Gamers who play musical instruments

I've been jealously looking at a lot of guitars lately and wanting to get a new one. As I was looking at various fun guitars via reddit, I noticed occasionally folks reporting that some neat guitar they got they picked up super cheap from Facebook Marketplace or similar sorts of places where people might sell stuff just to get rid of it at low prices, and so took a look myself to see whether anything intriguing was available in my area. I stumbled across this listing and I am very suspicious: $125 + $20 shipping for a nice looking telecaster copy. The same guy has many more listings for like $99 stratocasters, $60 acoustic guitars, etc. I'm trying to figure out...what's the catch? Even if these are not high quality wood and cheap electronics and stuff, these prices still seem unbelievable. I'm scanning the listings for some explanation, like they're child's sized, or actually they come without any of the electronics, or you're actually just buying a picture of a guitar or something, but not spotting any red flags like that. And he seems to have enough listings and reviews on Reverb and OfferUp to suggest this probably isn't a scam where he just doesn't ship you anything at all. Any ideas? Even if they're real, they have to be terrible, right?

They're very probably terrible; you can find cheap guitars that are shockingly good for the price, but the real issue with cheaper lines is quality control, and it's an absolute roll of the dice. I would never buy a cheap guitar online, as the odds of there being something wrong with it are just too damn high, and I would very much need to pick it up and play it to see if the frets are wonky, the neck's screwed up, or if it goes out of tune after four seconds.

Could be decent instruments, but I would bet against it.

Yeah, I guess I'm just surprised that even terrible guitars could be so cheap? But, in trying to support this opinion I was preparing to say something like "even the lowest tier Squier is like $300, so how could anything plausibly called a guitar get that much cheaper," but then I did a quick google and it looks like actually Guitar Center has Squiers and Epiphones in the $130-$170 range, so I guess I just didn't realize how cheap legit guitars could get. Knowing a name brand guitar can be had for comparable prices, I'd certainly buy one of those before going to this guy on facebook, but agree that it's a risk for quality control.

This all reminds me of when, in 8th grade as I'd been taking guitar lessons for a few months using an acoustic my dad owned, I bought a crummy and junior-sized electric guitar off of a friend who had one he'd stopped using. I was just excited because it was the first time I'd ever played an electric guitar! I brought it in to my guitar teacher, feeling a little proud of my cool electric guitar, and he looked at it, raised an eyebrow and said "okay...how much did you pay for this?" and I said "$30" and he said "...yeah that sounds about right." A few months later I'd gotten a much more respectable full-sized strat knockoff (a Samick, IIRC) for Christmas and the teacher was relieved.

Even those Squier Strats are a complete roll of the dice; I've played some that felt like "real" Strats in every way, and others that were basically inconveniently-shaped firewood. I was talking about it with the owner of my favorite guitar shop, and he'd stopped carrying Fender/Squier a while back. He'd had loads of issues with people returning Squiers due to manufacturing defects, and the hilarious thing was Fender told him it wasn't worth the bother of returning the instruments to them; they just told him to saw off the headstock to prove the instrument had been destroyed and just send that, and throw the rest away. Both hilarious and tragic at the same time.

Anyone have experience with Charvel guitars? I have been eyeing the Joe Duplantier model. It looks baller.

https://www.charvel.com/gear/shape/san-dimas/style-2/joe-duplantier-signature-pro-mod-san-dimas-style-2-hh/2976181398

Fredrik_S wrote:

Anyone have experience with Charvel guitars? I have been eyeing the Joe Duplantier model. It looks baller.

https://www.charvel.com/gear/shape/san-dimas/style-2/joe-duplantier-signature-pro-mod-san-dimas-style-2-hh/2976181398

Yeah, I have a newish Charvel, single cut Les Paul style, a DS-1 I think. It's a great guitar for the money. Looks beautiful, plays like a champ. My only complaint is that the Charvel-branded active pickups don't sound great to my ears but otherwise it's a rock solid midrange instrument.

edit: mine looks like this - actually probably one of the prettier electric guitars I own. Not bad for a $500 axe
IMAGE(https://content.invisioncic.com/w286537/monthly_2011_09/5359a0a2629dc.jpg.cb1933ae5547b8416b2b61a2af6d76ed.jpg)

MilkmanDanimal wrote:

I sold a very nice acoustic on Reverb I just didn't play enough to justify keeping it, and I talked to my local guitar shop guy about it, and he gave me a box and all sorts of advice on how to properly ship it. Slack the strings, put in a guitar box with padding, put that box in a larger box surrounded by peanuts, send with insurance. Showed up perfectly fine. If I'm capable of shipping an acoustic, major retailers are fine shipping electrics. Buy away.

