10 years ago I’d heard how nice Mex. Basses could be. Got a very nice and light Ash Jazz and a sunburst P bass. LOVED them! 2 years later my luthier told me I should consider getting new necks for them because they constantly needed adjustments. I loved those basses and how light and good they sounded. Put Damarzios in the Jazz. I wound up trading them in toward something else. It was a heartbreak. I now have 2 MIA Jazz basses and a MIA P bass and NEVER EVER A NECK PROBLEM. They’ve been wonderful and I do notice a difference in quality between them and the Mex. Fenders. Had a very nice made in Japan Aerodyne PJ. Sounded great and nice and light. It was nice but there was a noticeable build quality and feel to it. It went down the road after a couple years. There’s nothing I’m needing to do that just these plain old nothing special MIA Basses can’t do for me without any concerns. I know there’s much nicer out there. I’ve had a Zon, Thumb and a heavy Musicman, but these plain vanilla Fender basses do it for me. Oh.. I did go for a series parallel volume pots on the Jazz basses to make them sound like a P bass if I wanted but it doesn’t affect tone or function and no one even knows I have it to look at them. Wish the Mex. Basses had worked out for me. I liked them a lot. 😐
As an acoustic guitar fellow I have seen a ton of guitars for sale but quality stuff like Martin D28s are still holding their value. I really want a D40 they are still a pile of dough.
This is a must see video. I’ve been buying and selling gear for decades. Either because something else was more to my liking or I just plain needed the money to pay the rent. Sometimes I’ve been lucky with my timing and sometimes not. But I look at the boon times as icing on the cake. I have no problem taking a “loss”. I see it as a users’ fee.
To me this is the only guitar, I'm a bass player at night but by day I have a es 125 t and a es 125 dc they are the best guitars made ( in my opinion )
Just had a bone nut put on my new J45 at a reputable shop. The open low E and B strings choke out. A capo on the 1st fret and the open strings are fine. Also, there is some pinging when tuning those strings, so the nut slots are definitely too tight. The back angle looks right. A little discouraging, but the nut is the hardest thing to get right even for experienced techs. I may just redo it myself. I just wanted to play my new guitar without having to work on it for a change, oh well. Good video BTW.
Hi from Spain, I enjoyed your presentation and honesty. I don't know the market In the US but in Europe there are so many great new guitars from numerous manufacturers available for very low prices....but there are a lot less buyers. As a result even decent quality second hand guitars are worth less than 50% of what people paid, you are correct with your observation relative to a second hand car. People should only buy any musical instrument to play and enjoy it, if you want to buy to invest, make sure you know your subject very well, it's just like buying an antique, high risk!!! Kind regards,John.
My feeling is that a good second hand object is worth half the purchase price. Both buyer and seller will be happy with this. And thats fair, and so move on.
I'm not sure kids are learning guitars so much. Dads are getting older. There's a lot of guitars out there nowadays. I bought one at Xmas and as a harp player was amazed how cheap it seemed.
I've been playing for 36 years. I currently own two USA Charvel guitars and three Mexican made. The best sounding and feeling of the bunch is the 2019 Mexican San Dimas. Its just wire and wood folks! With modern construction methods its really easy to make quality instruments if the materials don't suck. Cork sniffing drives me nuts. I've played and owned other USA models that feel great, but are missing something in the tone. I kinda feel like a big part of this is luck. Great video! Subscribing!
Lots of great points on buying or selling guitars. Especially inflated prices, or vendors' unreal valuations of gear, far beyond what people will pay for said item.
