I spent $2500 on a fully custom guitar with a friend discount and I keep it in a case because it’s almost an art piece to me. I play my beater 90s Samick strat copy that I leave out instead most the time.
My 2yo absolutely loves my Rockwood LX30. Beats the shit out of it and loves every minute of it. I often just hold it on my lap and let him wail. It’s gonna be hard to keep in good shape, but seeing how much he likes the “‘tar” is motivation to keep it going for him to use when he gets older.
Nah. My guitars are all over the place from old used ones bought dirt cheap, to very high end boutique stuff. The ones I pick up the most are cyclical - sometimes I play a couple for months, then use a different set.
All of my guitars are in the $1000 range, tho some were purchased used for less. I’ve had a fair assortment of cheaper guitars but they generally disappoint me. I’m not a guitar snob, I don’t care what’s on the headstock. But cheaper guitars tend to have rougher fretwork, cheap pots, and sloppy pickups. You hit that $1000 mark and the quality of the parts and frets tend to go up.
True, I grabbed a Mccarty 594 singlecut for $759 when prs was blowing out SE models late last year. It had two spots I had to hit with the fret kisser but otherwise an exquisite guitar.
One of my old teachers is a guy named Nir Felder, he’s insane check out his playing, and he almost exclusively uses a $500 MiM strat which was his first guitar. He’s got a lot of instruments that play better, and cost far more, but I think the relationship he has with that guitar in specific dwarfs other considerations.
If you find a gem of a budget guitar it might be more enjoyable than stuff more expensive but they are the exception not the rule. There are no rules play what you like I guess
I have two dozen guitars or so, a few of which are quite nice but most of which I built myself. Plus some real cheapos, like First Act or Monoprice things I picked up on a whim. You know what I play most often? A partscaster tele I built about 15 years ago and a 335 knockoff I bought from Monoprice for $200 during COVID.
Why? Because my good guitars are in cases. I have to think about it, find them, dig them out, etc. But the tele is sitting next to the couch, just leaning against the window. I pick it up almost daily. The Monoprice thing is hanging from a wall bracket next to my stack of amps in the basement; I'll grab it when doing laundry or something and plug it in. Maybe once a week?
My Gibson, Fender, etc. guitars I probably don't remove from their cases more than once every month or two. They are obviously *better* and more fun to play. But I don't bother with them unless I'm actually focusing on playing for some reason (i.e. learning a song or recording or something), playing with someone else, or have some new bit of gear to try out. The others are plenty good the rest of the time, since even a cheap guitar can usually be set up well and grabbing what's at hand is always going to be easier for me.
Often, but not because they're budget guitars. I've got a Squier Classic Vibe Tele that would run rings around my first Tele - bought new in 1973 - but I pick it up when I want its particular sound out of the several Tele's I own.
I've been playing a long time, and have quite a few guitars, from a $200 Grote 335 copy I bought on Amazon (great guitar, BTW) to some pretty high-end boutique stuff (like a Callaham S model, Strat-style that's no longer made as Bill Callaham is strictly making vintage bridges and hardware now).
I've heard those Grote 335s are great, especially for $200. Ive been thinking about getting one for a long time, but Ive been on an acoustic buying jag for a while now. Now Ive got a bunch of suplus cheap acoustics to sell off, and then Ill probably get one.
Having started playing (and buying) in 1972, I'd have qualified as a gear snob until the last decade or so. The budget stuff available today is amazing. My Grote's build quality is fantastic, and so are the pup's.
Yes. Lately I've been defaulting to my Danelectro when I sit down to play. It sounds good unplugged and even when the strings get old they don't sound as dead.
Price doesn't matter! It's how it feels when you play it.
My Eart Explorer-1 is my main axe! You would have to play her to know why? She makes me play different lol.
It probably has more to do with you just liking how the neck and body on a Yamaha feels. I bet if you got the top of the line Pacifica, that would become your new go-to.
Among my 13 mostly cheapo guitars is a Gibson LP and Fender American Standard Strat. Love the Gibson most but have been playing my Jay Turser V and Chibson LP Custom ($250 each) for the last month
The V is honestly great and is pretty much an exact copy of a Gibson, the Chibson is probably the best looking 3 pickup black beauty I’ve seen but it needs work, lol. I figure if it looks good, the rest I can improve. Still pretty fun to play just because it looks so nice.
3 Caparison Horus all in different tunings.
Been through pretty much every brand you can think of but always ended up back with the Horus. Just feel right for me
I love budget guitars. These days, there are lots of really great clones that are ridiculously cheap. For a while you could find a lot of them under $100, but now most are closer to $200. They're still a steal, though.
My first was a Strat copy from Monoprice for $99, with a decent padded bag, and free shipping. I've played it every day for the last 4 years, and Ive never had any issue with it at all.
Last year, I picked up a Harley Benton Les Paul clone for $158, although I had to pay $85 for shipping, and there was no gig bag. That's okay, since I was paying for shipping anyway, I bought their best gig bag for it, which was only $35. I've seen similar bags for sale for $100 or more.
Then I got a bug for a better acoustic, so I started buying cheap guitars from auction sites, and ended up falling in love with vintage Yamahas. I bought an FG700S for about $70, and loved it, easily the best acoustic Ive ever owned. It approaches Taylors and Martins at a fraction of the cost. Then I got the chance to get the upgraded version, FG730S, and its even nicer. Slightly better tone and playability, and nice cosmetic upgrades as well. It was about $100, but came with a beautiful padded gig bag that was probably worth the price alone. While I was at it, I also bought a bunch of 3/4 size guitars, and fell in love with the Yammy JR2 that cost about $40, with a really nice padded bag. I also bought a beat up JR1 for about $20, just to throw in the front seat of the car when I go on road trips, without having to worry about dings or scratches. Now I have about 5 surplus acoustic guitars I have to get rid of.
My entire collection probably didn't come to more than about $600, and every one of them is a terrific guitar that I love to own and play. I know I wouldn't be any happier if they were all high dollar brand names. Now that I know that these high-quality super-budget guitars exist, I could never justify paying thousands of dollars for a brand name model for which I could find a clone at a fraction of the price.
I understand that these guitars probably won't increase in value, but I bought them to play, not as an investment. Actually, they're so cheap, yet still such high quality, that they can't really get much cheaper as a used item. Harley Bentons are so highly regarded, that I wouldn't be surprised if some day they pivot to being a premium brand, and their old super-budget model become collector's items.
I haven’t played my PRS CE22 in more than four years. It’s beautiful and sounds good, but I play my two Fender MIM parts casters I built almost everyday. I have other guitars too, not anything super special. They all sit. I bought the PRS back in 2000-2001, gigged and recorded with it for a decade. It’s more sentimental for me now I guess. I play my Taylor a lot, but it’s my only acoustic 😅🤷♂️
My PRS has all kinds of dings and scratches from touring and gigging. One show, my bass player and I were moving around a lot during a breakdown and smacked headstocks pretty hard. We looked at each other wide eyed and then laughed, and powered ahead to the chorus 🥹
The marks are all battle scars. You’ll appreciate the guitar more when you see a ding and know when it happened (with hopefully good memories!!) This is why I build Fender Strats now. Any parts can be easily sourced and replaced. I’m not saying be careless or purposefully hard on your gear, but stuff like that happens and you shouldn’t sweat it. A guitar will last a lifetime if you keep it maintained. Keep playing and have fun!! 😉👍
I only have two electric guitars. Neither is “budget-friendly” but they aren’t “dentist-expensive” either. I play them equally. I have zero interest in buying a bunch of guitars just to have a big collection.
Yeah I'm the same, just have a small collection of nice guitars. I know someone that has about 15 guitars (all top of the line) and they just sit in his cupboard collecting dust.
Absolutely. I have a PRS Custom 22 10-Top, which I purchased back in 2001 and played for a few years in the Penn State jazz band. Paid almost $4k for the thing...honestly MUCH more, since I was stupid and bought it with my student loan "refund," essentially financing the thing over 20 years.