My telecaster is out for delivery. If it isn't perfect, I blame you.

Podunk wrote:
Fredrik_S wrote:

Anyone have experience with Charvel guitars? I have been eyeing the Joe Duplantier model. It looks baller.

https://www.charvel.com/gear/shape/san-dimas/style-2/joe-duplantier-signature-pro-mod-san-dimas-style-2-hh/2976181398

Yeah, I have a newish Charvel, single cut Les Paul style, a DS-1 I think. It's a great guitar for the money. Looks beautiful, plays like a champ. My only complaint is that the Charvel-branded active pickups don't sound great to my ears but otherwise it's a rock solid midrange instrument.

edit: mine looks like this - actually probably one of the prettier electric guitars I own. Not bad for a $500 axe
IMAGE(https://content.invisioncic.com/w286537/monthly_2011_09/5359a0a2629dc.jpg.cb1933ae5547b8416b2b61a2af6d76ed.jpg)

Gorgeous. Thanks for the feedback on it. I just contacted a guitar store here in town to see if they can order one for me.

Re: cheap guitars

There was a time when the Squire and Epiphone brands ONLY sold quality guitars. Their lowest priced guitars ranged from $200.00 to $300.00. I bought an Epiphone SG many years ago. Circa 2005. About $250.00. Brand new. Im the first owner. It’s still a great guitar today. All of my friends who have played it can’t believe it’s a $250.00 guitar.

These days though, Epiphone and Squire do sell crap guitars. These range in price from $70.00 to $100.00. They sometimes even come with an amp. I would bet that these garbage “instruments” only cost $15.00 to produce.

It’s a total grift. Those brands built a solid reputation and then cashed in. Sold their souls. I have zero respect for that kind of marketing. Just yesterday I was in target and I talked an 18yo guy out of buying a $120.00 acoustic guitar.

SallyNasty wrote:
MilkmanDanimal wrote:

I sold a very nice acoustic on Reverb I just didn't play enough to justify keeping it, and I talked to my local guitar shop guy about it, and he gave me a box and all sorts of advice on how to properly ship it. Slack the strings, put in a guitar box with padding, put that box in a larger box surrounded by peanuts, send with insurance. Showed up perfectly fine. If I'm capable of shipping an acoustic, major retailers are fine shipping electrics. Buy away.

My telecaster is out for delivery. If it isn't perfect, I blame you.

Sorry, there was a cheevo for "Convince Sally to buy a crappy guitar". I mean, I feel bad, but 30 Gamerscore is 30 Gamerscore, you know?

That isn't a crappy guitar, you monster!

Raining really hard in KC tonight, so i am in the garage pacing, waiting for the UPS man to bring my package. I am like a kid at Christmas, lol.

One of the people I regularly jam with invited me to his outdoor birthday party at a nearby park, and told me to bring my gear. There are going to be a ton of really good musicians there just hanging out and jamming after the food. I am a little intimidated and nervous, but also super excited. It should be a lot of fun as long as someone can help my wife with the two kids while I play.

And I still have my birthday jam coming up, yay!

Sounds awesome, Mixolyde.

One of my best holiday memories is still when my family and I went to a very small Greek island (half hour boat ride from Athens, where we live) for Easter. We were at a small hotel that makes a huge traditional Greek Orthodox Easter feast (lots of entire lambs on spits over coals) that had lots of expats, mostly Brits. There was an American guy who got out this guitar, as I guess he traditionally would entertain/lead sing-a-longs, etc. I told him, "I can sing." He was quite dubious. I sang one piece with him...and then we ended up singing/entertaining/leading sing-a-longs for the next 4 hours or something.

SallyNasty wrote:

That isn't a crappy guitar, you monster!

