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Guitar Buying Guide: Essential Considerations for Your Next Purchase · The Steve Stine Podcast

• 0:35
  Steve: Hey, Steve, here and in this video we're going to talk a little bit about what to think about if you're looking at purchasing a guitar.
• 0:41
  Steve: Now, there's lots of different things that you can look at, from color to body style, different kinds of things like that which are very important.
• 0:49
  Steve: But there's some other things I want you to think about as well.
• 0:52
  Steve: For instance, whether or not the guitar neck has 21 or 22 or 24 frets can make a big difference in your playing, and again, we can go into detail in that in a different video.
• 1:04
  Steve: But just understand that that's an important factor is if you buy a guitar and it has 21 frets and you're used to having 24 frets on a guitar, it's going to feel a lot different, okay, the other thing to think about that a lot of people don't realize is that the neck has a length we call a scale length.
• 1:20
  Steve: Now there's a Gibson scale length, which tends to be a little bit shorter, and then there's the Fender style scale length, which tends to be a little bit longer, and then there are other scale lengths somewhere in between there, sometimes even shorter, sometimes even longer.
• 1:32
  Steve: That can make a big difference on how the guitar feels when you play it.
• 1:36
  Steve: So, for instance, if you have a scale length of what's called a 25 and a half inch, or even 25 and a quarter inch, it's going to feel a little bit longer.
• 1:45
  Steve: That's what something like this is.
• 1:46
  Steve: If I had one of my Paul Reed Smiths with me, those have a little bit shorter scale length, so everything is a little bit more stuck together, so it's going to feel a little bit different.
• 1:56
  Steve: So those are things you want to think about a little bit.
• 1:57
  Steve: Another thing to think about is the pickup configuration whether or not you want single coils or humbuckers.
• 2:04
  Steve: You want two, like is on this guitar.
• 2:07
  Steve: I have two humbuckers on this guitar, but I have other guitars that have, for instance, a humbucker and two single coils, or two humbuckers and a single coil.
• 2:16
  Steve: Point is it's got three different pickups where this one only has two.
• 2:19
  Steve: Some guitars only have one.
• 2:21
  Steve: Okay, something to think about a little bit.
• 2:23
  Steve: Now.
• 2:24
  Steve: Guitar pickups can be swapped out for different pickups if you want a different sound sometime in the future.
• 2:28
  Steve: But if you buy a guitar that only has one guitar, you're not probably going to route it out to add another pickup someday.
• 2:34
  Steve: You'd probably just get a different guitar because it'd be cheaper and it'd probably look a lot nicer and obviously, again, it would cost you a lot less money and it wouldn't change the tone of the guitar at all.
• 2:45
  Steve: So those are things to think about.
• 2:46
  Steve: Another thing to think about whether or not it has a volume control.
• 2:49
  Steve: Maybe it has two volume controls, maybe it has a tone control or two tone controls.
• 2:54
  Steve: Maybe it has no tone control, which happens on some guitars.
• 2:58
  Steve: Okay, different kinds of things to think about.
• 3:01
  Steve: Another big thing to think about is whether or not it has a tremolo system.
• 3:05
  Steve: Some guitars just have a standard straight bridge.
• 3:08
  Steve: Okay, some guitars have a locking tremolo system, like you see here.
• 3:13
  Steve: There are other guitars that have a whammy bar system, but the locking mechanisms are actually done on the nut of each one of these, okay, on the tuners of each one.
• 3:24
  Steve: I should say Not the nut but the locking tuners.
• 3:27
  Steve: Some guitars don't have any locking system at all.
• 3:30
  Steve: They may have a whammy bar, but they don't have a locking nut, they don't have locking tuners, they don't have anything, which traditionally kind of means it probably goes out of tune quite a bit.
• 3:40
  Steve: But hey, you never know.
• 3:41
  Steve: But these are things to think about a little bit when you're thinking about buying a guitar.
• 3:44
  Steve: Another thing that just came to my mind is body weight.
• 3:47
  Steve: You might wind up with a guitar like, for instance, a real classic, awesome style Gibson Les Paul and then realize it's really, really heavy when you play it.
• 3:57
  Steve: The other thing that I find about Les Pauls which you'll notice, I never play them because they're uncomfortable for me doesn't mean they're not cool, they're awesome.
• 4:05
  Steve: They just don't work for me.
• 4:07
  Steve: But with a Les Paul, the curvature here that sits on your leg is further up on the body, so it sits back further, like this when you sit down with a Les Paul.
• 4:17
  Steve: So it's going to feel a little bit different that way.
• 4:19
  Steve: Does that mean it's bad?
• 4:20
  Steve: No, I'm just telling you.
• 4:21
  Steve: It just means it's different.
• 4:23
  Steve: So these are things to think about a little bit when it comes to buying a guitar, not just you know it looks nice and whatever.
• 4:30
  Steve: You know.
• 4:30
  Steve: There's the obvious things like does it have six strings versus seven strings, something like that, which is important as well, but things like the scale length, the pickup configuration, how many frets there are.
• 4:42
  Steve: These are kinds of things that you really want to be aware of.
• 4:44
  Steve: What kind of tremolo system, if any, does it have and does it stay in tune for you as needed.
• 4:50
  Steve: If it does have a tremolo system, you know, do you want to try and avoid that sort of thing because it makes, you know, changing strings easier, or whatever.
• 4:56
  Steve: It might be Just different kinds of things to think about a.