This is a full comprehensive guide for buying a guitar. We will help you through the common mistakes, tips, and selection process. Here at Northwest Guitars we have built the store on the success of the player, not the purchase. This means we are invested in more then the first sale. It is in our best interest that you become the best guitar player you can be. This is why we have repairs, lessons, hand selected stock and shows/clinics. So enough talk. Lets start the guide!
Tips to Buying a Guitar
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Guitar Buy Guide 1: QualityGuitar Buy Guide 2: SetupGuitar Buy Guide 3: Teacher |
Buying a guitar can be a daunting a process. There are brand driven fanatics, beginners who are giving false information, and about a trillion brands and models. This is where we saw a niche for our existence. My father and brother started this store because they wanted to create a store that does all the hard work for you while making the experience fun. You can support our store by getting a guitar here. Where we hand select everything we carry, setup and give you a free lesson. Big stores don't care if you are successful. They care about the purchase. We care about you becoming a guitar player. We want you to get excited, practice, hang out here, come to our shows and create a life long hobbie. Its good for you and its good for us. The way business should be.
Selecting the Instrument
- Acoustic or Electric: Figure out the kind of sound you want. To be perfectly honest most people don't have a clue what they want to play or the guitar that's right for them. And honestly at that point just have our staff member pick something for you. Its best to dive head first. There is nothing wrong with figuring it out as you go. However if you do have a vague idea of what you are interested in, its pretty easy to figure out if its acoustic style or electric. Again our staff member can figure this out by asking some simple questions.
- Price Point: How much do you want to spend?
$1000 and up is American, Japanese or Canadian made guitars. This is the highest quality you can get.
$700 - $900 is the best of the overseas options. This is quality woods, great pick ups, great hardware just not put together with the time, knowledge and care that the premiere factories will put into the process.
$500 - $600 This is the mid level guitars. Still a very playable, nice guitar. They have more colors, woods, styles then the inexpensive guitars but not as many options as the higher level guitars.
$300 - $400 In this area you will see limited options. What you see is what you get kind of guitars. Solid tops generally start in at this price point and most pickups are generally generic factory brand.
$150 - $200 This is bottom of the barrel. This is where you need to be careful. Quality can start to very drastically. Expect very little options and all factory generic parts. Its still very possible to find a good guitar in this range but sound quality is low.
$100 and below. If this is your price point I'm sorry to say but I HIGHLY recommend you just don't buy a guitar. I know that sounds harsh but I'd rather you spend no money than buy a guitar that won't work. The reason is you may get frustrated and just quit. Then it's harder to come back to the guitar after that bad experience. If your budget is at this point I suggest keeping in touch with us on our used guitar stock or saving up.