Speaking as a luthier with over ten years experience here. The cheap versus expensive guitar debate is something of a pet topic to me. I have played and repaired a ton of guitars that run the gamut from the cheapest of the cheap - I'm talking about the no-name Amazon specials to guitars that are worth five figures. There is definitely a lower threshold where you are going to have a very difficult time finding a guitar that has the ability to play well. If the neck came out of the factory warped, if the pieces don't fit, if the solder joints are cold, then you will have a very tough time getting it to play well. That being said, most of the time - I would estimate around 75% - the ease of playability and use comes down to a good setup. The big barrier to entry oftentimes with people is whether or not the cost of making the guitar play well will exceed the value of the instrument. For the majority of the $50-100 Amazon specials, the first proper setup will get into that range where the cost is more than the person paid for the guitar. Now when we are talking about the lower cost offerings from the main brands such as Fender, Gibson, PRS, and Ibanez, they are absolutely worth getting and putting the time and money in with proper setups. I once had a string of American Pro and Player Series Fender Stratocasters and Telecasters that all came directly from the factory with abysmal setups and quality control. I had to do fret work to every single one because they came from the factory with the frets poking out of the sides of the neck. Many of them would fret out, and they all needed intonation, action, and nut adjustments. I contacted Fender about it probably a dozen times and they always came up with excuses as to why they were coming to me with those problems. On the other hand, the most I had to do to the Squires I was getting in the shop would be to do minor intonation and action adjustments. They almost always had really great fretwork, though I would occasionally need to give the frets a polish. Moral of the story is that whether you get a Fender, Squire, Gibson, Epiphone, PRS, PRS SE, Ibanez, or most any of the other established brands, make sure that the shop you purchase it from has a good luthier on hand to get it set up properly for you. The "for you" is particularly important there because there are so many different playing styles out there and one person's perfect setup might be unplayable to you.
Well said. I have never bought a new guitar that I haven’t had to do something to do to get it to play to the price-point it was sold at (which is disappointing). From shimming the neck of a new Taylor, to re-fitting the nut on an Epiphone LP, to fretwork (always) on new Fenders, to doing set-ups on all of them. I feel sorry for people who don’t have the confidences to work on their guitars, especially when they shouldn’t have to.
@@jackhargreaves1911 In my opinion, every guitar shop needs to have an experienced luthier on hand who puts all the new guitars that arrive on the bench and goes through them to make sure the potential customer who picks it up off the rack isn't fighting the unfortunate lack of QA that is so common with many of the manufacturers. And that goes for the high-end guitars as well as the entry level offerings. I have seen so many young and new players get discouraged when their entry level guitar was set up poorly and they got frustrated because they were unknowingly fighting a bad setup instead of just their lack of playing experience.
I agreed with Rhett immediately then I was like wait, no. It only applies, as you said, to the big guys, who, for the last 30+ years have been honing the quality of their entry level products. Fender has worked very hard to give us decent $200 guitars. I do believe price and quality for most Fender guitars is completely random. Sonic series Strats I own have less issues than some Japanese or American ones, and vice versa, they all have some type of minor issue and price doesn’t really help categorize those little issues into any type of predictive pattern to utilize when thinking of buying a new Fender guitar. The Mexican middle grounds at this point feels nearly a market driven by very good marketing, Fender themselves would tell you they worked hard to get that entry Squier as close to that Mexican standard as possible. I love modding those squiers and it costs less plus is tons of fun and you fall in love with it. For the random Amazon sellers or anyone else yep stay away, cheap means cheap in that world
It matters especially much with reverb and delay algorithms, certainly. Zing, gotcha, I guess. It matters less with drive pedals,analog circuits generally, tonewoods and properly functioning pickups, though.
Rhett “there is no correlation between cost and sound or playability” after buying a Fender Custom Shop and R8 from Gibson demoing a dozen models at various prices.
I think he overstated the case. There is some correlation. A $3000 guitar will, on average, be better than a $300 guitar. What he should have said is that there's not always a correlation.
I thought that was a bit rich, making a blanket statement like that when he regularly gushes and enthuses over high end guitars. look at his own collection. I think statements like that are unhelpful for people shopping for guitars, it's hypocritical. In my opinion, the more expensive stuff is better, but it isn't linear and isn't a cast iron guarantee, especially when you start getting into custom shop and boutique level instruments.
They actually don't. Anyone who bothers doing that should value their time higher. A set of new strings costs like 10 bucks. If we assume a typical interval of string-change, one spends like $40 on strings annually. Considering that boiled strings aren't as good as new ones and that you have to change them anyhow at some point, who the hell bothers boiling strings to save like $20 a year? That's some Uncle Scrooge -level penny-pinching.