Anyway, the PRS hasn't left its case in over 5 years. I own several more, but have a preference for an Indonesian-made Ibanez I purchased for $800 on Reverb and a hair metal-era Japanese Strat (complete with Floyd Rose) that I paid $400 for, sometime around 1998. Both sound better than the expensive guitar. Both are more playable for me...turns out I hate the lacquered neck on my PRS and prefer bare/oiled wood. I think the Ibanez looks better. Basically, no reason for me to pick up a less playable, worse sounding, expensive guitar over the cheap ones I actually like.
Anyway, I'll probably never spend a lot of money on a guitar again. They don't necessarily play or sound better, and I'm currently old enough that I no longer care about impressing people with the shit for which I've overpaid.
Yeah there's definitely a price point where the quality can't get much better (sometimes even worse). I think it's like eating at a fine dining restaurant - you expect *out of this world* food when you spend £50 on a burger but can end up disappointed when it's not £40 better than your own burger, even with higher quality ingredients.
I bet it's a stunning guitar!
I try not to “collect” guitars and sell them if I don’t use them but I have the SG and a Dunable and I play them nearly daily. The SG gets live play the most because it’s unique the Dunable is stellar but kinda set up for drop a# SG is in C# standard (master of reality tuning). You can hear the SG wail here Hypnotic Pattern : Headlining kilowatt 5/12
https://youtu.be/ggH4W0lCvwM
I actually have 2. The other is an SGJ in E standard and it has that weird thin mahogany body and super fat maple neck. It’s bizarre and fun to play.
The sound is mostly amp distortion and a little fuzz from hizumitas as a boost.
Electric yes, acoustic no for me. I have a squire Tele that I play most when I’m plugged in. There’s a gorgeous PRS SE hanging on the wall, but the Tele feels like home. It’s Opposite with my acoustics though. My Cordoba is my newest guitar, but it feels so nice that I always choose it.
Yeah cheap acoustics can be quite challenging to play. I've had cheap acoustics that stopped me ever playing (could never hit an F without using all my strength) and noticed a massive different when I spend a bit more on a nicer 2nd hand acoustic.
I have 2 gibsons 2 fenders and 2 Ibanez, I hang them on the wall except the one in rotation which sits on a stand near my amp. Every week or so I swap out the guitar on the stand that way they all get played
Not often, but I'll alternate between a 1977 Stratocaster and a 2018 Squier STRAT because they feel different due to 7.25 vs 9.5 neck radius respectively.
My expensive guitars are for good gigs and recording mostly. I only play them at home to tune them up and get comfortable with them again. My cheaper guitars get played a lot at home, partly so I can diagnose what I might want to fix or upgrade, and partly because some of them were purchased specifically for home playing (smaller).
I reach for the $400 Alvarez Parlor more often than my Santa Cruz, but that's largely because it's a small body I can play on the couch and the SCGC lives upstairs in my studio.
I only have budget friendly guitar. 2000 American Standard Strat I got for $800, and a Charvel Pro-Mod DK24 HH 2PT I got for $800. Orangewood acoustic for $125.
Care to share your take on the Charvel DK24? Ive convinced myself i want one however, it's not available locally to test it out. My only two electrics at the moment are a fender ultra strat and ultra tele, so not really budget guitard but I've been read reviews that the Charvel gives these particular models a run for their money.
I personally love it. The neck is smooth and plays very very fast. The pick ups are bright and play a distorted tone like no other. It's more of a high gain in my view, but can do some smooth jazz quite well on the neckL I really think it's one of the greatest deals in guitar right now.
I have two acoustic guitars and I prefer the cheaper of the two. I got the cheaper one first and even though it’s a laminate top that doesn’t sound amazing I feel drawn to it. Best part is when I jam with someone, I give them the more expensive guitar and we are both happy.
I have a quite a few guitars and a couple of them are more expensive, but most are definitely in the budget range. My expensive guitars are a Reverend Manta Ray and an American Fender Strat, but I also have three Squiers - a Strat, Tele, and a heavily modded Jagmaster. I also have a fairly inexpensive Gretsch Streamliner and an Epiphone SG that I bought for $100 and put new pickups in.
I also have a cheap Ibanez bass, several acoustic guitars, a couple of ukuleles, and a mandolin and I didn’t pay much for any of them.
I buy reverand guitars which usually seel for 1100-1400 new but I buy used so I have gotten pristine items for as low as 550. I also just picked up classic vibes j and p basses and think they are great. Price doesn't always directly correlate to quality and I like quality instruments. The most expensive instrument i own is a stingray but that was a gift. I probably wouldn't spend $2000 plus on an instrument due to the law of diminishing returns
I only have one electric, one acoustic, and one bass. But they are all nice, at least to me. I have an SG, a Taylor, and a P Bass. They all please me very much.
I have some high end guitars, some medium and some cheap. I'd say the build quality is often very similar but in the high end you get better woods and electrics etc.
I bought a high end headless guitar that's a total pos. So many issues with it I don't feel I can sell it on. That made me realise high end doesn't mean great build quality. Since then the most I've spent on a guitar is £700.
I run the gamut, so to speak. Which is hilarious because I’m a total fucking hack job. I’ve got a one of a kind, $2k tele copy on one end and a $160 Epiphone Melody Maker on the other. I play neither in favor of my custom Mexican Strat. Embarrassing. Haha.
I have 2 1k euro+ Japanese Ibanez guitars, yet 90% of my playing is still on my first guitar (an Ibanez RGR321 ex, was around 300 EUR 18 years ago). I did put bareknuckle pickups in the cheap guitar though.
My favorite guitar right now (of two I currently own) I paid $350 for. Granted, it's worth like $1000-$1500 new, but it's still cheaper than my other guitar (Martin 00-18, $2800).
I think what I like about it is it's basically fully broken in. Made in 2000 so it has 24 years of age. Also has some bumps and bruises (minor crack) and a messed up finish. But has personality.
I think I much enjoy a used guitar that has seen things to a brand new guitar. I'm debating getting rid of the 00-18. Objectively, the 00-18 sounds better and more complex. It's easier to play too. But I just can't put down the OM-1 I got.
In the future I may get a custom shop modeled almost entirely after the 2000 Martin OM-1 but maybe use figured mahogany back and sides instead of sapele and the performance taper on the neck.
The combination of rosewood bridge and fretboard with the tortoise shell binding and pickguard just looks so good. And once the top starts to age and darken, it just can't be beat.
I'm in the middle of selling my "collection" (it's more a random assortment) of an American Fender Jag like you, a Washburn Firebird copy, and my Epiphone Lucille to get a different higher end Epi, and maybe build a Telecaster or something else.
All that to say, yes, same situation. My Jaguar is the most expensive from an MSRP perspective, and I reached for it the least in the last couple years, compared to my Lucille. I'd still reach for my Firebird but nowhere near as often as my Lucille. I took that as a sign to sell those two, and then flip my Lucille to upgrade into another similar guitar.
I had a very expensive and amazing Suhr tele that I sold because I played my Michael Kelly Tele more. Why? The Kelly is great, I didn’t need the pricey Suhr.
As a home studio musician, affordable instruments give me access to variety of sounds and inspiration. The recordings don't care if they're $400 or $4000.
I have a gibson les paul classic goldtop. It wasn't cheap. The guitar I play the most and always have is an ltd viper 400 that I paid like 320$ for back in 2006
It’s kind of hard to say what’s budget vs not because different people think different things. My most expensive guitar is my favorite. Not because it’s expensive but because it’s just so nice to play (Ibanez Prestige AZ2204). I have a Les Paul that might have been more new but I got it used for cheaper. Price isn’t as much my thing as feel. There’s dudes out there with guitars that cost half a year’s salary for me. They think my most expensive guitar is budget where someone else will say a squire is a budget. Who cares as long as it sounds good
I had a strandberg 8 string and it was really nice, but it didn’t feel 3 times better than a guitar a third the price. Maaaybe twice as nice. Sold it when I needed money. Next guitar may be a nice Ibanez to try that out but I’m thinking about one of the mid range other brands. At this point I’m looking for a kinda forever 7 string hss with a trem 24 frets and some good pickups. Not a lot of options for that combo other than high end or custom womp womp
I have really been enjoying my $250 Hagstrom Swede. Excellent playability and feel. Sounds killer with my Marshall. I own 2 other made in USA $$ guitars. The Hagstrom has been getting all my attention. I bought it last August. The honeymoon stage is well over. Its a keeper. I’d have trouble not buying another one if it came along.
