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> The true magic lies not in the guitar itself, but in the virtuosity of the musician who brings it to life. Arguments like these are often used to defend unpo
by codeflo 3y ago
> The true magic lies not in the guitar itself, but in the virtuosity of the musician who brings it to life.
Arguments like these are often used to defend unpopular technology choices, like (insert disliked programming language here). "A true master can use any tool!" And yet, I've never seen a professional guitar player use a cheap shitty guitar.
- raddan 3y agohttps://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankenstrat https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankenstrat
- AnimalMuppet 3y agoNot "shitty". I presume it wasn't cheap, either. He custom modified it to be exactly what he wanted, not to save money.
- anjel 3y agoEVH Built it pre-success, when he was poor and the neck was bought as a binned factory second.
- Lukas_Skywalker 3y ago> Van Halen bought the body and maple neck (which was a factory reject) for $130 [...]. Van Halen was able to purchase the factory second body at a discount price of $50 due to a knot in the wood. The $80 neck had jumbo fret wire, and its truss rod was adjustable at the heel. That seems to be pretty cheap. I agree he didn't do it to save money though.
- Forge36 3y agoIn which setting? The quality of a guitar has an impact on the output. A bad player won't be better by a good instrument. There are known examples of masters forced to use bad instruments to create great music. I believe this story has been on HN before https://www.entrepreneur.com/leadership/when-keith-jarrett-played-on-a-very-broken-pianoand-then/309653 https://www.entrepreneur.com/leadership/when-keith-jarrett-p...
- criddell 3y agoJack White was famous for using inexpensive guitars in The White Stripes. https://www.guitarplayer.com/gear/i-always-look-at-playing-guitar-as-an-attack-it-has-to-be-a-fight-how-jack-white-made-cheap-guitars-cool-and-expensive https://www.guitarplayer.com/gear/i-always-look-at-playing-g... Manufacturing is so good these days that even the cheapest guitars are pretty good. Justin Sandercoe is a well known guitar teacher on YouTube and he did a series where he bought the cheapest Amazon guitar ($60 IIRC) and went through a full setup with it. He and the guitar tech. were both impressed with how good the instrument was. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-0SHE_xooyU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-0SHE_xooyU
- AlbertCory 3y agoI'm not playing guitar now, but from what I've heard, the knockoff Les Paul or Strat is almost as good as the real one. Plus if it's stolen you just buy another.
- kelnos 3y agoI guess that doesn't really contradict the GP, though, no? They said "cheap, shitty guitars". Sounds like Jack White used cheap, but not shitty*, guitars.
- criddell 3y agoThe second part of my comment argues that there are cheap guitars, but maybe the era of shitty guitars is over.
- whstl 3y agoNah, they were categorically "shitty", since they were not well made and a bit difficult to play. "I’ve been playing the most difficult guitars to play all my life. But with all the changes I had to deal with—people I never played with before, two days of sessions in New York, two in L.A.—I didn’t have time to monkey around with antique guitars in that moment." https://blog.evhgear.com/2018/06/jack-white/ https://blog.evhgear.com/2018/06/jack-white/
- Avshalom 3y ago
- raincole 3y agoThe hivemind advice is to use a cheapest tool for learning when you're just getting started. ...and I strongly disagree with it. I think if you are serious about learning, you should get a reasonably good one from day 1 (if it doesn't hurt you financially, ofc). Shitty tools can sometimes waste a hefty amount of your time. Anyone who ever paint watercolor on papers that are not for watercolor knows what I mean. All the time you could've spent on... guess what, practicing.
- TillE 3y agoI've seen that advice about (electric) guitars too, and it's so wrong. A cheap shitty guitar will feel awful to play, have problems staying in tune, etc. If you're at all serious about it, I'd go straight for one of the $1000+ flagship guitars. Go to a shop, figure out what you like, but absolutely don't waste your money on garbage.
- vorador 3y agoGenuine question, when did you learn to play? Even 10 years ago entry-level solidbody guitars where quite good, and they keep getting better. Things like CNC manufacturing, tighter tolerances etc. really improved the quality of the average instrument.
- tomtheelder 3y agoI think you’re basically fine with anything $500+ these days tbh. I say this as someone who owns multiple $1000+ guitars. You might get incredibly marginal gains in playability, sound, etc, at that price, but realistically my $500-$1k guitars are all completely capable instruments.
- maccard 3y agoFor a beginner a $500 instrument is way overkill. An affinity squier, yamaha pacific, or a variety of epiphones are available for half of that, and are more than capable for beginners.
- chaosite 3y agoJaco Pastorius famously played a Fender Jazz Bass from which he removed the frets with a butter knife, then sanded down and finished with marine epoxy. Then it got broken so he had it restored and kept playing it. Many touring or pub musicians play a plain old mass produced guitar, because if anything happens to it (for example, when flying) they can just pop into any music store in whatever city they are and get another for a reasonable price.