@@kgsvvgla2i bassists never change their string. It takes forever to make bass strings feel worn in. Guitarists always change their strings cause feel better new
@@Augrills Yes, although I personally think that changing strings very often is overrated. Brand new strings sound awesome but the crisp, metallic brightness is lost within a couple of weeks or so. After that the strings sound and feel almost exactly the same for several months until they eventually start sounding dirty and feeling rough and rusty. Some people change their strings every month or so and that, I think, is waste of time and money unless you're a professional.
The difference in playability and sound on lower mid-range guitars when properly set-up is crazy. I have a $300 Epiphone Les Paul that I've played for years. Finally got it professionally set up 4 years ago and the difference blew me away. Best $100 I ever spent.
the quality control is a huge issue... i bought an affinity strat made in china that came setup perfectly out of the box and plays amazing. next 2 squiers I bought had terrible issues, sent back a CV 50's tele that came with frets lifted off the board, and a sonic mustang that had horrible fret dressing and gouges all over the fretboard from it. both were made in indonesia.
There are more and more players that have never played a tube amp… it’s going to take a while, but we can already see some guitar modelers departing from just trying to emulate physical amps and doing their own thing.
@@robjobse5162 it only takes one famous guy using one of those on a popular album, and then guitarists will start chasing. We are like moths to the flame.
Check out Jim Lill's "Where does tone come from in a guitar" and the following series. He truly does the mythbusting on what parts of the guitar affect the tone. Its really incredible.
When Rhett mentioned his neck swap video I was instantly reminded of Jim Lill doing the same. Which changed the string distance to the pickups, affecting the guitar's "tone" (which actually was the guitar's output)
I'm surprised to hear so much negativity about him. I'm not subscribed to either of these guys (i can't fucking stand it when people try to sell me their shit in every. Single. Video .) but the stuff I've heard come out of that Rhett guy's mouth is ridiculous, I almost never agree when I hear him talk. I think a lot of these guys have been around so many guitars that they're kind of jaded by it all and it makes their opinions kind of ridiculous. A $2000 guitar is going to sound better than a $200 guitar one hundred percent of the time, I don't know what these guys are smoking. I was just at guitar center like 4 days ago comparing
Man, rhett sure believes a bunch of those myths... Like the wood thing for example... even if there are microphonic pickups, where is the evidence that the material of the guitar plays a big enough role in what those pickups pick up? In my experience, it's just some low end rumble.
I mean scientific studies have shown tonewoods do have a small and subtle but noticeable difference. Obv electronics and pickups and amps do the heavy lifting though.
The wood is important in acoustic instruments because the sound is created inside the body. In electric not at all. The electric signal that goes from the pickup to the amp (where the sound is created) don't care about which kind of wood you use.
another thing about vintage gear that I believe in is that a lot of the crap old gear just wasn't deemed good enough to be preserved, so most of the one that did survive were more likely to be really good in the first place
On the whole tone-wood thing, the impact is on what I call "the muse factor". Where you pick, how you pick, what you pick with, strings you use, amp settings, etc., all have WAY more impact on sound than the wood your PU are mounted on. But there is no denying that a guitar that looks and feels different can inspire you to play things differently and to play different things. Some of it is physical (like body shape, weight, balance) and some of it is psychological. That doesn't mean it isn't real - but its not the wood affecting the sound. Its you playing differently.
Yes. It probably does make an objective difference - specially if we are going to measure things in a "quantum" level. But the perceived difference is completely subjective. It happens more in the player than in the guitar. One can even feel and hear a difference and consider it doesn't matter - so, for that player, the difference doesn't make a difference. I think it applies for all the topics in the video. Not only for wood. The myths relly in thinking matters of taste are objective.
@@doscheid Yep. I laugh at all the Reddit posts from people with questions like ("can you shred or a Tele" or "can you play Jazz on a Fying V" or whatever). You can play anything on anything pretty much. But for the muse.
On retrospect, I found that cheap guitars make me play better. I feel I have to be more precise and strong arm the sound from it, plus I'm not afraid of treating it rough. Hand me $5000 guitar and I'm almost afraid to touch it.
yup...so many variables contribute to your experience of playing a particular guitar or rig set-up...it's just another individual "human" thing that we all have to process when setting up our sound...
After watching Andertons blindfolded videos about kempers, most of the time Rob and Lee prefer the sounds of the kemper versus the real thing. It’s all just placebo effect.
I do have to take issue with one thing Rhett said about modellers though. He said they will never be as good as tube amps because they are always trying to copy tube amps. While most models are trying to emulate tube amps because that’s what people want, certainly Line6 regularly keep coming out with their own original amp models that aren’t based on a tube amp and one thing they say with that is they are trying to do things in some of those models that you just couldn’t do in a tube amp. So it’s their attempt to try and actually go beyond the tube amp. As such, if this sort of thing is done more and more then that renders that comment very wrong, that modellers have the potential to be able to emulate the best things about tube amps while removing the limitations, or even creating something completely new.
