Why playing before buying isn't foolproof

[mcduffnw]

Moral: Buy a guitar that suits you and your hands, and meets your requirements as far as build quality, tonewoods and such, then - put the work in - to bring out its sound!

YES SILLY MOUSTACHE!!!^^^This is the absolute truth!!!


There was a forum member on the old original Collings Forum named Robert Foreman who often stressed through the years that folks needed to spend the time and effort to learn their instrument well and thoroughly...how to play it, how to pull tone and various shades of said tone out of it with their playing technique...and that folks gave up way to quickly on many many guitars.

Fingerstyle master Ed Gerhard said that when he swtiched from his Breedlove Ed Gerhard Signature Jumbo model guitar to his Breedlove Ed Gerhard Signature Model Dreadnaught guitar that it took some real work to learn how to play the new guitar after using the jumbo as his main guitar for 10 years straight.

The jumbo was German/Brazilian the new dread was Red Spruce/Sepele and he said that in learning how to create and control tone on the dread he found that some things that came easy on the jumbo came hard on the dread, and visa versa.


duff
Be A Player...Not A Polisher

[ljguitar]

Originally Posted by paulzoom

I have noticed over the years that you can easily be deceived by the sound of a guitar you play for five or ten minutes at the showroom or even one you order and play for a couple of days.

Hi pz

I have not shopped by myself for a guitar in decades. It pays to take another capable player along to play while I listen, and to let them listen and comment on things I may miss.

And play-before-pay is still less risky even if you go alone. I've found no shortage of guitar sales-people who play well enough for me to hear the tone/sound of the instrument, and figure out the projection and tonal balance out-front.

[BluesKing777]

I have found that the only acoustic guitar that I really didn’t like belongs to a friend....awful, unplayable.... He loves it.

I probably have a few great acoustics that have everything I wanted...at the start of this thing.....and lately I prefer to try something different, as well, over a period of time to get to know it better. So yes, I played them at the shop, wouldn’t probably buy online ever again with this attitude, asking for trouble, and yes, some strays have followed me home.

But from doing this I have discovered I like strange timbers....ebony, Taz blackwood, maple etc, though I do love mahogany over sitka, rosewood, but, but, but..............

And a whole list of things I don’t really like anymore - skinny nuts and necks, for example.

You just have to try them.....all.

BluesKing777.

[alnico5]

My guitar may sound wonderful one time and not so wonderful the next. This cycle will repeat over and over. The guitar is not changing over and over, it is my perception of the sound, for whatever reasons. Any guitars I own will probably exhibit the same changes. This is one reason I choose not to own very many guitars.

[donlyn]

Why playing before buying isn't foolproof

But it's way ahead of buying blind, if you have the opportunity to play first.


I'm going to be a bit negative with my approach. Id est, I will play devil's advocate.

Let's say you walk into a music shop. For whatever reasons, you will be immediately attracted to a certain amount of the guitars available. If you can play before you pay, you can eliminate 90% of those guitars that you pick up within 5 minutes or less. Sometimes all it takes is one strum, or one chord progression. You will feel it in your arms, hands, and ears. It's wrong. Right away. But like the guy sang in the song, 'don't get sold on the very first one'. As you play through a few, you will find the right one(s). It doesn't hurt to walk away renee, grab a cup of coffee, think it over, and then go back and play again. Just to be sure. Kind of like dating your projected new guitar. If you don't go back, then it wasn't for you. If you go back, you get to pass judgement after a little away-time under your belt.

What I'm getting at is almost like speed dating. Unless you need a guitar right away, be prepared to walk, don't run, away. With any luck, if you find something, you at least won't have to fret as much about a return.

Don
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[FLRon]

Back in 2000 I bought a new Taylor 410-CE from Elderly. I must have played it for 30-40 minutes and thought it was a decent sounding guitar, especially when plugged in.

After the 1st string change I strongly disliked that guitar. I asked Elderly what strings were on it so I bought a set and that didn't help.

It was traded shortly after that. To this day I couldn't tell you what happened other than I must not have been hearing what I thought I was hearing.

I blamed it on the fact that 2 months prior to buying the guitar I had suffered a massive heart attack and I just wasn't thinking straight.

Sounded good at the time.

[LadysSolo]

I have played before purchase 3 of the guitars I own, two I played, walked away to think about it, couldn't get them out of my mind, went back 2 weeks later and bought them. I still have all 3 guitars. The 3rd, I A/B 'ed it against everything the shop had in the same price range, kept coming back to the one, and it's my favorite guitar to this day. Yes, I have 5 I bought sight-unseen also and still like them too. Maybe I just like guitars!