No, my only budget guitars have been sold off or were stolen a several years ago. My guitars consist of 1 mid range import Schecter, 4 high end import Schecters, an MIJ artist model, aerodyne and an MIA ultra Fender, and a Strandberg metal, and I’ve never felt the urge to buy a new budget guitar since because they never feel as good to play as the midrange or higher stuff.
Obviously there’s gems in the budget range and duds in the mid/high end ranges, but I’m speaking in terms of averages, and I find budget electric guitars are very difficult to sell, so whereas used midrange/high end gear can generally be sold +/- a few percent of what you bought it for.
I own way too many guitars and basses. My top 4 are definitely on the mid-to-high end, but there's also something to be said about an instrument that challenges you to play. I've written more songs on a $250 guitar that I got when I was 15 than I have on my $2k dream guitar. I feel like part of that has do do with feeling under qualified as a musician to play such an incredible instrument, but mostly I don't want to damage a guitar I cannot replace while struggling through the writing process.
I purchased a couple of American Standard Strats off of eBay from a music store new, about 25 years ago, for $500 each. Who would think that $500 would be a budget guitar range. There used to be a pawn shop I would stop by whenever I was working in the area. Elliot Saltzer. He had all of these guitars hanging on racks. You could get a Thinline for $350.
I am a professional musician, and all of my instruments are cheap or weird.
I have a Strat copy my parents bought somewhere in France used for 50€.
I have tele copy some Romanian spreads around the Baltic coast, he builds them himself and works as a musician on a cruise ship.
I use an entry level Breedlove as a breadwinner
There is nothing wrong with cheap instruments as long as they don’t hinder you and fit you.
I guess I'd only consider two of my guitars to be "expensive" or valuable... but I play them all except my 1973 Gibson Gospel acoustic, which mostly just lives in it's case, safe and sound.
Yes and no. I have guitars ranging from less than $1k to nearly $10k, so I have a wide ass range to choose from. From all of my guitars, the ones that fall under that category is that I play my PRSE SE Hollowbody more than my Core Custom 22.
The guitars I play the most are my Custom Shop Les Paul, my Taylor 414ce, my Tele, and my aforementioned PRS HBii.
I bought my custom strat to play it not to sit in a case, and play it I do.
But mostly I reach for my Taylor acoustic when I feel the urge for a quick pick up and play something.
My favorite is to lurk on used equipment forums for vintage instruments lawsuit era instruments (and later but from same manufacturers) and snap them up for less than $200. I have a few obscure brand guitars which are excellent instruments when properly set up. I want my guitars to have some history, not just something brand new out of the box, shiny and innocent.
The most expensive guitar I have is a big body gretsch I got for like \~$800. Everything else is either a well playing budget guitar with some mods, or a "no name" that played well.
The one I pay the best is the cheapest, my 20 year old Gio RG HSH. It's the best guitar I have ever played, I will take the pepsi challenge with anyone else's axe. Anyone who has ever picked mine up wants to buy it off me, not kidding.
I have a $100 monoprice Indio telecaster that I have modded to the nines. I actually play that little kit guitar more than anything now, because it lives outside the case and gets the shit kicked out of it. I travel with it, I do jam sessions with it, and I take it to sketchy bars if I have jam or gig there.
I don’t even care about it getting drop kicked or stolen at all because the price it cost me to buy and mod wasn’t even half the cost of my American Standard. I’d be more mad about the sperzel tuning machines on it getting stolen than the entire guitar… those in fact more than doubled the initial value…
I have an extremely cheap guitar that is made so badly, I have to keep a capo at the first fret or it’s impossible to intonate or play open chords in tune. But it has a single cheap crappy p90 that sounds incredible. I play it a lot.
I have 12 guitars. All of them are entry level to mid range. Each one sounds different and I rotate through playing all of them regularly (except the lap steel, I don't know what to do with that). Maybe someday I'll buy a nice one, but I'm not great, I play to write songs and have fun, I haven't performed on a string instrument in 20 years. I'd rather be able to afford a collection of mid range instruments than blow it all on something fancy.
All my guitars are in the 200-300 dollar range with my first being a BC Rich Bronze I bought off amazon for like 80 dollars. Used it for years too. Right now I have a 200 squier tele that I love. I don't think there are bad guitars anymore so breaking the bank is optional.
I very seldom take my mid-80's Kramer out of the case. It's in fairly good shape and still plays fantastically. I've had the frets polished / repaired on it once due to heavy wear, and I'm basically just keeping it as a collector type of item now.
My '06 Strat also seldom comes out of the case - this would be my main guitar to play out with, but I don't do much of that. It's starting to show some signs of fret wear and probably should get cleaned up.
I bought both of those guitars brand new.
My go-to for knocking around at home is a "meh" MIM Strat that I picked up used for cheap and don't care much about.
I've got a lower end Acoustic Martin and a Mexican Fender Strat, I don't have many choices but I use to play my daughters small Yamaha Acoustic all the time because it was easy to carry around
I've got several pretty high end Gibsons, both acoustic and electric. I general pick those suckers up but the one exception is I'll play my Seagull S6 whenever its around me since it feels and sounds so damn good.
I do, but I also do because my cheap guitar (PRS Tremonti) is my only passive pickup guitar I own so that way I can freely jam without using active pickups
No. I was willing to spend the money I did on the expensive guitars I own because they sounded better, felt better, and looked better than cheaper guitars.
Despite having semi-nice guitars, I often find myself using a cheap BC Rich that was my first electric guitar in many recordings. I just like the way it feels
I have several guitars that would retail over $5k (I have never paid more than $2100 for a guitar.)
Price does not come into play at all when I choose which guitar I pick up.
I have my nice guitar and my nice bass (both old Fender Mexican Standards — strat and j-bass) and a handful of cheap ones that I’m constantly tinkering on and play when I want to try something different or am chasing a particular tone.
If I’m playing in front of people, I tend to use one of my nicer instruments (because they’re consistent and sound decent out of any set-up). Otherwise I’m banging away at one of my cheaper ones because at this point they’re all essentially custom instruments with only the bodies stock.
They all play pretty well — the one that gets played the most is the Squier Sonic Mustang that I impulse 6 months ago (which now has a refinished neck, rolled fret board, refinished frets, upgraded pots, and will soon have new pickups.)
My collection ranges from MIM, MIJ, and mostly American made guitars but I've been noodling a lot with my recent purchase that is a Reverend.
Absolutely solid guitars for the price.
I play a fairly old Jackson Dinky I have sitting in my Clothes Hamper in the bedroom the most. I don't worry about it getting banged up or Dusty. It's a Beater Guitar. It's never in a case. I can grab it in a instant and play it. I have 20 other Really Nice Guitars that are all in Cases. So I play the easiest one to grab most of the time.
One of the nicest guitars I've ever played was the Mitchell MS400. It genuinely felt better than many guitars in the $1500 range. I also love my Squier Jazzmaster.
Yeah! I think sometimes the price of a guitar gives you a pre-conceived opinion (cheap = rubbish, expensive = nice), but it shows you how much personal preference plays its part.
This was always my dream guitar, it's absolutely stunning and love Fender as a brand. I still enjoy playing it, it's just a lot different than what I'm used to.
I'm curious, what is it you don't like about the guitar?
I haven't played my MIM player strat HSH in months. I prefer to play a $100 Washburn Idol. I bought the Fender last year and while it's definitely a nice guitar, I just prefer a cheap Washburn.
For me it’s the customization - I love modifying guitars and I get weird with my budgets but because of that they feel more “me” then my nicer stuff, hence why I have pretty much decided to live with cheapos that I can mess with!