Good ol' Rhett, falling for (and spreading) the well-worn just-so parlor trick of "tapping on a guitar body with a microphonic pickup makes noise, so tonewood must be real!" Please, learn how pickups work and how magnetic fields can be affected by any moving ferrous metal part of sufficient mass.
It's annoying because he says *mostly* the right stuff, like the real reason people prefer certain woods being the way it resonates against your body. But like, anything that's not literal crap is going to hold against microphonics if the instrument is made well!
If pickups work correctly, they wouldn't be microphonic, the issue arises from how similar a guitar pickup is to a microphone, which should be a strong clue as to what is going on and it might be worth learning how they work and not just how ideal guitar pickups work. It's not a parlour trick, he's correct, however YMMV.
2 points; 1. I own 3 Squier Telecasters, 2 of which were made in Indonesia, 1 in China. Having played their American and Mexican made counterparts, while some of them may have played marginally better, in no way to my experience and feel did they play 2-6 times (depending on the price) better than those Squiers! CNC manufacturing with guitars have closed the gap so much that it comes down to quality control at the factories(cheaper guitars will naturally have less QC checks, but American or Mexican factories having more QC checks still doesn't mean they catch everything as I can attest to several examples) and a good set up. Dismiss an inexpensive guitar based on price and/or name on the headstock at your own peril. 2. The argument against tonewood mattering, and I agree with, is that in a mix live or recording, other than to guitar snobs/nerds(not mocking as I am both to a certain degree!), it will make no difference. A 2 humbucker pickup guitar if made of mahogany or not, with 24.75" scale, or a 3 single coil pickup guitar with a 25 1/2" scale is gonna sound the same in a mix and no one is going to be able to tell if it was alder or ash! Rhett is right in that how it feels when you play it, does matter if that affects how you play, but getting hung up on it in a live or recording context if your preferred tonewood guitar isn't available, that no one in the audience will know or care about, is a fool's preoccupation.
another aspect of the tonewood issue, is the weight of the guitar... i've got a swamp ash les paul that weighs 2/3rds as much as a normal one and it is much more enjoyable to play, resonates extremely well also.
Exactly. I'd challenge Rhett to actually pick out different guitars by wood type in a mix. There's a point where something is so far down the totem pole of impact as to be basically irrelevant. It's not that it makes NO difference. It's just that it's so little difference compared to speakers, amp, pedals, EQ, pickups, strings, and player that it might as well be irrelevant.
Yes I agree with your tonewood breakdown. Every test they try, show that the wood dosent matter, or dosent matter enough so that the human ear can pick up on it. What I do think is happening, is people want it to be true, that it matters. And when playing, even trying to play the same way, their bias shine through. Feeling happy can change how you play. That dosent mean the wood technically did anything. When eliminating the human aspect, the wood does nothing. YOU did something different, because you love the difference. Its the same with the looks of a guitar. Some say looks dosent matter, I say it does. You play better, if you just love picking that beauty of a beast you got up. The looks dosent play better, but you do if you love or feel inspired by your instrument. Same thing with tonewood imo
“The wood matters because we swapped the necks and it sounded different” lol my man, that changes like a million things that come in contact with the string and the hands, that’s not definitive proof that wood is a factor.
Grow up Glenn fan boy. The wood matters cos it's part of a guitar. It's like saying the guitar doesn't matter at all for the sound of that...guitar. Even Glenn admits several times that guitars with different woods sound different. They sound different in his tests. It just doesn't translate into a HEAVILY DISTORTED "IN THE MIX" SOUND...No shit...Using 10 compressors, a ton of a distortion and aiming for the same exact sound through different guitars to "fit the mix" and then suggesting the guitar doesn't make a difference....lol..No mate. YOUR FUCKIN' MIXING PREFERENCES don't make a difference. I have 20 guitars. They all sound different.They all record different. And I can make them sound exactly the same when recorded....or different. Period.
@@irmasil3 the point was much simpler than you make it out to be. When you changed the neck, you changed so many things, you don’t know if the wood was the thing that changed the sound. That’s a tricky thing to confirm because you can’t exclude all other causes. Would be interesting to swap necks with the same wood and see if there’s any perceptible difference.
@@irmasil3 Screw the Canuck loudmouth. Jim Lill did it better and as scientifically as possible. Search "Where does the tone come from in an electric guitar"
Concerning the buffer. It keeps your signal at a high enough level to prevent it from falling into the noise floor. Then you are screwed. If there are a lot of pedals in your signal chain, this can be important. Regarding the cable length, it is the capacitance per foot of cable that is important. A longer cable will have more capacitance which will roll off your high ends. The more capacitance given a particular resistance, the lower the cutoff frequency of the low pass filtering effect and your highs will suffer. Go with a low capacitance cable to maintain your highs. A buffer will have minimal effect here.
