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$500 & Guitar Center's Memorial Day Sale

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ItsTheMatthias	$500 & Guitar Center's Memorial Day Sale	Lead	[-]
Posts: 1 (05/17/09 21:23:56) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	Tags : guitar, 500, memorial, day, sale, center, buy, purchase, sell So I'm 16 years old and I just got a job this year. I've been saving up money for an acoustic guitar and I finally got $500 (maybe around $600 by the end of this week). Now it's almost Memorial Day and Guitar Center has a special sale on that day every year (as you probably already know). I've honestly never gone to this sale, so I have no idea what type of items are going to be discounted, but I want to try and buy my guitar on that day and get a good deal. I am particularly looking for just a regular acoustic guitar with a standard shape. (No cutaways.) Later I plan to probably install electronics in it so I can plug it into an amp or something. Anyway, to get an idea of what kind of music I play, I'd want to point out that I'm a fingerstyle guitarist (yes I use a thumbpick) who plays a lot of songs composed guitarists like Don Ross, Antoine Dufour, Tommy Emmanuel, Ulli Boegershausen, Sungha Jung, Kotaro Oshio, Andy McKee, etc. Yesterday I went to my nearest Guitar Center just to browse around. I mainly looked at their Taylors and Martins, and I was really impressed by this one Martin for $500. The problem is I forgot what model it was, but I believe it's either one of these three: http://www.guitarcenter.com/Martin-DX1K-Acoustic-Guitar-514672-i1148327.gc http://www.guitarcenter.com/Martin-000X1-Acoustic-Guitar-101245280-i1148385.gc (I think it's either this one...) http://www.guitarcenter.com/Martin-DX1-Dreadnought-Acoustic-Guitar-100895119-i1148383.gc (...or this one.) It had a hole under it where I could probably install electronics in it too if that helps identify which one it is, although I'm pretty sure a lot of regular acoustic guitars have that. The one Taylor in my assured price range was a Taylor Big Baby Dreadnought Acoustic Guitar... and that was just disappointing. All of the other Taylors I tried were way over my price range and I have to say, they were amazing. I didn't see too many Takamines, but the ones I saw were cutaways which is something I'm not looking for. I saw a couple of Seagulls but they were waaaay above my price range. So with my price range around $500 and considering the possible (or maybe not possible?) price cuts during the Guitar Center Memorial Day sale, what acoustic guitar should I get? (I might be willing to bend the price range up a bit, but not by too much.) So far that one Martin has really been on my mind, but my knowledge about guitar features is pretty mediocre so I'm probably missing some other guitars. If you know any good Seagulls that I missed or any other guitars from a brand that I didn't list, please feel free to post it up! Think I shouldn't buy from Guitar Center? Maybe I should order online? If you have any comments or suggestions, don't hesitate to post! (Note I'm aware that brand isn't the only thing that matters, and I'm not just going to blindly buy a guitar that's suggested. I'm going to take everyone's feedback and suggestions and play each guitar individually to see which one I like best, regardless if it's a Taylor, Martin, Seagull, etc.) UPDATE: Here's some other guitars people have suggested me to look into: -Epiphone Masterbilt Series (Available at Guitar Center and there's a lot of different models in this series. Not sure which one to choose.) -Seagull 25th Anniversary Mahogany Spruce Dreadnought Guitar [USED] (Not in Guitar Center, but I'm looking for a place to see where I can try it out. Can be ordered online from Musician's Friend for sure.) -Alvarez Artist Series AD80SSB Dreadnought Acoustic Guitar (Not in Guitar Center, but I'm looking for a place to see where I can try it out. Can be ordered online from Musician's Friend for sure.) Last Edited By: ItsTheMatthias 05/17/09 23:56:33. Edited 7 times.
