Bowed Neck? A Little is OK

If you hold your guitar up to a light and see that the neck is a bit bowed, don’t be alarmed. Most guitars are expected to have a slight upward bow, but if it is bowed more than it should be, don’t worry. Get out a hex wrench so you can adjust the truss rod that is in the center of the neck. Look to the headstock and there should be a place to adjust the truss rod. Make sure not to stress the neck too much by making extreme adjustments to the truss rod, but straightening the guitar neck shouldn’t be a difficult task. You may have to remove the neck from the guitar, but this isn’t difficult either. Use a capo to save your strings if they do not need to be replaced, and slowly adjust the truss rod until you are happy with how the guitar looks and plays.

Cleaning Your Guitar is Maintenance Too

Cleaning your guitar will not only make it look better, but it will add years to the life of your guitar.  Always start by blowing excess dust off of the surface you are cleaning.  This includes the headstock, under the strings, and any major surfaces on the guitar itself.  Each section of the guitar takes a special kind of cleaning, but there are a few rules that you can stick to for almost all surfaces.  First, use a dry, soft cloth to wipe down and polish your guitar.  On my Gibson guitars, it generally takes a bit of elbow grease, but generally I can get a pretty good shine simply with a dry cloth, no cleaning solution required.  You can also pick up guitar cleaning solution and polish at your local music shop.  Be careful not to use anything but a dry cloth on the pickups and other metal & magnetic parts of the guitar, as these can be corrosive and damaging to these sensative parts.

Adjust & Tighten Your Tuners

If your tuners aren’t tight it can be difficult to keep the entire guitar tuned perfectly. Unfortunately it is best to tighten the tuners when you are changing the strings, so this may have to wait until your strings need to be replaced, or this could be a good excuse to restring your guitar. After you have removed the strings from the tuning nuts, take a small screwdriver and gently tighten the screws in the tuners. Be careful not to apply too much force here, as the tuners themselves (and everything in the headstock, generally) are fragile and expensive to fix or replace if broken. Don’t force the screws tight; if they are snug they are generally as tight as they need to be.

Other Guitar Maintenance Tips

There are a number of other things to keep in mind regarding storage and upkeep of your guitar. First, keep your guitar in a case when it is not in use. Not one of those soft cases, either. It is worth every penny to get a good quality hard case. This will not only keep the guitar safe, but it will help with temperature and humidity control as well. Speaking of which, you want to store your guitar out of direct sunlight, in a comfortably heated and humid environment. Generally, if you are comfortable in the room, your guitar will be too. I tend to keep my Gibson guitars stored in the center of my house since the temperature is pretty stable there.

There is plenty more you can do to keep your guitar well maintained, but this list will get you started in the right direction.  I spend a good chunk of time keeping my Gibson guitars well maintained since I would hate to have to replace any of them for avoidable wear and tear.  Have any other great tips?  Leave your thoughts in the comments.

Epiphone Les Paul Special II

One of the most affordable Gibson guitars, the Epiphone Les Paul Special II is great for beginners for many reasons. For one, it is cheap. You can get the Les Paul Special II for under $200 easily, which is affordable by any means. Not only is this guitar affordable, but it super versatile as well. Whether you aspire to be a metal god or simply want to jam with some friends, this guitar will work for you. With a mahogany neck and a rosewood fretboard, this guitar not only sounds good, but is beautiful as well.

Epiphone SG-Special

Another guitar under $200, Gibson’s Epiphone SG-Special set of guitars is another perfect beginner guitar. This guitar is a replica of the original Gibson classic SG, so it is a classic. The SG-Special is a standard rock guitar, so there aren’t any special bells and whistles, but it does boast of two open-coil humbuckers, a rosewood fretboard like the Les Paul Special II, and a beautiful sound for such an affordable guitar. A great aspect of the Epiphone SG-Special is that it comes in a number of different colors, so whatever your personality there is a guitar for you.

Epiphone G-310 SG

The G-310 is a little more expensive than the previous 2 guitars, but not by much. Between $200 and $250, this guitar is still great for beginners but does not sacrifice as much in quality. What the G-310 does better than the previous 2 guitars is that is handles both harsh and warm distortion well, mainly because of the 4 tuning knobs it has versus the 2 knobs on the previous beginner guitars. Like the previous guitars, the G-310 has a mahogany neck and a rosewood neck, so you are still getting a quality Gibson guitar with any of the 3 choices.

I would be comfortable recommending any of these Gibson guitars to a beginner, though I would probably suggest spending a few extra dollars and getting the G-310 SG. Just starting out you may not notice the difference, but you will quickly grow out of the first 2 guitars and wish you had the versatility of the G-310.