I have a "higher end" squier strat. The 40th anniversary gold edition simply because the aesthetic of it. I have more expensive guitars that i play more regularly but i love looking at that $400 strat more than my les paul 😂 but it's not a bad guitar at all. Sounds like a strat. The neck feels great the pickups sound great. The look is just a huge bonus
I have the same model and of all other guitars I've tried, that Squier 40th Anniversary Strat's neck feels better than all but one (that of a JV Modified Tele). That Strat's aesthetic quality from its perfectly flush inlays just add to its functional quality. The pickups were the biggest surprise. While not exactly Seymour Duncans, they are quite good - exceeding expectations and eliminating the presumed need to upgrade them.
i have a 1999 MiM Fender tele and i have a newish Squire strat. As far as i'm concerned, the quality (physical and sound-wise) between the two guitars are relatively comparable... far closer than i would've thought. The recent Squires are solid guitars.
I enjoy both of your channels and it’s great to see you collaborating. Here’s a challenge for Rhett, if he still has the Axe Fx. Stop comparing it to the real thing. Use it to create models of amps and pedals that never existed. The Axe Fx allows you to switch out or add components to models that were never available in real life and would be very hard to build. See if you can use it to create sounds that you’ve never quite been able to find in a real piece of equipment. It might make an interesting video. :-)
PS: And, I don’t mean over-processed craziness. Build a better clean, edge-of-breakup, or crunch tone. Oh, and get the pedal box. ‘Cause you’re right. The physical interface is terrible without a computer.
You can feel the wood vibrating, so there's a meaningful difference? Oh, well I better put on my special guitar playing pants and guitar playing shirt so I don't change the vibration too much, given that vibration is going to be affected by the contact with my body.
Oh Sammy, you may get a kick out of this. I was walking around downtown Ottawa last week, and I passed an older lady (which says a lot considering my username), and as she passed me, she said, "Awesome shirt, man." I was wearing your playing card Sammy G T-shirt.
Have to hop in here and say I can totally attest to the Mexican made Fender guitars vs Squier part. I sold my mexican made Mustang and ended up replacing it with a beautiful $500 Baritone Squier Telecaster that I've named Bessie (Bessie the Baritone). Everything about this guitar feels just as great if not better than the "real fender". Just looking at this guitar makes me excited to play and puts a smile on my face and I think that is far more important than the price tag!
I have several Squiers that out of the box were golden and several more with the soul played into them. Other than winning the lottery and having the Custom Shop super spec a few guitars (I have alot of aesthetic fantasies that I'd love to realize with great components and craft) I have no need for a Fender. I don't feel any less playing a Squier. My PBass is absolutely a lifer, too. I did get ONE dog, though, and it was a CME exclusive, no less (but the pick ups in it were shockingly great). But otherwise, 10 others that are total companions.
My 2014 Squier Affinity is great! Got it for under $200, including $10 extra for lefty. I only had to put some medical tape around the tremolo springs to dampen some really bad ringing from the springs themselves and set up for 10-52 gauge and it's been a winner. My only real negative about it is that the frets are obviously cheap and have worn down rather quickly. The frets are set and dressed properly so there's no rough edges though.
Vintage tends to be better because of survivorship bias. The shit stuff they pumped out at the time doesn't last, the good stuff stays. it's not good because it's old, it's old because it's good.
Liked the vid, would have liked to hear more of your opinions too. FWIW I agree cheaper guitars 'can' sound/play better than $$$ guitars. The entry level (under $200) market is so competitive those guitars often give ~$500 guitars a run for the money at less than half the cost
I'd challenge Rhett to actually pick out different guitars by wood type in a mix. There's a point where something is so far down the totem pole of impact as to be basically irrelevant. It's not that it makes NO difference. It's just that it's so little difference compared to speakers, amp, pedals, EQ, pickups, strings, and player that it might as well be irrelevant.
You're right - in a mix, it would be basically irrelevant. His point seemed to have more to do with playing the guitar - how it feels and how it responds and how the player, in turn, responds to the instrument.
@@jonathanschubert9052 Brandon plays acoustic instruments, where the wood makes a lot of difference. It's what amplifies the sound afterall Just the fact that there's an argument about whether the wood matters in electric instruments really just shows how insignificant the difference is in sound
I had an affinity strat and I couldn’t believe how good it was. It just looked cheap, crappy plastic pick guard etc…felt great to play sounded as a strat should. Only sold it because I needed to make some cash fast.
The pay more is definitely a myth. My Squier Toronado has been my favorite guitar since I bought it for 400$ in January. Out of my other 7 electrics the next cheapest is worth twice that and the most expensive 10 times. The only thing that the Toronado needed was a good setup and a fret polish. Along with my 99$ Notaklon which I got around the same time, nothing but joy.
we could take an industrial robot and program it to play the guitar exactly the same way every time but then the air temperature and moisture would be the variable, so let's just leave it as it is and stop moving the goal post.