Raining really hard in KC tonight, so i am in the garage pacing, waiting for the UPS man to bring my package. I am like a kid at Christmas, lol.

How did this go? I have similar concerns as you about online ordering for guitars so curious how it turned out.

Wembley wrote:
SallyNasty wrote:

That isn't a crappy guitar, you monster!

Raining really hard in KC tonight, so i am in the garage pacing, waiting for the UPS man to bring my package. I am like a kid at Christmas, lol.

How did this go? I have similar concerns as you about online ordering for guitars so curious how it turned out.

Came packaged really well, mint and well set up out of the box. Was delivered really fast too.

SallyNasty wrote:
Wembley wrote:
SallyNasty wrote:

That isn't a crappy guitar, you monster!

Raining really hard in KC tonight, so i am in the garage pacing, waiting for the UPS man to bring my package. I am like a kid at Christmas, lol.

How did this go? I have similar concerns as you about online ordering for guitars so curious how it turned out.

Came packaged really well, mint and well set up out of the box. Was delivered really fast too.

That's great to hear. Thanks!

I had sold a whole bunch of stuff and had some money laying around, so I took the plunge and ordered a Charvel Joe Duplantier model guitar and it arrived yesterday. It's in dire need of a thorough setup but the neck on this thing is absolutely amazing. It kinda tapers in the further down the neck you go so at the top it's fat and chunky and lower down it's built for speed.

Pickups sounds pretty dang good to me, especially in high gain situations. Very pleased with my purchase. I did a quick setup on it, but there's something funky going on with the nut on it which I don't know if it's because of weather changes or if it's cut wrong. I'll let it acclimatize for awhile before trying another setup or taking it in.

The guitar on the right is my first "real" guitar I bought back in 1987. It's been through a lot.

IMAGE(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/E3UUgfNWUAE7Lb2?format=jpg&name=large)

The one on the right though… you’ve had it since ‘87? That’s your axe! That’s cool.

RawkGWJ wrote:

The one on the right though… you’ve had it since ‘87? That’s your axe! That’s cool.

I am very old and so is it. It's getting to the point where it can't hold it's tune well anymore because the neck is moving back and forth (you can actually hear it crack back and forth when using the whammy bar). So I don't use it a whole lot anymore because I am terrified of snapping the neck clean off one of these days.

Fredrik_S wrote:
RawkGWJ wrote:

The one on the right though… you’ve had it since ‘87? That’s your axe! That’s cool.

I am very old and so is it. It's getting to the point where it can't hold it's tune well anymore because the neck is moving back and forth (you can actually hear it crack back and forth when using the whammy bar). So I don't use it a whole lot anymore because I am terrified of snapping the neck clean off one of these days.

You should take it to a qualified luthier. A guitar with that amount of personal history is worth restoring to a playable state. I recently had a bit of work done on my $199.00 Epiphone SG and I’m really glad I did. I still play it regularly. I spent about $150.00 getting it spruced up. I’ll post a photo here one day. It’s got a pretty interesting look from all the stickers I’ve put on it.

Edit

These are my two electrics. I paid $349.99 for the red one. I love playing budget guitars. Weird flex, I know.

IMAGE(https://i.postimg.cc/jj6MjBbz/8-A1-FEB8-C-F51-E-44-B5-8317-B890-AD0684-A4.jpg)

IMAGE(https://i.postimg.cc/25NHrrPk/9148-AC02-30-FF-40-B6-8-EE7-4-E03-E3-E24-C5-C.jpg)

IMAGE(https://imgur.com/u6Xx5pI.jpg)

IMAGE(https://imgur.com/xIDFCWL.jpg)

From a friend's birthday bar-b-que and acoustic jam session. That's my acoustic/electric Fender Sonoran. I bought it used in like...2008, maybe? Somewhere around that, maybe a few years earlier. Love that axe!

Now that’s my kind of party

It was super fun. A lot of bluegrass, but I snuck a few classic rock tunes in there, too. My birthday jam is Saturday, which will basically be the same thing, but smaller.

Mixolyde wrote:

It was super fun. A lot of bluegrass, but I snuck a few classic rock tunes in there, too. My birthday jam is Saturday, which will basically be the same thing, but smaller.