As a drummer and pro audio engineer who has bought/sold a ton of this type of gear and recently sold a few guitar pieces, your video is spot on. Something to add to your video that I've personally noticed selling guitar equipment on places like eBay, Reverb, FB marketplace is beside everyone thinking all of their stuff is worth gold, THEY EXPECT BOTTOM OF THE BARREL PRICING ON YOUR STUFF to a larger degree than in other segments. I usually let my stuff go for about half cash price of new with some wiggle room and the just plain insulting offers and commentary you get with guitar equipment is just insane. High percentage of rude people telling you how "you're wrong" about EVERYTHING in your listing. Not sure what the hell this is but I will tell you anything guitar related I buy from here on out I plan on dying with at this point haha
I think a lot of people including myself want to buy a guitar that is going to be with you your entire life, and even pass down to your kids. They don’t want a guitar that someone has to explain “isn’t inherently bad.” They just want to have a guitar they know is the real business and not think twice about if they want to replace it in the future for something better.
Same thing happened with Harley Davidson after the TV show Son's of Anarchy. Bunch of people went out and bought bikes, rode them for a couple of summers. Realized riding is fun but it requires a lot of time. Most importantly you really have to pay attention and be responsible. Now you can buy full dressers that sold new for well over 20 grand for 5 to 8 grand with not even 30k miles on them. /some well under 20. You would be nuts to buy a brand new one or just have a lot of money and don't care.
Still is the case for quality brands but most budget guitars you are NOT getting your money back out of. I would rather pay an extra 100 for brand new. Some times you do find people who really want to sell and understand the market is flooded. When you see case included and the guitar is priced 100 under new that is a good deal if nothing is wrong with the guitar.
Thanks for enlightening me with the info. I just bought a Player series Tele and upgraded it with Tex mex pickups and it sounds and feels as good as it gets. Bottom line it's a Fender Tele made with the same ingredients.
Honestly, I got my J Standard fujigen for about 300$, sure the pickups suck but the neck is one of the best I've played on. I'm gonna do a little upgrading and have that thing for life.
Personally I love flat wound strings for how smooth and easy they are for sliding your fingers up and down the guitar fretboard and the sound is fantastic, only problem is they are rather difficult to find as very few music shops seem to keep them. And definitely nickel wound rather than bronze wound as the silver simply look great on most guitars. Great video thanks!
Thank you for posting this video. It was a nice dose of reality for me and a nice benchmark for what today´s reality is. I watched this video at 10:30am and by 1:20pm I had 4 guitars sell on reverb. This is very important information for "Reverbers". I guess you have to determine where you are seeking value, through holding gear under a prospect of a better future or liquidating lower and reinvesting in a rising commodity.
I have a handwired aa864 running at around 26-28 watts with 2 6v6 output section. It's kind of a Trainwreck Express and it is beyond versatile. Friedman makes some wonderful Bassman copies as well. Love my Pink Taco!!
Over-under seems to be the industry standard for event-based AV jobs. Both companies I worked for required everyone to learn it mostly because we were always on a time crunch and having everyone wrap the same way made things more streamline. Honestly I was pretty annoyed by the handful of lazy employees who didn't always abide by it, as it caused numerous micro-headaches over the years lol..
I still have the one my parents bought for me as a kid. The first guitar they bought for me was an inexpensive acoustic guitar that the strings were literally 5/8ths to 11/16ths off of the neck and a country mile off the guitar front. My young hands couldnt get the strings to contact the neck so they bought the Kalamazoo for me. It had a case, the whammy bar and it was in good shape. My instructor was a big fan of all the greats from the 60's and was teaching me a lot. He hated how i wanted to use that whammy bar so one day when i had new strings put on it he had the tech remove the bar. So back to basics it was. I got oretty good in the next couple years and he taught me to okay it behind my head and behind my back. I never did get good enough in his eyes to have my bar put back on. At some point though it was stolen out of my case when strings were being put on. I always thought it was that tech that took it so he could make some money off someone & not have any money in the parts or he owed someone some work and used the 5 finger discount. I still have that ol guitar and am going to rebuild it. Im going to find some great quality parts for her and some great sounding pickups and install them. Once thats done it is time for a new Marshall Amp.
Prices on almost everything have doubled and sometimes tripled since Covid. Pay has remained stagnant. This might not affect 30 percent of people but the other 70 percent feel it.
