Choosing a Guitar

There are numerous concerns you should have when choosing a guitar, such as...

Build Quality

Build quality is everything. Consider a guitar with a warped neck. It will not intonate properly - after tuning the open strings you'll find the fretted notes are out-of-tune. Or consider a guitar whose neck is firmly connected to the body. It will move and keep going out of tune. Build quality relates to the guitar's durability as well.

Usually, the build quality should be apparent based on the other aspects below. It would be rare to find a guitar that looks, sounds, and feels great but has a poor build quality.

Guitar manufacturers stake their reputation on their build quality. The bigger companies usually use a different brand name to market their cheaper, generally-lower-quality lines. For example, the big names like Fender and Gibson have Squier and Epiphone lines, respectively. That said, even the big names can produce duds. Most guitars are factory-built, many in foreign factories. Quality assurance is lacking. It's best to give any guitar you want to buy a good look over - make sure there are no chips, warping, glaring knots in the wood grain, loose parts, rattling, or any other defects.

Play the guitar all over the neck - make sure no frets produce rattling or mysteriously fade out instead of sustaining.

Used guitars can make for good bargains; but if you're not sure how to check if the guitar has any defects, you may want to buy a new guitar. These will have a better return policy with the store you purchased it from, plus have a 3 month - 1 year manufacturer's warranty you can honor if you later discover some non-obvious defect.

Playability

A guitar is no good if you can't play it. Unfortunately, this is not the easiest thing to test, especially in a store. Stores are often notorious for allowing guitars to sit in the demo room without being properly set up or being out-of-tune. So if you grab it off the shelf, it may be impossible or difficult to play, or it may get lots of fret buzz or even have strings that are fretting out. Sometimes they'll even have broken or missing strings. If you are seriously interested in buying that guitar, take it to a salesperson, tell them you are really interested in it but not in its current condition. They usually work on commission and will try to help you as best they can, provided you convince them you are serious about making a purchase. They can definitely tune it up for you (which is often near-impossible to do in a noisy guitar store) and maybe even give it a setup job. Even if they don't give it a full setup, they should be willing to at least adjust the action.

A good guitar shouldn't fret out anywhere - this is where the string literally cannot sustain due to hitting a higher fret. A little fret buzz is expected, depending on string gauge and action; but it shouldn't sustain over the life of the note. Test notes on the entire fretboard - low and high frets, low and high strings. It's common for frets around 2-6 to get more fret buzz than higher frets - this can usually be evened out by adjusting the truss rod.

The frets should be smooth - you should be able to bend the strings up and down against the frets smoothly. If the frets aren't properly sanded down and finished, they may be a bit rough. This makes for difficult and possibly jerky bends, which is no good. Having a neck properly finished is not cheap - my advice is to avoid purchasing a guitar in such state. Maybe the store will offer to do the work for you - make them do it first, or make it contingent on a no-questions-asked return policy. They might try to cut corners just to make the sale and leave you stuck with a barely playable guitar.

I bought an Ibanez RGA8 that had to be special ordered and arrived with cuts in the frets - literally looked and felt like knife cuts. Bending through them felt nasty and was completely unacceptable. I used my warranty to get a new one.

Unfortunately, it's often difficult to tell whether the problem with a guitar can be cured with a proper setup or if it's a defect/poor craftsmanship. Many vendors have a no questions asked return policy. So you could buy it, make adjustments, then determine whether to keep or return it. Unfortunately, if you pay a professional to set it up, then return it, you have to eat the cost of the setup.

Sometimes a little setup is all a guitar needs, and you can't write them all off based on their state at the store. But other times a guitar is well-setup and well-crafted, and the quality is clearly superb. It's always best to work off of knowledge rather than assumptions. IE, if you have to pay a little more to get a guitar you know has good playability vs. a guitar that might have good playability, it's probably worth the extra money.