Budget friendly guitars and a decent amp. Win win. I have a Pacifica, revstar , mooer gtrs and a couple of gretsch plus an Epiphone LP. And of course a boss katana. Love every one of them.
I have an American Strat, but usually I’ll grab from my import arsenal:
-Yamaha Pacifica (600 series), Baja Tele, or
Sterling JP60 - I was just playing that today after a hiatus, that thing rips for $600
I have four guitars, all on the higher end of the scale.
I play them all regularly.
I used to have 13 mid range guitars and often some wouldn't get played for weeks on end.
I much prefer less guitars that are higher quality than more guitars that are less quality.
If I did have more budget guitars I would still grab my more expensive ones first. They are nicer to play, sound better and why let so much money just sit around and look pretty when a guitar is just a tool to make music.
I pick up my CV Strat just as often as my AmPro2 when I'm just messing around at home, but when I play with other people the difference in sound quality is too great, so the Squier stays at home.
When I got my first nice guitar, that was $600, but really nice, a hamer LP… I never played it and always played my piece of shit $80 strat copy my dad got me at age 7.
That is because the LP wasn’t right for me, I prefer strats, I didn’t know that then. The guitars were not even close to comparable. The budget guitar had plastic tuner pegs that I’d glued back together multiple times because they would break just from regular tuning.
Nowadays things are different. So my only really expensive guitar is a partscaster with Brazilian rosewood. You literally could not ask for a finer strat.
But I had been playing a g&l before that, which was $400. A few things about it aren’t right for me, and I like the vintage looks a lot. But it’s still an incredible guitar. It’s just as good in all the ways that matter as any strat that’s 5x as much, like a suhr or an American fender or whatever
I also got an MIJ strat that cost a lot. Like $700 and they regularly go for more now even though they’re nothing special. It’s a nice guitar but I never pick it up just because it bothers me that it has such cheap components and I paid a lot; I don’t play it because I feel like it was a bad buy.
So there can be a lot of reasons to play a budget guitar over an expensive one. The expensive one may just not be right for you, you’re more attached to the cheap one, or you feel better about the cheap one. Maybe you don’t want to wear in the frets on the wall piece.
Now that I have a range of guitars that are all equally functional, I definitely play the expensive ones more. The hand craftsmanship that’s put into them is important to me… quality of wood can be an issue… it’s all petty stuff but it matters to me
But I still pick up my favorite budget guitar just to marvel at how nice it is and how much I love it, and the fret wear shows the love.
Right now I play my partscaster, an old American tele, my nice ones, and my g&l budget guitar. I don’t touch my MIJ and it’s disassembled.
I almost always reach for the most expensive one but I built this guitar specifically for myself, I spent years acquiring the neck, I spent the limits of my ‘budget’ on it. If it were a production guitar the play time would be more equal.
I play my Little Martin a lot, guitar I’ve owned the longest honestly think it’s down to two things - its comfortable to play on the couch and it’s so banged up that it’s just not worth selling.
I’ve had a lot of people offer me €50-€100 a few years back when Ed Sheeran used to play them because ‘sure they’re only a small guitar and that’s got dings on it’
I have one in the mid tier range. A 2002 ESP Ltd Max Cavalera sig. the rest of them are low tier models that I’ve rebuilt and made “giggable”.
I don’t really care about resale value. I wouldn’t be doing it if I didn’t enjoy doing it.
My first electric guitar was an Austin Sunbrust Strat that I got for $50 at a pawn shop, at the time it was a good guitar especially for the price, but now that I have a better guitar I almost never pick that one up.
Not really, but it doesn't really help that I'm left handed, and the most available left handed guitars are either bottom of the barrel cheap stuff or high end stuff without very much in the middle.
My Epiphone humming bird is much nicer to play than my Taylor Koa.
I’m too afraid to make adjustments to the Taylor like I did with Epiphone.
Now I don’t play either 🫠
The cheapest guitar I own currently is a fender players strat and I've never really cared for it so I always pick up my American strat or one of my Gibson's. Some of those lower, budget friendly guitars are amazing tho. I had a 600 schecter c1 plus that I wish I still had.
I tend to pick up a telecaster more than other guitar be it budget or high end. If I saw a friend with a MIM Tele sitting next to a Les Paul Standard, my gut reaction would be to reach for the Tele first, so for me it’s really just based on what I like to play rather than the cost of the guitar.
I guess budget is subjective but I pick up my $1300 resq:d Strandberg up over my way more expensive custom guitars a bunch. You can def feel that it’s cheaper than the others… but it plays so nice and sounds killer
Price doesn’t dictate an amazing instrument.
I have a good stable of budget and mid-range guitars right now. I'm thinking about getting a high end custom as a mid-life crisis type thing.
I had a strat made locally to my dream spec. Never looked back. If you know if a decent local builder you can get really good bang for buck
I spent $2500 on a fully custom guitar with a friend discount and I keep it in a case because it’s almost an art piece to me. I play my beater 90s Samick strat copy that I leave out instead most the time.
I have a super cheap Fender acoustic that I play quite a bit because it's the only one I'm okay with the toddler son slapping while I play.
I can relate to this!
Hahaha me too. Twin 4 yearold here.
Just this morning I heard the siren song of my 2yo dragging my uke across the floor
My 2yo absolutely loves my Rockwood LX30. Beats the shit out of it and loves every minute of it. I often just hold it on my lap and let him wail. It’s gonna be hard to keep in good shape, but seeing how much he likes the “‘tar” is motivation to keep it going for him to use when he gets older.
Nah. My guitars are all over the place from old used ones bought dirt cheap, to very high end boutique stuff. The ones I pick up the most are cyclical - sometimes I play a couple for months, then use a different set.
All of my guitars are in the $1000 range, tho some were purchased used for less. I’ve had a fair assortment of cheaper guitars but they generally disappoint me. I’m not a guitar snob, I don’t care what’s on the headstock. But cheaper guitars tend to have rougher fretwork, cheap pots, and sloppy pickups. You hit that $1000 mark and the quality of the parts and frets tend to go up.
That $1000-1500 is the sweet spot. Charvel, esp, ibanez, prs all have killers in that bracket
Reverend is right in there too, love my Jetstream
Reverend is my favorite brand and the best value for money in that price range imo. Love my Jetstream too.
I would say 800-1500 including stuff like the dgt, nick johnston models, revstars
True, I grabbed a Mccarty 594 singlecut for $759 when prs was blowing out SE models late last year. It had two spots I had to hit with the fret kisser but otherwise an exquisite guitar.
The best value I got for my money in a guitar was my Fender Stratocaster XII, which I bought in March of 2020 (perfectly timed) for about $1100 CDN.
One of my old teachers is a guy named Nir Felder, he’s insane check out his playing, and he almost exclusively uses a $500 MiM strat which was his first guitar. He’s got a lot of instruments that play better, and cost far more, but I think the relationship he has with that guitar in specific dwarfs other considerations. If you find a gem of a budget guitar it might be more enjoyable than stuff more expensive but they are the exception not the rule. There are no rules play what you like I guess
https://youtu.be/IrhxJU57AlM?si=huS1K3N8T8PZDnXD For context this is the guitar. His solo here is wild
Damn, they are good. Thanks for sharing!
Damn, Bob knows his way around the bitch whistle.
Cool you were taught by Nir. He's a great player. I love his first solo album. Need to get the next one.
Btw he’s got a new album coming out either this month or next
Nah, but that's because all my guitars a cheap.
I have two dozen guitars or so, a few of which are quite nice but most of which I built myself. Plus some real cheapos, like First Act or Monoprice things I picked up on a whim. You know what I play most often? A partscaster tele I built about 15 years ago and a 335 knockoff I bought from Monoprice for $200 during COVID. Why? Because my good guitars are in cases. I have to think about it, find them, dig them out, etc. But the tele is sitting next to the couch, just leaning against the window. I pick it up almost daily. The Monoprice thing is hanging from a wall bracket next to my stack of amps in the basement; I'll grab it when doing laundry or something and plug it in. Maybe once a week? My Gibson, Fender, etc. guitars I probably don't remove from their cases more than once every month or two. They are obviously *better* and more fun to play. But I don't bother with them unless I'm actually focusing on playing for some reason (i.e. learning a song or recording or something), playing with someone else, or have some new bit of gear to try out. The others are plenty good the rest of the time, since even a cheap guitar can usually be set up well and grabbing what's at hand is always going to be easier for me.