I think the tone is all in the truss rod. But nobody tests this. I’m half serious here. Any given neck will by physics resonate differently with different amount of truss rod tension
I feel like I'm only really qualified to talk about analog vs. digital, since I use both in my production. I have a true analog synth and I use virtual synths a lot. Virtual/modelers will get incredibly close, and most listeners won't notice, so who cares, right? What analog and physical things offer is the user experience and limitations. I love the feeling of being able to grab a knob or fader, it's so much easier to explore sounds and really be connected to the process. And having imposed limitations forces you to be a little more creative and do things you wouldn't normally do. By that same logic, I have a small tube amp that I record my guitar through because I love the simplicity of reaching down and grabbing a knob to change my sound, instead of opening a menu. That's just my $0.02.
i own a squier affinity strat that's become one of my favorites for doing modifications and testing stuff. a while ago i decided to set it up with a floating bridge and was surprised that it somehow handles full-chord dives and brings it back up to pitch perfectly. actually does it 10x better than my old ampro strat that had a professional setup. i think the feel of the guitar in the hands is the most important, and an instrument that feels comfortably priced for the player. the moment i have a cheap-ass squier in my hands, all kinds of crazy shit is happening. that mf is gonna get thrown around and put through the wringer. however if i have a $5000 strat in my hands, it's going directly in the case and i'd probably play it once or twice a month while i do wizard experiments to all of my squiers
2:08 Why is this a hot take? Expensive gear doesn't make you a better player. Practice makes you a better player. I know it's a boring answer for a lot of people, but dropping an entire downpayment for a house on a guitar with fake relicing isn't going to make you play like Stevie Ray Vaughn. It's the wizard, not the wand.
@eg.5511 I feel like "better or worse" is kind of depending on the person playing the guitar. A lot of how a guitar feels in relation to its price is psychosomatic; we like to think that a price that high for something that looks and sounds like any other version of that thing must be justified somehow, so we perceive it to be better, whether it's true or not. There are plenty of blind test videos all over RU-vid where people will choose the significantly cheaper option over the $10,000 boutique version, whether it's pedals, guitars, or amps, you name it.
@@jeffest2023 that's it. Some very cheap guitars/basses just can not be well adjusted. Well you know: twisted necks, bad tuners, humming pickups. While you can replace all furniture and electronics you can not replace the wood.
I started purchasing my guitars exclusively from a local manufacturer. Mine are 1-of-1s, and I get to customize them 100% of the way through the process of building them. Bluesman Vintage y’all, check em out
Well, almost. A pickup really is only picking up the mechanical movement of the string and transforming that mechanical energy into electrical energy. It's just that the wood influences the relative movement between the strings and the pickups.
Moog station in the background is also part of a guitar players journey. Creating interesting new jam tracks that are yours is inspiring and worth the effort
I love when youtubers say tonewood "absolutely matters" - it instantly lets you know they have no idea what they're talking about, they're just saying it confidently
I’ll take on all comers in the tonewood debate. I’ve built many guitars from scratch using many types of wood. If tonewood wasn’t a real thing then: 1-clip-on tuners would not work on solid body guitars. Obviously they do, because the string vibrations travel up the neck to the peghead. 2-all guitars with identical electronics would sound identical with the same strings. All guitars would have the same sustain, regardless of the species or weight of the wood used. All notes on all solidbodies would sustain for the same length of time. Obviously they don’t. 3-if tonewood meant nothing then phosphor bronze strings would sound identical to 80/20 bronze strings on a solidbody. They do not sound the same. If the sound of pickups was the only factor determining the tone, then a non-ferromagnetic component (the bronze windings) would not be a factor in the tone. 4-audiologists tell us that no one has ever heard the real sound of their own voice, because the sound is colored by the bones of the skull. If you listen to a recording of your voice the sound is colored by the recording and playback equipment. There are people who can’t hear the difference between a maple and a mahogany guitar-that’s because the bones of their skull are very, very thick.
@@lumberlikwidator8863 I never thought of your point with a clip on tuner, but that stands to reason. I don’t think tonewoods make a huge difference, but I don’t see an issue thinking there is a marginal difference
Were the two necks 100% identical in shape and dimensions? (Measured with callipers.) Those differences would also make a difference. Microphonic: that's not the pickups transmitting the vibration of the strings? You've tested this with no strings on?
guitar pickups that are microphonic will transmit any vibrations to the pickup, which includes vibrations of the strings that are transmitted to the pickups via the body, and also includes things like someone screaming into the pickups which cannot be heard on non-microphonic pickups. that said most modern pickups are designed to not be microphonic at all.
