Things to Consider When Purchasing a Guitar

Let’s face it, buying a good guitar – whether you do it online or offline – can be a daunting task. However if you have a passion for playing the guitar, and/or if you idolize some of the biggest names in the music industry, you might already know that finding and buying a good guitar is really important.

With a whole host of guitar companies, brands, types and model, and guitars coming in all shapes and sizes, buying your perfect axe is anything but an easy task.

And even though you might be familiar with Gibsons and Fenders, and know your Les Pauls from your Stratocasters, there are different aspects which need to be considered before you take the plunge. Here are a few:

Intonation and Sound

Detrimental to the quality of the sound produced by the guitar, intonation determines that the notes you play are in tune, when you move up and down the neck of the guitar. Therefore before making the purchase, make sure you actually use and play the guitar you want to buy, to check its intonation.

A good measure to determine this is to press down on at a fret, it should play the same note as it would play it unfretted. If they sound the same fretted and unfretted, it means that the intonation is alright.

For an acoustic guitar, if it feels great and sounds great, go for it. It’s that simple. For an electric guitar, make sure you hook it up with a proper amp before judging its sound or tone.

The Neck or Fretboard

For me, one of the most important things when picking up a guitar. Fretboards are made up of wood, and the first thing you would need to determine is what sort of wood it is made of.

Rosewood fretboards, for instance, have a smooth and hard surface, but guitars made of rosewood are rare, and a bit on the heavy side.

Maple, on the other hand, is comparatively lighter and has medium hardness, which makes the neck of the guitar much lighter. Maple is most commonly used in by Fender in almost all their guitars, and most notably, in the Fender Stratocaster.

Mahogany is the most commonly used wood-type in today’s guitars. It is extremely light, even lighter than Maple, and is a very long-lasting type of wood. It is for these reasons that Mahogany is used most commonly in almost all acoustic guitars. Mahogany also has a natural dark color, which gives the guitars an attractive, natural finish.

Pau Ferro is an alternative to rosewood and particularly Brazilian rosewood guitars. It is very heavy, almost as heavy as Rosewood, and completely non-porous, which is why people who customize their guitars prefer Pau ferro-made guitars. However it is known to cause allergies.

Apart from the type of wood, one would also need to check if the neck is straight.

Action

‘Action’ is commonly referred to as the distance between the neck and the strings. It should ideally feel comfortable to play and if it doesn’t, make sure it can be adjusted using a bridge adjustment or the turn of the truss rod. The spacing between the neck and the strings should feel just right.

Also remember that on an electric guitar, if the action is too low, it may cause the strings to vibrate against the metal frets on the neck.

Scale Length

Scale length, aka the vibrating length of a guitar string, is the distance between the bridge and the nut. It is this distance which determines sound and tone produced by the guitar. There are three different standards used by modern guitars: the 24-5/8” Gibson scale, the 25-1/2” Fender scale and the 25” Paul Reed Smith scale.

Tuning

Get your guitar tuned properly from the store before making the purchase. Most stores would have guitar tuners in their shops, and would be more than glad to tune your guitar for you, in case you do not know how to do it yourself.

Alternatively, you could get an app for your iPhone (such as the Guitar Tuner on the Apple iTunes App Store), which would assist you with the tuning process.

As explained earlier, it is extremely essential to have a properly tuned guitar.

Strings

Hold down each of the strings of the guitar, starting from the second fret to the twelfth one, and check if each string touches all the frets or not. There should be zero variation here, and all strings should touch the frets.

Finish

In an acoustic guitar, finish determines and effects the way the wood vibrates. And then, of course, there’s the aesthetics factor as well, especially in an electric guitar. A guitar with a good finish would usually stand out, and look attractive during a gig or a performance. Or get you bragging points on your next jam session with the band.