Buying an Electric Guitar
Having played many guitars professionally for a while now, I have come to broadly categorize guitars by their origin country. AMERICAN - which would be your Gibsons and Fenders. JAPANESE - the Ibanez and Schecters and then there is REST OF THE WORLD - Mexican, Chinese and Indonesian builds.
American guitars have historically been the most coveted with all the named rock hereos keenly brandishing on their hip. From the retro-scifi and aptly named Stratocaster to the muscular yet elegant LesPaul these are as iconic as a Ford Mustang and Apple Pie on the 4th of July. Chinese guitars are cringed upon, but I wont be talking about them here.
Japanese guitars are the real hidden gems in my opinion. Often overlooked and seldom appreciated for what they are. These are the Toyota Supras and Mitsubishis of the guitar world and they have ushered in a new age in guitar manufacture. One quick way to test the workmanship on a guitar is to run your fingers down the edge of your guitar’s neck checking to see if the frets are filed smoothly. I have tried this on 200$ Ibanezes and on 3000$ Gibsons and the results are shocking! Well not so much I guess, considering Gibson went bankrupt recently.
The point I am coming to is build quality. Now don’t get me wrong, Fenders and Gibsons can be great too. But they suffer simply from poor quality control. You can find a Mexican made Strat at 500$ be better built than an American costing 1200$. And its mostly random. Spending many hours trying out different Strats and Teles in a store could be your next favorite passtime. Each one feels totally different and the price tag on the guitar tells you nothing about that. And some people like that, the feeling of finding that cheap raggedy looking Tele and somehow it just putting your soul on fire. But let’s face it - not eveyone makes 30 visits to various stores across several months, to find that diamond in the rough (I bought a Guild Acoustic for 550$ after one such marathon).
Especially not when there’s a better option. Legacy and all is great and I do care about the history so when someone pulls out a Goldtop LesPaul from its aged tweed case everyone including me huddles around to look. But the fact is, the American brands are just not that competitive anymore. Charging 2500$ for a base model is ridiculous when you can get a top-of-the-line ESP for the same price. And have you ever played an ESP? I always wanted a Les Paul as my main axe but after winning an ESP through an online competition I truly understood what I was missing out on. Its an Eclipse2 at 1900$ based around the LP shape and I have only seen Gibsons upwards of 4000$ approach in the quality and worksmanship.
It’s a sublime guitar and everything about it feels like an improvement on the base LP design. Also the Artcore or Artstar series by Ibanez which makes its own versions of American designs.
Perhaps some people reading this would be familiar with ‘Pre-Lawsuit’ Japanese guitars. In the 70s Ibanez and other builders were making perfect replicas of American guitars which a lot of people swear are better than the real deal. These are rare collector items which resale for a substantial amount now. At first it wasn't taken seriously but eventually a lawsuit was filed when it became a genuine concern for the American companies. This is when the Japanese brands truly started to construct their own designs. And coming back to our motoring analogy if you want classic muscle, denim jackets and ageless beauty - go for it. But if you feel the need for speed then the Ibanez JEM is the Bugati Chiron. Unapologetically engineered, at 300 miles an hour it’ll shred your fingers like a cheese grater and YOU ARE GOING TO LOVE IT!