No offense to y’all, only love and respect, but these myths are so old school and have been beaten to death that they’re no longer relevant. Most folks I know use amp sims and record in their DAWs on their laptops with virtual pedals. None of these are actually guitar conversations these days
I believe tonewood really matters depending on the genre you play. if you're playing black metal with EMG's thru a Dual Rec, whether or not the fretboard is maple or rosewood will matter a lot less than if you're playing bebop through a clean Jazz Chorus
I will also die on this hill, tone wood is a ton of BS. Whether you like it or not, it doesn’t change tone. I’ve just seen way too many videos proving otherwise. The thing and pick up are the only things art really matter.
He’s definitely the most scientific and un biased about the info he puts out. But he’s disproven a lot of things that people like Rhett talk about, so people who share the same kind of mindset don’t like his content. Jim really has proven how cringey a lot of guitar influencer world really is, just a bunch of buzzwords that mostly don’t mean much
If “tone wood” is a thing that matters, explain Gittler Guitars. A titanium version of the Steinberger essentially. The neck looks like fish bones. No wood whatsoever. I’ll wait…
I don’t think they said that the guitar has to mandatory be made of wood, but they stressed the fact that the material has an influence (not major) on the tone. And in the vast majority, the material is wood (or derivate)
The very fact that Rhett starts his sentence by "I think it matters" shows that it really doesn't. But I don't blame him for not trying to alienate half of his viewership
So cheap guitars yes but also tonewood yes? Not trying to be argumentative but don’t inexpensive guitars usually have lower quality woods, therefore negating the argument that boutique guitars aren’t necessarily worth it/are better than budget brands? I love budget guitars & I love modifying them to increase their quality simply by changing out simple electronics. Anyhoo still a couple of really rad dudes taking about rad stuff. Thanks.
@@saltymakerreed5983that’s not the point of what they’re saying. On the tonewood argument, I’ve seen convincing stuff in both sides. Personally, what they’re saying here (and what I believe) is that tonewoods do make a very small audible difference, but that 1-5% difference really doesn’t make it worth “upgrading” a wood on the guitar body for $500. On the topic of cheap guitars, Sammy G specifically mentioned that you really start getting diminishing returns on expensive guitars. Simply put, budget guitars are better than they have ever been, the differences between a well QC’d $400 Squier and an $800 Mexican Strat are becoming so small, and both of them are 90% of the way to the quality of an American Fender. If that extra 10% is worth a $2k price tag, then more power to you, but with the state of Squier, Epiphone, Schecter, Ibanez, PRS SE series, etc, gone are the days of needing to spend a month’s salary on a proper stage ready guitar.
Having lived through the era of "If it's not one of these few brands it's junk" (I put a nickle under someone's JC Penny strat neck because the fit was that bad and needed shimming, in 2004) I'm somewhat amazed when I play my 88 and it's indistinguishable from the guitar they made 30 years later (the neck is a little thinner and the inlays aren't CNC-perfect but that's it) meaning that great quality was available back then but you weren't picking it up at Sears and had to go looking all the guitars that were set up for slide but the guitar shop didn't know that (real place, I can show you the store on a map, they also had a guitar with a printed top because I guess veneer was too pricey to use but they had spare ink)
Tonewood only applies if you have a mic picking up the guitar sound. Once you plug it into an amp, whatever tonewood that was there before, is long gone.
6:52 the hot bypass can act like a buffer and change the sound of those few pedals that are analogue to the core, google how TubeScreamer was used to affect the ProCo Rat with its feedback
I bought a bass guitar worth $230 and used it on gigs And it never fails to impress other bassist and ask me about the brand, because it sounded like their expensive basses
I totally agree with the price thing. My first guitar was 260 bucks and it plays and sounds great. I've tried out some guitars that cost triple or more and not many of them felt or sounded so much better that I felt like it was worth spending like triple the money.
I think regarding tonewood, it's not simply the type of wood - there's a video where Brandon Acker is talking to a luthier who will hit his axe on several trees in part of a forest for the most "musical" sounding thump before cutting it down to make a guitar out if it (this is for a classical guitar where it is more pertinent). I don't think you can simply compare one maple and one rosewood neck/guitar (as most comparisons tend to do) and deduce what every piece of maple or rosewood sounds like. And there's the unspoken part of the tonewood myth - that prettier/more expensive/more endangered woods sound better.
There’s something about a really good tube amp that most (I said most, not all) solid state amps can’t get to. It was even more apparent 10-15 years ago when the technology just wasn’t there to emulate the warmth of a tube amp for certain guitar tones. But the more distortion you add to your signal, the more you lose tone because of the compression and clipping that happens with distortion. However, as far as playing live, outdoors, and in colder temperatures go, I’d much rather have a solid state than a tube amp, because you’re not going to deal with volume fluctuations due to temperature. There’s nothing more annoying than a tube amp going loud because it decided it was warm enough for it to push itself to 11. That being said, focus on speakers. That will really make the difference. Solid state technology for higher end amps is at a point where the only people who will notice whether your amp is tube or not, are the most cantankerous cork sniffers. And trust me, I use tube amps all the time. Solid state amps are definitely getting there.