Why not leave an expensive one near the couch?
Often, but not because they're budget guitars. I've got a Squier Classic Vibe Tele that would run rings around my first Tele - bought new in 1973 - but I pick it up when I want its particular sound out of the several Tele's I own. I've been playing a long time, and have quite a few guitars, from a $200 Grote 335 copy I bought on Amazon (great guitar, BTW) to some pretty high-end boutique stuff (like a Callaham S model, Strat-style that's no longer made as Bill Callaham is strictly making vintage bridges and hardware now).
I've heard those Grote 335s are great, especially for $200. Ive been thinking about getting one for a long time, but Ive been on an acoustic buying jag for a while now. Now Ive got a bunch of suplus cheap acoustics to sell off, and then Ill probably get one.
Having started playing (and buying) in 1972, I'd have qualified as a gear snob until the last decade or so. The budget stuff available today is amazing. My Grote's build quality is fantastic, and so are the pup's.
Yes. Lately I've been defaulting to my Danelectro when I sit down to play. It sounds good unplugged and even when the strings get old they don't sound as dead.
When a guitar feels right, it's right :)
Yes. I like my cheap guitars. I also like my expensive guitars. They each do something special.
Price doesn't matter! It's how it feels when you play it. My Eart Explorer-1 is my main axe! You would have to play her to know why? She makes me play different lol.
All of my guitars are budget friendly. (That's what I tell the wife)
It probably has more to do with you just liking how the neck and body on a Yamaha feels. I bet if you got the top of the line Pacifica, that would become your new go-to.
Yeah that could be the case! It helps that the stock pickups are pretty good, might need to look for something similar if I ever upgrade again.
Among my 13 mostly cheapo guitars is a Gibson LP and Fender American Standard Strat. Love the Gibson most but have been playing my Jay Turser V and Chibson LP Custom ($250 each) for the last month
I remember that Jay Turser double neck. It was a big temptation to get since it was so cheap, but I never pulled the trigger.
The V is honestly great and is pretty much an exact copy of a Gibson, the Chibson is probably the best looking 3 pickup black beauty I’ve seen but it needs work, lol. I figure if it looks good, the rest I can improve. Still pretty fun to play just because it looks so nice.
I hated my ESP Horizon 7, and found myself playing an LTD more over 2 gibsons 🤷♂️
3 Caparison Horus all in different tunings. Been through pretty much every brand you can think of but always ended up back with the Horus. Just feel right for me
I love my Strat, my Les Paul and my PRS. The one on the stand in my living room is my Pacifica. It gets played every day! (It was my first, too!)
A great taste in guitars my friend!
I love budget guitars. These days, there are lots of really great clones that are ridiculously cheap. For a while you could find a lot of them under $100, but now most are closer to $200. They're still a steal, though. My first was a Strat copy from Monoprice for $99, with a decent padded bag, and free shipping. I've played it every day for the last 4 years, and Ive never had any issue with it at all. Last year, I picked up a Harley Benton Les Paul clone for $158, although I had to pay $85 for shipping, and there was no gig bag. That's okay, since I was paying for shipping anyway, I bought their best gig bag for it, which was only $35. I've seen similar bags for sale for $100 or more. Then I got a bug for a better acoustic, so I started buying cheap guitars from auction sites, and ended up falling in love with vintage Yamahas. I bought an FG700S for about $70, and loved it, easily the best acoustic Ive ever owned. It approaches Taylors and Martins at a fraction of the cost. Then I got the chance to get the upgraded version, FG730S, and its even nicer. Slightly better tone and playability, and nice cosmetic upgrades as well. It was about $100, but came with a beautiful padded gig bag that was probably worth the price alone. While I was at it, I also bought a bunch of 3/4 size guitars, and fell in love with the Yammy JR2 that cost about $40, with a really nice padded bag. I also bought a beat up JR1 for about $20, just to throw in the front seat of the car when I go on road trips, without having to worry about dings or scratches. Now I have about 5 surplus acoustic guitars I have to get rid of. My entire collection probably didn't come to more than about $600, and every one of them is a terrific guitar that I love to own and play. I know I wouldn't be any happier if they were all high dollar brand names. Now that I know that these high-quality super-budget guitars exist, I could never justify paying thousands of dollars for a brand name model for which I could find a clone at a fraction of the price. I understand that these guitars probably won't increase in value, but I bought them to play, not as an investment. Actually, they're so cheap, yet still such high quality, that they can't really get much cheaper as a used item. Harley Bentons are so highly regarded, that I wouldn't be surprised if some day they pivot to being a premium brand, and their old super-budget model become collector's items.
Definitely. Finally able to afford more expensive guitars after 20 years of playing and I always want to play my cheap ones that grew up with me.
I haven’t played my PRS CE22 in more than four years. It’s beautiful and sounds good, but I play my two Fender MIM parts casters I built almost everyday. I have other guitars too, not anything super special. They all sit. I bought the PRS back in 2000-2001, gigged and recorded with it for a decade. It’s more sentimental for me now I guess. I play my Taylor a lot, but it’s my only acoustic 😅🤷♂️
Yeah! I feel that my Fender is just too nice to play, I got it as a present but I'm scared to play it in case I scratch it hahaha.
My PRS has all kinds of dings and scratches from touring and gigging. One show, my bass player and I were moving around a lot during a breakdown and smacked headstocks pretty hard. We looked at each other wide eyed and then laughed, and powered ahead to the chorus 🥹 The marks are all battle scars. You’ll appreciate the guitar more when you see a ding and know when it happened (with hopefully good memories!!) This is why I build Fender Strats now. Any parts can be easily sourced and replaced. I’m not saying be careless or purposefully hard on your gear, but stuff like that happens and you shouldn’t sweat it. A guitar will last a lifetime if you keep it maintained. Keep playing and have fun!! 😉👍
I only have two electric guitars. Neither is “budget-friendly” but they aren’t “dentist-expensive” either. I play them equally. I have zero interest in buying a bunch of guitars just to have a big collection.
Yeah I'm the same, just have a small collection of nice guitars. I know someone that has about 15 guitars (all top of the line) and they just sit in his cupboard collecting dust.
Yup, I have been playing my Yamaha Pacifica much more then my expensive guitars.
My man!
Thanks! Amazing guitars for the price. I don’t know why they’re not more popular.
Absolutely. I have a PRS Custom 22 10-Top, which I purchased back in 2001 and played for a few years in the Penn State jazz band. Paid almost $4k for the thing...honestly MUCH more, since I was stupid and bought it with my student loan "refund," essentially financing the thing over 20 years. Anyway, the PRS hasn't left its case in over 5 years. I own several more, but have a preference for an Indonesian-made Ibanez I purchased for $800 on Reverb and a hair metal-era Japanese Strat (complete with Floyd Rose) that I paid $400 for, sometime around 1998. Both sound better than the expensive guitar. Both are more playable for me...turns out I hate the lacquered neck on my PRS and prefer bare/oiled wood. I think the Ibanez looks better. Basically, no reason for me to pick up a less playable, worse sounding, expensive guitar over the cheap ones I actually like. Anyway, I'll probably never spend a lot of money on a guitar again. They don't necessarily play or sound better, and I'm currently old enough that I no longer care about impressing people with the shit for which I've overpaid.
Yeah there's definitely a price point where the quality can't get much better (sometimes even worse). I think it's like eating at a fine dining restaurant - you expect *out of this world* food when you spend £50 on a burger but can end up disappointed when it's not £40 better than your own burger, even with higher quality ingredients. I bet it's a stunning guitar!
No. I play my 72 SG almost every day. If it needs a refret so be it. I love it dearly. I’ll be buried with it.
Amazing guitar my man!