Choosing the perfect guitar

In part 1 we left you in the guitar shop after you tried out both high end and low end guitars. After getting a feel for what makes a guitar great and comparing the differences between guitars, you are probably still wondering how you are going to choose the perfect guitar for you. There are a lot of details to think of, and in the end it will probably come down to your gut (and your wallet). The main thing to keep in mind when choosing the perfect guitar is to keep in mind what your needs are. If this is your first guitar, stick with a big name brand. Obviously I would say you should be buying Gibson guitars, but as a beginner you will probably be well off with any of the bigger names. If this isn’t your first axe, focus on how you will be using it. A performance guitar needs to be rugged, though you may be looking for something flashy or cool to wow your fans. It really comes down to personal preference, so if you fall in love with a guitar and you can afford it, buy it. But don’t just walk up to the counter and pay full price, you still have a lot of work to do.

Do not pay full price

As with many big purchases, you can bargain on price with guitars. Need any other equipment? See if you can get it for free, or conversely see if you can knock the price of the guitar down if you buy the rest of your equipment from that particular store. If you are new to playing guitar, see if you can get a deal on lessons or some song books as well. Whatever you do, do not pay full price. The only time I’ve paid full price on any of my Gibson guitars was when I found one cheap online and it was going to be a practice piece anyway. Even then, I probably should have tried to get a better deal.

Personal experience

If you’ve gotten this far in your trek to buy a new guitar, you have a new toy to play with. To me there is nothing more exciting than plugging in a new guitar for the first time. As far as personal experiences go, I’d have to say one of my most recent Gibson guitars, a Les Paul Standard Electric, was one of my most successful purchases. The reason it went so well was that I followed most of the rules outlined above; I knew how much I wanted to pay, did a ton of research, sat down and played the guitar before I bought it, and then knocked the price down pretty significantly before taking it home. But what made this guitar purchase so amazing was how quickly I fell in love with it. As I said before, most of buying a guitar comes down to a gut feeling, which should not be ignored.

So there you go. This should be enough to get you on your path to buying the guitar of your dreams. Did I forget anything? Let me know in the comments. I want to learn what your tips and tricks are too!

Figure out your budget

As with any purchase, your first step should be figuring out what your needs are and what your budget is. Are you looking for an electric or acoustic guitar? Is this just to practice on, or is it a performance guitar? What are you willing to pay? Since we love our Gibson guitars here, I can tell you off hand that you can usually find lower level Gibsons for around $200-$300 on sale, but they also range up in the thousands of dollars. This is similar for other manufacturers; starter sets can start at under $200, but custom or vintage guitars can go into the thousands or even above $10,000 in some cases.

Do some research

Once you have figured out your style and price range, it is time to do a little research. Go online and find out exactly what you can get for your price range. Look at multiple sites and different manufacturers to get a good feel of what you can expect as your final purchase. When I am looking at a new guitar I like to give myself a price range, and then I will go see what I can get at the low end versus the high end of that range. Sometimes the difference is so small that I know I can go with the cheaper guitar without sacrificing quality. And personally, since I tend to stick with Gibson guitars (though my last acoustic guitar was a Martin!), I know that I am not usually sacrificing much quality at all.

Try out the guitars

The next step is one of the most important things you can do, and is often not done by new buyers: go to your local guitar store and try out the guitars. No matter how pretty a guitar is online or how many features it may have, nothing will tell you whether it is the perfect guitar for you like playing it will. I know it can be intimidating, especially if there are the normal show-off guitar gods shredding as loud as they can, but this will be worth it. Set aside a good chunk of time and find a good stool so you can play as many guitars as you can as comfortably as possible. My suggestion would be to start out with a really expensive guitar, something totally out of your range, so you can get a feel for what makes a great guitar so good. Again, because of personal preference I would stick to Gibson guitars, and you would be perfectly happy playing a Gibson Les Paul Standard Electric if you need an idea of where to start out.

Compare and contrast

After you’ve finished shredding on your dream guitar, it’s time to figure out what exactly made that guitar so awesome. The best way to do that is to go to the other extreme; find yourself a cheap starter guitar. Play your heart out on this one just as you did on the expensive guitar, but take note of the differences. What makes this one sound so much worse than the expensive one? Is it harder to play? Does it lack the personality that the dream guitar has? Think about all of this before you move on, because these subtle (or sometimes VERY obvious) differences are what will help you find the perfect guitar for you.

That’s it for part 1 of the new guitar buying guide, but check back soon for part 2. And as always, keep your eyes peeled for more news and reviews on Gibson guitars, as well as plenty of other guitar equipment.