- bee_rider 3y agoWas a Fender Jazz Bass a cheap instrument, or just a non-expensive instrument? I think there’s the gap between the most overpriced gee-whiz prosumer device that they’ll try to sell somebody with more money than skill, and an actual professional device. I also think there’s a space far below the actual professional device, the space of brands that the professional might not even think about—stuff that exists to trick people who just stopped by the store or who are shopping for their kids. Which gap you have to worry about falling into depends on the type of device.
- spondylosaurus 3y agoNo idea about Fender's quality range in Jaco's time (although to be fair, Fender was the original electric bass and there were fewer options overall in the 70s), but nowadays Fender basses vary quite a bit in price/quality depending on what line you're getting. At the cheapest end you have their Squier line, and then you have MIM/MIJ (made in Mexico/Japan) Fender basses, and at the top of the line are American-made Fender basses, which have their own price variations. But even the most expensive Fender basses pale in cost compared to like, a Wal. I think what's notable about Jaco is less that it was a Fender and more that (the story goes) he DIY'd his fretboard with a butter knife. So the point of comparison would be between someone today, who feels like they can only get a good fretless tone if they go out and buy a fretless Wal for $10k, versus buying your own Fender for less than a tenth of that modifying the fretboard yourself—just like Jaco did.
- whstl 3y agoOf course it was a good instrument, and it was made in the US with good materials, so it couldn't be the cheapest. It wasn't a Sears or Silvertone bass. But it was still an off-the-shelf instrument that was mass-produced in order to be less expensive. I bet that virtually every instrument used in a professional orchestra at the time (except the tiny stuff) was more expensive than that bass.
- eikenberry 3y agoRobert Smith and his Woolworth's Top 20 electric guitar.
- bch 3y agoI don’t know if you’ve over qualified to the point you can’t lose (“shitty”), or if this[0] counts. I thought Peter Buck (of R.E.M., most associated w Rickenbacker) might have worked w a Sears guitar too (he might have, but I couldn’t find a reference), but he apparently used a Sears Silvertone amp as a regular piece of his gear[1]. Is buying from a Sears catalog good enough to qualify as “use any tool”? This is also glossing over the garbage and hand-me-down crap that many grow up with on their way to becoming experts. [0] https://www.guitarworld.com/features/pro-guitar-players-who-play-cheap-guitars https://www.guitarworld.com/features/pro-guitar-players-who-... [1] https://equipboard.com/pros/peter-buck https://equipboard.com/pros/peter-buck
- coldtea 3y ago>And yet, I've never seen a professional guitar player use a cheap shitty guitar. Professional guitar players use "cheap shitty guitars" all the time. From the Beatles to the biggest stadium bands, not to mention people who make it a point of pride to do so, like Jack White.
- peanut-walrus 3y agoElectric guitars (and basses) are pretty simple instruments, there are only 3 things that affect the sound you get out of it: the pickups (and how they're placed), the strings you are using and the setup. Everything else is quality-of-life improvement rather than sound improvement (assuming the instrument is at least mostly competent and doesn't have frets placed incorrectly or some internal signal processing that destroys the sound). However, for acoustic instruments, you certainly get what you pay for. You really don't often see professional violinists or classical guitar players using cheap instruments, as the quality of the instrument affects the sound to a much higher degree. Most tools are quite similar to this, professionals know what they are looking for and don't need to get the most expensive or advanced tool, except in cases where it is absolutely necessary for optimal performance. They know the key things to look for to get the best performance out of the tool and the other characteristics they choose according to their preference or customize as needed.
- dmbche 3y agohttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n02tImce3AE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n02tImce3AE If you're interested, this is pretty fascinating - he shows experimentaly that the guitar itself has little to do with tone. Other than that better made instruments could (no promises!) hold their tuning a little better, but you can cheaply buy locks or spend some money having that re-done. More than this and I have a hard explaining what a "pro" guitar could do to help an amateur. You get the same tones out of it, pedals and amps have much more impact on sound anyway. And seriously, unless you have musical training, you'll never hear the difference between epiphone and gibson, or squier and fender.
- ce4 3y agoTheres examples, though. Stephen Hendry, the Snooker professional played with the cheap 40£ cue of his youth for a long time into his professional career and won championships with it. It broke in 2003: https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2003/sep/02/snooker.cliveeverton https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2003/sep/02/snooker.clivee...
- nemo44x 3y agoKurt Cobain famously played cheap shitty guitars because that’s all he could afford but also the overpowered humbucker helped him develop his famous tone. He wrote some famous songs with them. Univox Hi-flyers to be exact. He went through a ton of them and they were about $100 each. He even played them after he was wealthy.