[s2y]

AGF: Buy used and never buy something you haven't played first.

Me: Buys a Taylor BTO DN with an adi top. It sounded great. The hard V neck wasn't quite my thing, but seemed to work in the store for the 20 some minutes I played it. Ended up only being able to play it for 10-20 minutes tops before my fretting hand was angry. I sold it for a big loss. So much for buying used and trying out first.

Also me: Buys a Bob Thompson DN ordered from scratch. Love at first strum. I now own 3.

[lowrider]

Just for the sake of this discussion, if you could go to a guitar store that had 6 Martin d-18's hanging on the wall and you played them all and picked your favorite. Then after 2 days you returned and they were all still there but mice up on the wall, do you think you'd pick the same one?

I'm not so sure. This winter I was looking for a -18. I made 4 or 5 trips to Music Zoo and Sam Ash, playing d-18's, hd-28's and Road Series d-12. Each time I would like something different and one time at Sam Ash I liked the 12 better than the 18. When I went back I couldn't understand what I saw in the 12. I ended up completely confused and decided to wait a while. Then we go locked down.

So, I don't know. I doubt if I could pick the same guitar out of 6 the second time around.

[The Bard Rocks]

At the moment every guitar I own was bought without playing first. And I am well satisfied with all but one of them. (Yes, some people are pickier than others. Yes, when you move up the food chain, it's reasonable to expect that a higher percentage are great instruments. Yes, I am very selective about who I deal with.)

But I am fastidious about doing my due diligence beforehand. A LOT of thought goes into each purchase and there is also a lot of communication between me and the seller. If they do not let me buy on approval, I don't take it any further. And I have never sent one back because I didn't like it.

When I was younger, with less money, I didn't do this. And had only a fraction of the investment that I do now.

[mattwood]

As a guitar player I find that I sound better on some days and worse on others. I think my guitars pick up on that.

[Rosewood99]

Originally Posted by donlyn

Why playing before buying isn't foolproof

But it's way ahead of buying blind, if you have the opportunity to play first.

Never said it wasn't. Only said it isn't foolproof.

[Mark Stone]

Originally Posted by paulzoom

I have noticed over the years that you can easily be deceived by the sound of a guitar you play for five or ten minutes at the showroom or even one you order and play for a couple of days.

I have bought guitars that initially sound great but the more I played the more I picked up on flaws. Conversely I almost sold a guitar that I had ordered that did not impress me at first but the more I played it the more the tone grew on me until it became one of my favorites.

I also have guitars that seem to sound great for about 15 minutes of playing and then kind of lose it and others that sound sweeter the longer I play, even if it's more than an hour. I compare it to the TV showroom, where they crank up the colors to impress customers but if you were to keep watching for more than five minutes you would get eye fatigue.

The moral of the story is while playing a guitar before buying is better than nothing, it's not a panacea.

Probably why I have bought and sold so many over the years.

Great post. There are too many variables in play to make the process of choosing a guitar bulletproof. But we do the best we can!

[rokdog49]

Originally Posted by TBman

I've found that my guitars sound good on some days, other days they sound great and on others only so-so.

I think it may be more "us" than them, other than changes in humidity.

I think I agree. I have picked up any given guitar on any given day and had a heavenly sound emanate one day and a tin can sound the next.

[tadol]

I remember picking up an unusual woods Santa Cruz at a dealers shop one time, sat down and played it for a few moments, and it just didn’t seem to sound very good. I put it back and was looking at a couple others when another person came in and picked it up. He started playing, and everyone in the room turned around. It was an amazing sounding guitar - based on that sound sample, up on a website, I don’t think anyone with the money wouldn’t have bought it immediately. After he’d played it for about 5 minutes, he and his friend left the shop, and we almost formed a line to try that guitar ourselves. Not a one of us could get that same tone, or sound near as good. When I left the shop, the two were still in the parking lot, having a smoke and talking about the guitar. Apparently he’d been in to play it a few times, and loved it, but it was a bit pricey. I remember telling him that it was pretty obvious to me that the guitar was meant for him, and he’d not regret buying it -

The other thing I’d say is I find the room I’m in, and its acoustics, can make a big difference in how a guitar sounds to me. I have a couple guitars that sound fantastic in my bedroom, but not as great in the living room, and vice-versa. I like to play a new guitar in a few different places, at a few different times, and wait a bit, before making a decision about how I feel about any guitar. And with really new guitars - you cannot make hard judgements about them until you wait a while - might take a couple weeks, might take a few months, but they always change, and usually for the better -