sick comments. Find a neck contour that fits your hand size and geometry comfortably.

Finally, pick something out that you think looks cool. Ultimately, your guitar has got to make you marvel at its sleek lines, so pick something you LIKE TO LOOK AT. Hell, half of the deal is image anyhow. However, be forewarned if you decide to go for a wicked-looking and jagged ax, you're going to miss being able to play it sitting down...unless having a pointy piece of wood jammed into your groin is just what you're looking for. So get something slick looking AND ergonomic.

Part III - Play Test

As tempted as you might be to ask your friendly guitar salesperson for a cable, a pick, and directions to the nearest Marshall stack, the first playing of your guitar must be unplugged. A surefire way to let the salesperson know you mean business is to refuse their pushy offers to plug you in. In nine cases out of ten that employee will slowly back away, realizing that this customer (being you) won't be tricked.

Find a quiet place in the store, tuck your ear down to the strings (around the pickups doofus, not over the neck), and strum a few open chords. Get a feel for the acoustic quality of the WOOD, and get a sense of how the guitar resonates. Notice how much vibration you feel in your fretting hand (as in vibration coming through the neck), and pay attention to the frequency range of the sounds produced. Look for a guitar that has vibrant and colorful sound even when unplugged. This is something that's very hard to explain, but especially with some experience and exposure, you will be able to differentiate between a dead piece of wood (stay away) and a winner. All electric guitars will sound relatively tinny and thin-sounding unplugged, but there is a huge difference between a guitar with noticeable lack of sustain and an exaggerated tin-can sound and a guitar with choice woods and a (relatively) full-bodied sound. Another thing you can begin to get a sense of already is how the guitar feels to play. Does it make you melt? Does it bend like like butter, sing when you effortlessly throw a wide vibrato on a note? Or do you have to fight it to produce a clean sound?

So once you've found a nice instrument, find your friendly guitar salesperson again and ask for a cable. Once again, you will have to shy away from your desires. Both you and the salesperson will probably lean towards dialing in a nuclear overdrive channel. NIX! Resist the temptation to rip out a thrashing solo, and instead, put your amp in clean mode, kill any effects that might be in use (except perhaps a SLIGHT amount of reverb if a totally dry sound freaks you out), and stick all the equalizer settings to the middle. Remember, you are not here to test amps, or to sound good. You are here to compare guitars, and the only way to do that is by eliminating all outside influences on guitar tone. Many older players attest that distortion hides your mistakes. That's a load of bullshit. Just try keeping the "Satch Boogie" clean with raging distortion on. However, it does mask differences in tone. Distortion reduces the range of a guitar's dynamics and hides a lot of nuances in tone. As an example, I think some guitars with EMG active pickups can sound great in overdrive (hell, it worked for Zakk, for Metallica, and God knows how many others), but as soon as the level of drive drops, you begin to notice how artificial and dry the guitar's actual tone is. So the take home lesson? Start with the clean channel. A nice Fender tube amp (think Twin Reverb, Vibrolux, or even a Deville) is a great place to start.

That said, with your clean amp set to stun, proceed to do all of the following. What you will do is do exactly the same thing, on exactly the same amp, for every guitar you are comparing. I cannot stress this enough. You are comparing guitars, so everything must be done identically. Here's your checklist:

	Tune guitar perfectly to pitch.		Test all switches and pots.
	If w/ trem, depress bar fully, release, and test retention of tuning. If need be, retune.		Make sure that the guitar has the full dynamic and timbral range that you are seeking.
	If the guitar does not have an adjustable bridge, play through open chords and play barre chords all across fretboard. Listen for note out of tune. If the guitar is perfectly tuned and there is no way to further adjust intonation, leave the guitar alone.		Play EVERY possible note on the fretboard at least once alone. Vibrato each note. Check to make sure that every note CAN sound cleanly even when bent. Ultimately you must make sure there are no issues with dead spots or fret heights.
	Test how much pressure you need in your fretting fingers to get a clean sound. The less pressure needed, the better.		Play the exact same piece, riff, or scale in each possible configuration. Observe how it affects the instrument's tone. Check for electrical issues.

If you know what you're doing, some of this may be redundant with what you already did in selecting the guitar. If you're new to this, though, doing some of this stuff over again will make more sense once you're plugged in. Don't let this list dictate limits of your test sequence, either. If there are any specific criteria you have that you need your next guitar to meet, by all means, put the axe in question through its paces. The key is to repeat the exact same process so that you can see where differences between guitars lie. For example, without playing the same test piece on each guitar, you could inadvertently play pieces that mask each guitar's particular deficiency.

Finally, you get to have some fun. If you've done your job up to this point, this may not be a necessary step, but most people enjoy it nonetheless. Now you get to dial in the dirt, whether a blues-crunch or full-on WWIII, and make the hopefuls wail. Here the main thing to listen for is whether the guitar's pickups can handle the amount of gain you want them to take, and how that level of gain affects its tone. Different pickups react differently. Fool around for a while and see if you can't find exactly what it is you're looking for. The key is persistence. Don't limit yourself to one shop. Play the field and don't settle for anything sub-par. You do that, and hopefully you'll soon be the proud owner of a new guitar.