IMO...BOSS has done outstanding work pioneering the use of analog solid state and digital with their Katana series and especially their Nextone Special. Their use of an analog class ab power amp that affects the tone of the amp, adding harmonics, saturation and character to the tone makes a huge difference in tone and feel. Meaning turning up the master volume isn't simply a volume control turning up and down the kevel but an integrated part of the circuit signal chain. Good emough that I think it is better than some tube amps. Full disclosure I do work for BOSS, but even if I didn't, as a player I'm still impressed with what they have done.
Coaxial cables don't attenuate audio 'highs' unless they are literally miles long. Cable capacitance is somewhere between 50 and 100 picofarads per metre. Depending on the source impedance that's not going to adversely affect audio frequencies until the cable is 500/1000 metres long, and even then the effect is probably not audible. Cable resistance likewise is not a factor unless you have unfeasibly long cables. Pay attention to impedance matching, it has a much greater effect upon your sound.
Guitars are HIGH-impedance output, and ARE affected by cable capacitance, especially with the volume set at less than full. For bsst results use a buffer pedal(s) as Rhett said, or use active pickups where the guitar electronics has low output impedance.
Rhett on the tonewood debate in electrical guitars, the resonance you described seeking has to do with the dryness of the wood i.e. material prep prior to construction rather than the rareness or value of the type of wood used.
I think that's the point he's making though - just that the physical properties of the wood affect its resonance, and that translates into some influence on the vibrations that produce the sound of the instrument. How much it even matters and what's the "best wood" is purely subjective, and people are always gonna get silly about that stuff
I still have my old affinity Strat that I learned on. The neck always felt great so I swapped all the electronics out and put a full sized bridge block in It and now I wouldn't trade it for anything. It plays great and sounds just as good as any Mexican Strat
As a perpetual intermediate guitar player for 20-some years, I have found mid-priced guitars, especially MIK, to be some of the best you can buy. Really expensive guitars provide finishes & features with minimal jumps in quality. For me, the ultimate in price, quality, & personalization is going to be either hotrodding MIM Fenders, MIK Squiers, or MIK Epiphones, or just going with Warmoth. I have a custom Balaguer, & it looks like nothing short of a work of art, but the build quality & playability are nowhere near consistent with the price. Fortunately, I was able to dig into the setup to make it better myself. My Warmoth gear is the most pristine build quality I've seen on any guitars in the 4- & 5-figure range.
The thing about "a modeler will never surpass a tube amp because a tube amp is what the modeler is trying to emulate," while true, misses my favorite things about modelers: My Tonex One pedal doesn't weigh nearly as much as even one my tube amps and I can store 20 different amp profiles on it. Even when you factor in the Seymour Duncan Powerstage 170 that I power my cab with, the size and weight doesn't even come close. Plus if you're not playing some DIY basement show with a horrible PA and no monitors, you don't even need to bring a cab or a power amp with a small modeler.
It's not true a modeller can never surpass an amp in tone quality, because with a lot of modellers you can even mimic a complete rig consisting of 2 or 3 amps, split and combined in whatever way you want ro process that. That's something you just can't ever easily do live. Also they can always deliver the same signal vs micing up a cab in a room. Bit I het what it is that you're saying.
Your point doesn't address his point. You're speaking about ease, not about a qualitative difference. I disagree with his opinion, because his argument is basically "they are emulating, so it can't be better". This is a logical fallacy. One thing does not imply the other.
I started guitar later in life, having the 'grownup funds' for gear instead of starting with avg. preteen or teenager finances; but I didn't throw money at instruments, thinking more expensive = better or that different gear would make me play better. Of my preferred genre's 5 basic guitar types, Tele, Strat, LP, 335, & acoustic, I had 2 Squiers, 2 Epiphones, and 1 Fender (acoustic). Since then, the ONLY instance of a more expensive instrument being significantly better, enough to merit an upgrade, was in the case of the Telecaster. A JV Modified just blew away my Squier Affinity. That gem of a MiJ guitar now is mine, worth every penny, and I wouldn't change a thing about it. Can more expensive equal appreciably better? Yes; but not always; and in my experience, that's the case just 20% of the time.
I can't remember who I heard this from but it tracks with my experience: after $500 every guitar is a good guitar and the cost to quality ratio starts evening. At the entry level and budget end of the spectrum, spending $50 more makes a big difference in the quality of the instrument you're buying but an extra$500 at the high tier doesn't have the same effect. $500-$800 is my sweet spot and if it retails in that range and I find it listed on sale, used or a demo model it's hard not to make an impulse buy.
Boiling works better with bass strings I think. Lots of grease and dirt, dead skin cells are caught in the larger grooves of the heavier gauge strings. It's really working well, for a little while. Obviously it's no contest to buying NEW strings. If you're playing flats there's no reason to ever change 'em.
