7 Essential Tips For Buying Your Good Beginner Electric Guitar

Buying a good beginner electric guitar for the first time can be intimidating, especially when there’s nobody to help us. If this is your case, here’s a list of 7 essential tips that hopefully will help you during this journey.

Define your budget for a good beginner electric guitar

Before you go to the music stores, it might be a good idea to define your budget. If you do this, you’ll be able to spend the amount you feel comfortable with.

The prices worldwide will vary according to the country, but a good start would be having USD 200 for the guitar and USD 100 for the accessories. With this amount, you will get something cheap but beneficial. It will not be the best for a super concert or a recording, but it will give you a decent sound which is perfect if you are learning.

If you don’t count that amount of money, giving it a try to the secondhand market will be your best idea. You’ll find a lot of guitars with different prices, starting at USD 100, they will not be as good as a new one from a store, but with some repair and maintenance, they will recover the sound and esthetic that they used to have when they were new.

Having the most expensive guitar at the store won’t make you the best musician in the world.

Over the years, I’ve seen people think spending money on a new instrument will magically give them the talent or experience a rocky start. This thought is more dangerous than you think because a variation of it says, “the cheapest instruments will always sound bad without caring who plays them” of course, this is not true.

You may know this, but an expensive instrument doesn’t make a good musician, hours and more hours of practice, study, inspiration, and many other facts where only 10% depends on the instrument, and 90% of the person is where a good musician is born. So, if you’re starting and your guitar sounds bad, don’t be frustrated, you only need more practice, and with time you’ll see how good it’ll sound.

It is essential to know that we can find some instruments with severe problems, like not being able to tune them or using them for learning, which can be counterproductive but don’t worry, this doesn’t happen in most cases.

• Read Also: Top 10 Best Electric Guitar Brands 

Beginner Electric Guitar – It’s more important the model than the brand

The guitar brand is essential, especially when you’re looking for spare parts, but buying a new instrument is similar to buying a new car so let’s try to imagine it. When we’re going to buy a car, we have a lot of concessionaries, Ford, Nissa, BMW, VW, Chevrolet and so on, which have a wide variety of cars which satisfies any need but even tho, you wouldn’t buy a car from any brand without knowing the model, because of this, having an idea or knowing which model and characteristics we want in a guitar will make the difference when we buy it.

For example, buying a semi-hollow guitar isn’t the best idea if we want to play heavy metal, but if we’re going for something like jazz, having one of those will give us exactly what we expect and even more.

Some characteristics that we should have in mind are:

• Type of pickup: We will find simple and double, called Single-coil and Humbucker.
• Bridge: There are simple bridges with tremolo fixed and some, which are better, with floating tremolo known as Floyd rose.
• Type of body: There are Solid bodies, Hollow and Semi-Hollow.

If you like a guitar from a store but aren’t sure about buying it, then you can search on Google or Youtube for some information. It will be helpful and motivating because it will give you another perspective before buying it.

If it looks AWESOME, it doesn’t mean it’s comfortable and not the best in sound.

When someone is going to buy a guitar, sometimes their eyes speak before their minds. If it’s blue with many flames and a strange shape, it doesn’t mean it will be comfortable to play with, or its hardware is suitable. You must like it visually but don’t make it the only reason to buy it.

Having a good sound doesn’t depend 100% on the guitar

To define the sound, there are many factors, so if the guitar sounds terrible, don’t blame it. Cables, amplifiers, strings, pedals, and so on are the ones that define the final sound of the instrument.

Remember the extra expenses and accessories.

Always keep in mind that when you buy a new instrument, you’ll need to spend money on some accessories and details like:

• Cases, Gig Bags, and Covers: if you want to take care of your new instrument, having one of those is an excellent idea.
• Straps allow you to play the guitar standing and make it easier to carry.
• Strings: usually, the ones which come with the guitar are always in the exhibition. Due to this, the sun, humidity, and other environmental elements can ruin them; having new and good ones will give your guitar a perfect sound without spending too much money.
• Stand or Rack: Where will you put your guitar if you don’t have one? Please, don’t tell me the floor.

Buying all of these accessories will cost approximately USD 65. You don’t have to buy them immediately after getting your guitar, especially if you can’t afford it now, but acquiring them with time is the best option.

If you are thinking of the future and have the possibility of acquiring an amplifier but don’t have enough money in your pocket for a complete combo, starting with a small one will fix the problem. It costs USD 70 with 10-15 watts which are good enough to allow you to practice without problems.

There are some packages with “all included” that I do not recommend. The price will be approximately USD 100 but even tho it’s very tempting not only because it saves us some money but time as well, most of the time they are made with very cheap materials that aren’t of good quality so because you want to save some cents you could lose some dollars. There will always be some exceptions to the rule, but it’s better to be careful when we buy them.

You can try out the guitar at the store and ask all your doubts before you buy it.

Every sell assistant is there to help you besides they are being paid for that, because of this, don’t be shy when it comes to asking all your doubts, you aren’t going to buy a soda, you need to be sure about what are you buying and of course, if it will suit you perfectly. It doesn’t matter if the seller hates you at the end of the day but always remember to ask without harassing them.

As we already said, having a good sound depends on many factors but trying it before buying it will give you an idea of how heavy and comfortable the guitar is. In this way, you’ll find the perfect one.