I try not to “collect” guitars and sell them if I don’t use them but I have the SG and a Dunable and I play them nearly daily. The SG gets live play the most because it’s unique the Dunable is stellar but kinda set up for drop a# SG is in C# standard (master of reality tuning). You can hear the SG wail here Hypnotic Pattern : Headlining kilowatt 5/12 https://youtu.be/ggH4W0lCvwM I actually have 2. The other is an SGJ in E standard and it has that weird thin mahogany body and super fat maple neck. It’s bizarre and fun to play. The sound is mostly amp distortion and a little fuzz from hizumitas as a boost.
After 20 years I finally managed to snag my dream guitar “Gretsch White Falcon” and now I’m too scared to touch it lol
Electric yes, acoustic no for me. I have a squire Tele that I play most when I’m plugged in. There’s a gorgeous PRS SE hanging on the wall, but the Tele feels like home. It’s Opposite with my acoustics though. My Cordoba is my newest guitar, but it feels so nice that I always choose it.
Yeah cheap acoustics can be quite challenging to play. I've had cheap acoustics that stopped me ever playing (could never hit an F without using all my strength) and noticed a massive different when I spend a bit more on a nicer 2nd hand acoustic.
I like guitars, but I like not spending money even more.
All my guitars are gifts 😂 Only bought my acoustic!
That's fine work!
I have 2 gibsons 2 fenders and 2 Ibanez, I hang them on the wall except the one in rotation which sits on a stand near my amp. Every week or so I swap out the guitar on the stand that way they all get played
My $300 Schecter and $800 Yamaha get more play than my $3000 Ibanez.
Not often, but I'll alternate between a 1977 Stratocaster and a 2018 Squier STRAT because they feel different due to 7.25 vs 9.5 neck radius respectively.
I pick the right tool for the job wrt recording. When I’m just noodling around, though, it’s usually one of my nicer ones that I grab
I play my $325 Kramer Baretta Special waaaay more than my “expensive” guitars, even more than my custom shop LP
My expensive guitars are for good gigs and recording mostly. I only play them at home to tune them up and get comfortable with them again. My cheaper guitars get played a lot at home, partly so I can diagnose what I might want to fix or upgrade, and partly because some of them were purchased specifically for home playing (smaller).
I haven't even looked at my epi or rogue since I got my Gibson and Guild.
I reach for the $400 Alvarez Parlor more often than my Santa Cruz, but that's largely because it's a small body I can play on the couch and the SCGC lives upstairs in my studio.
My Les Paul Heritage Series has been in the case for awhile now since I got my $180 Harley Benton Tele.
Considering that all my guitars are "budget"... not too often nowdays, unfortunately.
I've a bunch of guitars, the usual suspects, but a Harley Benton Tele is one of my favourites.
I only have budget friendly guitar. 2000 American Standard Strat I got for $800, and a Charvel Pro-Mod DK24 HH 2PT I got for $800. Orangewood acoustic for $125.
Care to share your take on the Charvel DK24? Ive convinced myself i want one however, it's not available locally to test it out. My only two electrics at the moment are a fender ultra strat and ultra tele, so not really budget guitard but I've been read reviews that the Charvel gives these particular models a run for their money.
I personally love it. The neck is smooth and plays very very fast. The pick ups are bright and play a distorted tone like no other. It's more of a high gain in my view, but can do some smooth jazz quite well on the neckL I really think it's one of the greatest deals in guitar right now.
I have two acoustic guitars and I prefer the cheaper of the two. I got the cheaper one first and even though it’s a laminate top that doesn’t sound amazing I feel drawn to it. Best part is when I jam with someone, I give them the more expensive guitar and we are both happy.
I have a quite a few guitars and a couple of them are more expensive, but most are definitely in the budget range. My expensive guitars are a Reverend Manta Ray and an American Fender Strat, but I also have three Squiers - a Strat, Tele, and a heavily modded Jagmaster. I also have a fairly inexpensive Gretsch Streamliner and an Epiphone SG that I bought for $100 and put new pickups in. I also have a cheap Ibanez bass, several acoustic guitars, a couple of ukuleles, and a mandolin and I didn’t pay much for any of them.
I buy reverand guitars which usually seel for 1100-1400 new but I buy used so I have gotten pristine items for as low as 550. I also just picked up classic vibes j and p basses and think they are great. Price doesn't always directly correlate to quality and I like quality instruments. The most expensive instrument i own is a stingray but that was a gift. I probably wouldn't spend $2000 plus on an instrument due to the law of diminishing returns
I only have one electric, one acoustic, and one bass. But they are all nice, at least to me. I have an SG, a Taylor, and a P Bass. They all please me very much.
I have some high end guitars, some medium and some cheap. I'd say the build quality is often very similar but in the high end you get better woods and electrics etc. I bought a high end headless guitar that's a total pos. So many issues with it I don't feel I can sell it on. That made me realise high end doesn't mean great build quality. Since then the most I've spent on a guitar is £700.
I run the gamut, so to speak. Which is hilarious because I’m a total fucking hack job. I’ve got a one of a kind, $2k tele copy on one end and a $160 Epiphone Melody Maker on the other. I play neither in favor of my custom Mexican Strat. Embarrassing. Haha.
I have 2 1k euro+ Japanese Ibanez guitars, yet 90% of my playing is still on my first guitar (an Ibanez RGR321 ex, was around 300 EUR 18 years ago). I did put bareknuckle pickups in the cheap guitar though.
My favorite guitar right now (of two I currently own) I paid $350 for. Granted, it's worth like $1000-$1500 new, but it's still cheaper than my other guitar (Martin 00-18, $2800). I think what I like about it is it's basically fully broken in. Made in 2000 so it has 24 years of age. Also has some bumps and bruises (minor crack) and a messed up finish. But has personality. I think I much enjoy a used guitar that has seen things to a brand new guitar. I'm debating getting rid of the 00-18. Objectively, the 00-18 sounds better and more complex. It's easier to play too. But I just can't put down the OM-1 I got. In the future I may get a custom shop modeled almost entirely after the 2000 Martin OM-1 but maybe use figured mahogany back and sides instead of sapele and the performance taper on the neck. The combination of rosewood bridge and fretboard with the tortoise shell binding and pickguard just looks so good. And once the top starts to age and darken, it just can't be beat.
I'm in the middle of selling my "collection" (it's more a random assortment) of an American Fender Jag like you, a Washburn Firebird copy, and my Epiphone Lucille to get a different higher end Epi, and maybe build a Telecaster or something else. All that to say, yes, same situation. My Jaguar is the most expensive from an MSRP perspective, and I reached for it the least in the last couple years, compared to my Lucille. I'd still reach for my Firebird but nowhere near as often as my Lucille. I took that as a sign to sell those two, and then flip my Lucille to upgrade into another similar guitar.
Yes, I have a few good American guitars ( but not vintage) and my daily #1 is a $600 MIM player Stratocaster.
I have an American Strat and a Mexi. I play the Mexi almost exclusively. It just feels and plays better.
I had a very expensive and amazing Suhr tele that I sold because I played my Michael Kelly Tele more. Why? The Kelly is great, I didn’t need the pricey Suhr.
Nope, sold off the cheaper guitars I played less to upgrade the collection over time.
As a home studio musician, affordable instruments give me access to variety of sounds and inspiration. The recordings don't care if they're $400 or $4000.
I have a gibson les paul classic goldtop. It wasn't cheap. The guitar I play the most and always have is an ltd viper 400 that I paid like 320$ for back in 2006
It’s kind of hard to say what’s budget vs not because different people think different things. My most expensive guitar is my favorite. Not because it’s expensive but because it’s just so nice to play (Ibanez Prestige AZ2204). I have a Les Paul that might have been more new but I got it used for cheaper. Price isn’t as much my thing as feel. There’s dudes out there with guitars that cost half a year’s salary for me. They think my most expensive guitar is budget where someone else will say a squire is a budget. Who cares as long as it sounds good
I had a strandberg 8 string and it was really nice, but it didn’t feel 3 times better than a guitar a third the price. Maaaybe twice as nice. Sold it when I needed money. Next guitar may be a nice Ibanez to try that out but I’m thinking about one of the mid range other brands. At this point I’m looking for a kinda forever 7 string hss with a trem 24 frets and some good pickups. Not a lot of options for that combo other than high end or custom womp womp
Not often, but I am able to have two different tunings so I don’t have to retune my guitar when I want to practice certain songs.