So many youtube guitarists actually want to be sound engineers so bad, but it doesn't sell as well 😂 I wonder if anyone ever made a list where you can see what actual percentage of sucessful guitarists that actually gave a damn about the signal chain and wire impedance and tone wood and all that shit
Topic #2, price vs quality. This one is easy with one example, the Behringer SF300 Super Fuzz, for $25 this pedal will absolute make your head explode with just how good it sounds!
Same wood and same pickups tend to sound the same. You generally only pay for calibration and polishing things that novice player wouldn't know how to tune. When you google how it's done you can bring your cheapcaster to the premium feel if you have enough time and drive.
I have Indonesian made Squier Strat that I have modified, had set up by a professional and it's AMAZING, my no. 1 guitar by far. The pickups were kinda shit, but since I put Seymour Duncans on it can go toe to toe with any Strat. I absolutely love the feel of that neck.
Indonesia is making fantastic guitars these days, both electric and acoustic. Check out a Pono acoustic for less than a grand, it will blow your socks off.
It’s crap that either of these guys, or anyone, would pick a Squire over a Fender and or Gibson. Spend $1.00 on garbage you can never resale or $1200 on something that works and can be resold. It’s just the market.
2 месяца назад
"Hey dood - can you dial in that boiled sound for me?"
Haven't watched yet but the thumbnail... A friend had a big headstock squire strat in HS that was almost like an oron maiden signature cuz it was sparkle blue and hss with a floyd. Had the same big headstock and flat black toothpaste logo. The only strat ive ever bonded with. It legit made me look at squires differently. This was in like 99-00 probably. Somewhere in that era when squires were known for those terrible strat packs. Actually my first bass was a squire p bass with emgs in it and that thing was a pro level instrument too.
The THREE things that separate a GOOD guitar from a BAD one: 1. SETUP 2. SETUP 3. SETUP Just got two Squire strats each under $200 at Music Go Round, a 2004 Standard (Indonesia) and a 2021 Affinity(China, looks the same, they dropped the Standard name, it's now called Affinity, and the super cheap ones are now Debut instead of Affinity. Yes, it's confusing). They both look new with just about no fret wear, the owners didn't play them because the setups are AWFUL. More expensive guitars play well because they go through a good setup at the factory (or the retail store, if they take the time to do it). Stuff they need, in order: Nut adjustment. the strings are too high at the nut. Cowboy chords feel like an acoustic. Truss rod adjustment, the neck should be VERY slightly concave with strings to pitch. String height adjusted at bridge Temperament ("harmonics") so 2nd harmonic (play and touch string at 12th fret) and fretted note at 12th fret are within 2 cents, as close as you can get. As long as there's no serious problem like the neck being warped, a cheaper guitar can be made to play well. I hear the newest cheap guitars are better about this, I would surely hope so. My "player" in recent years is a "Spectrum" (Target store brand!) and after learning what it needed and how to tweak it, it's hard to believe how well this "$99 special" plays.
Wished I would have come to this Sammy G vid earlier but, oh well, I'll comment out to the ether just for fun. The 'cheaper guitar' segment; I watched a Rhett segment with Dave Onarato years ago where they went looking for a cheaper guitar and Rhett ended up buying a Gretsch Electromatic. I was in a store one day following that video and tried one. I loved it (an Electro single cut Jet). I still play that one a lot. And I have a good few guitars to chose from. To be honest, the pickups are a little generic. I'm going to have some TV Jones Setzers installed. Incidentally, when I get around to it, it'll likely be done by Dave Onarato who suggested the Setzers. He's done two guitars for me and a great guy. But, the point is that, a good, inexpensive guitar is still a good guitar.
Many custom shop guitars have handwound pickups. Which have many advantages. Also my cs strat is over 20 years old and nice and broken in now. Just my 2 cents (justifying my 16 year old self's 2k purchase/ used).
Frets matter. I can't gallop percussive riffs the same way I do on taller frets with shorter worn down ones. Personally I believe all these myths are to create division in and by the industry to make us forget about the ZERO FRET! Hardly see those anymore.
The Bullet Strat series is the best guitar ever. It has the best neck I’ve ever played; just replace the pickups and it sounds like an actual Strat at a fraction of the cost.
For Fenders GET that 2K American or the 200 dollar entry Asian Squier version, avoid the middle land of marketing death. Of course only if your confident tinkering and remember Fender was designed as a system much like Lego. It is intended to be fiddled with using other parts they make for that system. I agree with Rhett about price and Fender products 100%. Why drop 1K on a Mexican Strat when you can do whatever you want and learn so much glowing up a 200 Squier with a great feeling neck.
Tone wood is the biggest myths of them all. In short. The wood itself is secondary. More important is how dry or moist the wood is/was when the guitar was built and how much moisture it releases and accumulate during it's lifespan.