I’m buying a bus ticket and I’m crashing your b-day.

Recently I got to perform with some musicians who I thought were too good for me. It could have gone better, but I think the door has been opened for future projects. Here’s hoping…

Everyone here is invited! PM me for the address, it's right off the DC beltway in Virginia.

So I started playing guitar again recently. I've been extremely lapsed for around 12 years. Picking the guitar up again for a few days then falling off for months at a time. I did play quite a lot of Rocksmith around 2014/15 I think, but that's tough to go back to.

The problem has been I used to be a fairly decent if unfocused player, but I've had trouble going back because I can't play the way I used to. Obviously I don't have the, very limited, chops anymore, and it's been frustrating not being able to pick up where I left off.

So I setup a little easy to use system. My rocksmith cable is permanently plugged in, guitar on a stand next to my desk and I can easily launch Guitar Rig and plink away a bit when I have the inclination.

Still didn't really help because nothing was quite grabbing me when it came time to choose what to do. Until I was watching some music stuff on Youtube and I came across a JustinGuitar Blues lesson and that hit me. I really like listening to the blues, but I never really focused on learning to play at all. So now at least once a day I pick up the guitar, plug in and just do basic progressions in various keys, with a few fun riffs thrown in between to keep it spicy.

It's been quite nice to just sit and do a few rounds of 12-bar progressions and focus on clean chord changes to and between open position 7th chords which are something I always avoided. I don't push too hard, but just commit to at least playing a bit every day.

Next week I'm planning on starting some scales and triads and just slowly get to grips with those.

I must say that YouTube really does make it a lot easier to do some basic stuff, although it can also confuse you if you're not careful.

IMAGE(https://i.postimg.cc/T3DPwD2W/20210629-120501.jpg)

So here's my baby, 1996 Washburn Mercury. Bought new in 1998 with my first money earned after moving out of my parents house. Not a wise purchase, but I got a lot of joy out of it.

Even in the last 2 weeks since I posted I've been doing very basic practice and starting to learn actual theory and skills I never had before.

MrDeVil909 wrote:

IMAGE(https://i.postimg.cc/T3DPwD2W/20210629-120501.jpg)

So here's my baby, 1996 Washburn Mercury. Bought new in 1998 with my first money earned after moving out of my parents house. Not a wise purchase, but I got a lot of joy out of it.

Even in the last 2 weeks since I posted I've been doing very basic practice and starting to learn actual theory and skills I never had before.

Ohhh.. that sea foam green is stunning! Glad to hear you are progressing. I know how frustrating it can be to pick it up again after a long hiatus, but I hope you stick with it and eventually you'll start remembering all the cool licks and tricks that you used to do. Good luck!

The colour is pretty great, but it's not actually a sea foam green, I need to get a pic in better light.

It's metallic and it used to be a mid-blue, but the front has gone green. It looks more blue at night and more green during the day. I'm also pretty sure the pick up covers and knobs were white, not ivory. The local sun is pretty brutal, and it's been in my sometimes less than tender care for (holy crap!) 23 years.

when I got it I'd walked into the local music shop, fell in love with the colour, walked home to get the cash and walked home with the guitar and a little 10W practice amp. About 10km of walking that day.

Took me a while to figure out how to get a good tone from the single coils considering I was mostly into humbucker driven music, and even now I'm still learning what a strat-type is supposed to sound like and work with that. I've considered switching out the pickups, even if only the bridge, but I'm really liking it how it is now.

As for practising, I have a 5 minute rule. I have to practice every day, even if only for 5 minutes and I'm not just playing tabs the way I used to, haven't missed a day in over 3 weeks. I'm being far more intentional, even if not regimented. I'm probably actually a better player than I was at the peak of my playing before even though I have less endurance. I feel like I'm actually understanding the guitar, which is great.

IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/iuxrQUl.jpg)

4th of July Jam! I'm standing behind the bench so I can read the chord progression over our fiddle player's shoulder.

IMAGE(https://imgur.com/95eiD5L.jpg)

And the cutest little uker ever! She hasn't really learned anything except plucking strings and tossing the picks in the sound hole, but we'll get there.