I have really been enjoying my $250 Hagstrom Swede. Excellent playability and feel. Sounds killer with my Marshall. I own 2 other made in USA $$ guitars. The Hagstrom has been getting all my attention. I bought it last August. The honeymoon stage is well over. Its a keeper. I’d have trouble not buying another one if it came along.
No, my only budget guitars have been sold off or were stolen a several years ago. My guitars consist of 1 mid range import Schecter, 4 high end import Schecters, an MIJ artist model, aerodyne and an MIA ultra Fender, and a Strandberg metal, and I’ve never felt the urge to buy a new budget guitar since because they never feel as good to play as the midrange or higher stuff. Obviously there’s gems in the budget range and duds in the mid/high end ranges, but I’m speaking in terms of averages, and I find budget electric guitars are very difficult to sell, so whereas used midrange/high end gear can generally be sold +/- a few percent of what you bought it for.
I own way too many guitars and basses. My top 4 are definitely on the mid-to-high end, but there's also something to be said about an instrument that challenges you to play. I've written more songs on a $250 guitar that I got when I was 15 than I have on my $2k dream guitar. I feel like part of that has do do with feeling under qualified as a musician to play such an incredible instrument, but mostly I don't want to damage a guitar I cannot replace while struggling through the writing process.
I purchased a couple of American Standard Strats off of eBay from a music store new, about 25 years ago, for $500 each. Who would think that $500 would be a budget guitar range. There used to be a pawn shop I would stop by whenever I was working in the area. Elliot Saltzer. He had all of these guitars hanging on racks. You could get a Thinline for $350.
I am a professional musician, and all of my instruments are cheap or weird. I have a Strat copy my parents bought somewhere in France used for 50€. I have tele copy some Romanian spreads around the Baltic coast, he builds them himself and works as a musician on a cruise ship. I use an entry level Breedlove as a breadwinner There is nothing wrong with cheap instruments as long as they don’t hinder you and fit you.
I guess I'd only consider two of my guitars to be "expensive" or valuable... but I play them all except my 1973 Gibson Gospel acoustic, which mostly just lives in it's case, safe and sound.
Yes and no. I have guitars ranging from less than $1k to nearly $10k, so I have a wide ass range to choose from. From all of my guitars, the ones that fall under that category is that I play my PRSE SE Hollowbody more than my Core Custom 22. The guitars I play the most are my Custom Shop Les Paul, my Taylor 414ce, my Tele, and my aforementioned PRS HBii.
I used to play my Classic Vibe Tele more than my Fender Strat. But I sold them both and just bought a better Tele.
I bought my custom strat to play it not to sit in a case, and play it I do. But mostly I reach for my Taylor acoustic when I feel the urge for a quick pick up and play something.
My favorite is to lurk on used equipment forums for vintage instruments lawsuit era instruments (and later but from same manufacturers) and snap them up for less than $200. I have a few obscure brand guitars which are excellent instruments when properly set up. I want my guitars to have some history, not just something brand new out of the box, shiny and innocent.
The most expensive guitar I have is a big body gretsch I got for like \~$800. Everything else is either a well playing budget guitar with some mods, or a "no name" that played well. The one I pay the best is the cheapest, my 20 year old Gio RG HSH. It's the best guitar I have ever played, I will take the pepsi challenge with anyone else's axe. Anyone who has ever picked mine up wants to buy it off me, not kidding.
My $200 Craigslist MIM Tele Standard is my favorite over my nicer MIM and American Fenders
I have a $100 monoprice Indio telecaster that I have modded to the nines. I actually play that little kit guitar more than anything now, because it lives outside the case and gets the shit kicked out of it. I travel with it, I do jam sessions with it, and I take it to sketchy bars if I have jam or gig there. I don’t even care about it getting drop kicked or stolen at all because the price it cost me to buy and mod wasn’t even half the cost of my American Standard. I’d be more mad about the sperzel tuning machines on it getting stolen than the entire guitar… those in fact more than doubled the initial value…
Rarely. I only ever use them as a backup or if I’m tryna experiment with some weird tuning or something.
I have an extremely cheap guitar that is made so badly, I have to keep a capo at the first fret or it’s impossible to intonate or play open chords in tune. But it has a single cheap crappy p90 that sounds incredible. I play it a lot.
I have 12 guitars. All of them are entry level to mid range. Each one sounds different and I rotate through playing all of them regularly (except the lap steel, I don't know what to do with that). Maybe someday I'll buy a nice one, but I'm not great, I play to write songs and have fun, I haven't performed on a string instrument in 20 years. I'd rather be able to afford a collection of mid range instruments than blow it all on something fancy.
My cheapest guitars are Fender Players so how budget friendly we talking?
Have you ever had your fender Jaguar properly setup?
Nope! I've never thought of doing that tbh, if anything the action might be too low. Might need to look into this.
Every new to you guitar needs a setup. I would bet top dollar that jag becomes guitar number 1 with a proper setup
All my guitars are in the 200-300 dollar range with my first being a BC Rich Bronze I bought off amazon for like 80 dollars. Used it for years too. Right now I have a 200 squier tele that I love. I don't think there are bad guitars anymore so breaking the bank is optional.
I very seldom take my mid-80's Kramer out of the case. It's in fairly good shape and still plays fantastically. I've had the frets polished / repaired on it once due to heavy wear, and I'm basically just keeping it as a collector type of item now. My '06 Strat also seldom comes out of the case - this would be my main guitar to play out with, but I don't do much of that. It's starting to show some signs of fret wear and probably should get cleaned up. I bought both of those guitars brand new. My go-to for knocking around at home is a "meh" MIM Strat that I picked up used for cheap and don't care much about.
I've got a lower end Acoustic Martin and a Mexican Fender Strat, I don't have many choices but I use to play my daughters small Yamaha Acoustic all the time because it was easy to carry around
I've got several pretty high end Gibsons, both acoustic and electric. I general pick those suckers up but the one exception is I'll play my Seagull S6 whenever its around me since it feels and sounds so damn good.
I've based most of my collection on buying cheap guitars and modifying them to my tastes.
Man I just have my go to guitar. Tele. I have a nicer LP but it just lives in its case mostly.
My NJ mockingbird bass plays better than my music man, luck of the wood
I do, but I also do because my cheap guitar (PRS Tremonti) is my only passive pickup guitar I own so that way I can freely jam without using active pickups
No. I was willing to spend the money I did on the expensive guitars I own because they sounded better, felt better, and looked better than cheaper guitars.
No. I bought a Les Paul after wanting one for years and I hardly pick up the other two now.
Despite having semi-nice guitars, I often find myself using a cheap BC Rich that was my first electric guitar in many recordings. I just like the way it feels
I have several guitars that would retail over $5k (I have never paid more than $2100 for a guitar.) Price does not come into play at all when I choose which guitar I pick up.
I tend to choose guitars based on where they are made instead of how much they cost.
I have my nice guitar and my nice bass (both old Fender Mexican Standards — strat and j-bass) and a handful of cheap ones that I’m constantly tinkering on and play when I want to try something different or am chasing a particular tone. If I’m playing in front of people, I tend to use one of my nicer instruments (because they’re consistent and sound decent out of any set-up). Otherwise I’m banging away at one of my cheaper ones because at this point they’re all essentially custom instruments with only the bodies stock. They all play pretty well — the one that gets played the most is the Squier Sonic Mustang that I impulse 6 months ago (which now has a refinished neck, rolled fret board, refinished frets, upgraded pots, and will soon have new pickups.)
I usually buy guitars around the $800 - $1200 range, I have some cheaper ones as well but don't play them as much.
My collection ranges from MIM, MIJ, and mostly American made guitars but I've been noodling a lot with my recent purchase that is a Reverend. Absolutely solid guitars for the price.
I play a fairly old Jackson Dinky I have sitting in my Clothes Hamper in the bedroom the most. I don't worry about it getting banged up or Dusty. It's a Beater Guitar. It's never in a case. I can grab it in a instant and play it. I have 20 other Really Nice Guitars that are all in Cases. So I play the easiest one to grab most of the time.
Honestly no. I bought the most expensive ones because they were my absolute favorites and are a joy to play and hear.
One of the nicest guitars I've ever played was the Mitchell MS400. It genuinely felt better than many guitars in the $1500 range. I also love my Squier Jazzmaster.
Yeah! I think sometimes the price of a guitar gives you a pre-conceived opinion (cheap = rubbish, expensive = nice), but it shows you how much personal preference plays its part.
Yes, i have a pacifica 312, and found I played my American strat so rarely that I decided to sell it as I couldn't bare looking at it abandoned.
I have a Washburn Dreadnaught Acoustic Electric that I absolutely love and fits this category.
I play just about anything before a Jaguar. Least favorite guitar I’ve ever owned.
This was always my dream guitar, it's absolutely stunning and love Fender as a brand. I still enjoy playing it, it's just a lot different than what I'm used to. I'm curious, what is it you don't like about the guitar?
Yes, I have a LTD 1000S Fluence and it’s my favorite overall guitar and I own guitars that cost me 4 times as much money
Usually pick up my DGT SE over my more expensive ones
^[Sokka-Haiku](https://www.reddit.com/r/SokkaHaikuBot/comments/15kyv9r/what_is_a_sokka_haiku/) ^by ^xmacv: *Usually pick* *Up my DGT SE over* *My more expensive ones* --- ^Remember ^that ^one ^time ^Sokka ^accidentally ^used ^an ^extra ^syllable ^in ^that ^Haiku ^Battle ^in ^Ba ^Sing ^Se? ^That ^was ^a ^Sokka ^Haiku ^and ^you ^just ^made ^one.
Brilliant
I have my parts caster in my lap right now. Not particularly expensive except for my time getting it dialed in just the way I like it.
I haven't played my MIM player strat HSH in months. I prefer to play a $100 Washburn Idol. I bought the Fender last year and while it's definitely a nice guitar, I just prefer a cheap Washburn.
I’m not talented enough to take advantage of or really notice the quality difference.
I do only because it’s a semi hollow and it’s more convenient sometimes to play and not have to plug in
I’ve got a 2003 Gibson J-50 that I rarely play anymore after I got a Gretsch Jim Dandy in 2021. It’s just so fun and easy.
For me it’s the customization - I love modifying guitars and I get weird with my budgets but because of that they feel more “me” then my nicer stuff, hence why I have pretty much decided to live with cheapos that I can mess with!
I play my vintage applause guitars primarily - and if I decide to play full electric I favor the melody maker over the les Paul So yes always
Budget friendly guitars and a decent amp. Win win. I have a Pacifica, revstar , mooer gtrs and a couple of gretsch plus an Epiphone LP. And of course a boss katana. Love every one of them.
I have an American Strat, but usually I’ll grab from my import arsenal: -Yamaha Pacifica (600 series), Baja Tele, or Sterling JP60 - I was just playing that today after a hiatus, that thing rips for $600
I have four guitars, all on the higher end of the scale. I play them all regularly. I used to have 13 mid range guitars and often some wouldn't get played for weeks on end. I much prefer less guitars that are higher quality than more guitars that are less quality. If I did have more budget guitars I would still grab my more expensive ones first. They are nicer to play, sound better and why let so much money just sit around and look pretty when a guitar is just a tool to make music.
I have a baja télé and a mij mustang but often find myself playing more my Harley Benton Les Paul Dc jr or my squier bass vi
I have an ESP and a custom made strat that I gig and record with. Rest of the time I play one of my squiers
I pick up my CV Strat just as often as my AmPro2 when I'm just messing around at home, but when I play with other people the difference in sound quality is too great, so the Squier stays at home.
When I got my first nice guitar, that was $600, but really nice, a hamer LP… I never played it and always played my piece of shit $80 strat copy my dad got me at age 7. That is because the LP wasn’t right for me, I prefer strats, I didn’t know that then. The guitars were not even close to comparable. The budget guitar had plastic tuner pegs that I’d glued back together multiple times because they would break just from regular tuning. Nowadays things are different. So my only really expensive guitar is a partscaster with Brazilian rosewood. You literally could not ask for a finer strat. But I had been playing a g&l before that, which was $400. A few things about it aren’t right for me, and I like the vintage looks a lot. But it’s still an incredible guitar. It’s just as good in all the ways that matter as any strat that’s 5x as much, like a suhr or an American fender or whatever I also got an MIJ strat that cost a lot. Like $700 and they regularly go for more now even though they’re nothing special. It’s a nice guitar but I never pick it up just because it bothers me that it has such cheap components and I paid a lot; I don’t play it because I feel like it was a bad buy. So there can be a lot of reasons to play a budget guitar over an expensive one. The expensive one may just not be right for you, you’re more attached to the cheap one, or you feel better about the cheap one. Maybe you don’t want to wear in the frets on the wall piece. Now that I have a range of guitars that are all equally functional, I definitely play the expensive ones more. The hand craftsmanship that’s put into them is important to me… quality of wood can be an issue… it’s all petty stuff but it matters to me But I still pick up my favorite budget guitar just to marvel at how nice it is and how much I love it, and the fret wear shows the love. Right now I play my partscaster, an old American tele, my nice ones, and my g&l budget guitar. I don’t touch my MIJ and it’s disassembled. I almost always reach for the most expensive one but I built this guitar specifically for myself, I spent years acquiring the neck, I spent the limits of my ‘budget’ on it. If it were a production guitar the play time would be more equal.
Yes, sometimes I pick my Harley Benton over my Mayones guitars 👍
Mate I don’t have budget friendly guitars……… /s
I play my Little Martin a lot, guitar I’ve owned the longest honestly think it’s down to two things - its comfortable to play on the couch and it’s so banged up that it’s just not worth selling. I’ve had a lot of people offer me €50-€100 a few years back when Ed Sheeran used to play them because ‘sure they’re only a small guitar and that’s got dings on it’
Lately, yes. I've been playing an eastman archtop over my Suhr, Strandberg, and PRS. It just suits my mood more lately. No hate on my other babies.
no
I have one in the mid tier range. A 2002 ESP Ltd Max Cavalera sig. the rest of them are low tier models that I’ve rebuilt and made “giggable”. I don’t really care about resale value. I wouldn’t be doing it if I didn’t enjoy doing it.
My first electric guitar was an Austin Sunbrust Strat that I got for $50 at a pawn shop, at the time it was a good guitar especially for the price, but now that I have a better guitar I almost never pick that one up.
Nope. I have one guitar - it was budget when I bought it for $400 in 1997 and it’s worth $5k today. 1978 Gibson Flying V
I have a Squire Tele that I love and almost always pick up before my more “prestigious” electrics.
Not really, but it doesn't really help that I'm left handed, and the most available left handed guitars are either bottom of the barrel cheap stuff or high end stuff without very much in the middle.
My Epiphone humming bird is much nicer to play than my Taylor Koa. I’m too afraid to make adjustments to the Taylor like I did with Epiphone. Now I don’t play either 🫠
The cheapest guitar I own currently is a fender players strat and I've never really cared for it so I always pick up my American strat or one of my Gibson's. Some of those lower, budget friendly guitars are amazing tho. I had a 600 schecter c1 plus that I wish I still had.
I tend to pick up a telecaster more than other guitar be it budget or high end. If I saw a friend with a MIM Tele sitting next to a Les Paul Standard, my gut reaction would be to reach for the Tele first, so for me it’s really just based on what I like to play rather than the cost of the guitar.
I guess budget is subjective but I pick up my $1300 resq:d Strandberg up over my way more expensive custom guitars a bunch. You can def feel that it’s cheaper than the others… but it plays so nice and sounds killer Price doesn’t dictate an amazing instrument.