Paul Kucharski		#1	[-]
Posts: 1070 (05/18/09 08:55:41) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	Tough call on all of those. A couple things to think about is neck width at the nut and the action you need for the kind of tapping style music you like. Most fingestyle guitars are 1 3/4. I think all those Martins are 1 11/16. So your string spacing may make some fingerstyle things harder to execute. Not impossible, just harder. Martin's aren't well known for having really close action and for that tapping style you may find it problematic. It isn't uncommon to pay a luthier to adjust the action after you get a new Martin (I've got 2 and had it done to both). The Taylor's of course are know for the their great setups right off the shelf. Too bad you couldn't find one in your price range. Lastly, you could probably find a Seagull in your price range with electronics already built in and a wider nut width. It'd save you some money in the long run to have it included. Here's an example. http://guitars.musiciansfriend.com/product/Seagull-Coastline-Series-S6-Dreadnought-QI-AcousticElectric-Guitar?sku=516922 Anyway, good luck with your search. Webmaster http://www.acousticfingerstyle.com Last Edited By: Paul Kucharski 05/18/09 08:58:25. Edited 1 times.
ItsTheMatthias		#2	[-]
Posts: 2 (05/18/09 20:55:29) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	I really appreciate your response! Yeah the one thing I didn't like about the Martins I was playing was that the strings felt a bit squished, but I have relatively small hands so it wasn't a big problem for me at the time. Of course, it would probably become an issue in the long run, so it's really good you really brought that problem up! Anyway, I was actually looking away from Guitar Center and I found a used Seagull 25th Anniversary Mahogany Spruce Dreadnought guitar. I haven't actually touched it, but it looks like it's in okay condition. Here's the specs of it: http://guitars.musiciansfriend.com/product?sku=516401X I found a video of a guy playing on it too: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGJUdURnkkc From what I've heard, it seems like there's been a lot of positive reviews about this guitar. It is also a full body of wood for under $600 which is pretty good... although I'm not really sure about the specifics on how it's better. I'd be lovely if someone could explain why a full body of wood is better than all/partly laminated body wood. So would this guitar be good for a fingerstyle guitarist like me? Or would I be better off trying a different guitar?
Paul Kucharski		#3	[-]
Posts: 1071 (05/19/09 09:52:12) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	What you found looks like a great find in that you get all solid wood; top, back and sides and the 1.8 nut width (which is ideal for fingerstyle). And you get the additional savings from the scratch & dent pricing. The thing you really want to be sure you get is a solid top for best tone. The back and sides being laminated is not as important. But when you can get solid all the way around, what you'll find is that as the guitar ages, all the woods will contribute to the improved sound as it gets broken in. Laminated pieces don't get better sounding with age. What you're giving up in this case is the on-board electronics. Something you'll have to add since it is pretty much required for that tapping style of play. The model I pointed to gave you that in exchange for the laminated back and sides. So you need to decide what you value more. You can read more about the electronics here. http://www.seagullguitars.com/electronics.htm Webmaster http://www.acousticfingerstyle.com Last Edited By: Paul Kucharski 05/19/09 09:56:46. Edited 1 times.
ItsTheMatthias		#4	[-]
Posts: 3 (05/19/09 21:41:59) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	Yeah, I'll definitely need to research electronics and save more money to buy and install them. (It would probably be a good idea to get a professional guitar technician to install it for me huh?) Also I've heard that a full body of wood requires more maintenance like the use of humidifiers. I live in California and the whether is bipolar here. One day it can be freezing, and the next day it can be cooking eggs on the sidewalk. It pretty much is random like this throughout the entire year and most of the time it's quite dry, so perhaps investing in a humidifier would be a good idea? Is there anything I should consider buying or noting to help maintain a healthy acoustic guitar? Also I'd just like to say you've been a great help! I've sought advice everywhere, and you're probably the one giving the most valuable source of information out of everyone. Thank you so much. I really appreciate your advice!
Paul Kucharski		#5	[-]
Posts: 1073 (05/20/09 08:31:08) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	Whether you need a pro to install your electronics will depend on what you pick. Many guitars today have strap pegs that are pre-drilled for pickup jack. With those guitars you can easily install a soundhole or SBT pickup yourself for example. But if you go with an undersaddle pickup or the peghole needs to get reamed out, that is best left to a pro. A guitar humidifier is definitely a good idea for any solid wood instrument. The goal is to try to keep the wood in a 40-50% humidity range. The problem you'll have with individual guitar humidifiers is that most won't tell you where you're at or the gauges are pretty unreliable. So you can over humidfy or under humidify the thing. Here's a good article on the subject from Taylor guitars. http://www.taylorguitars.com/global/pdfs/guitar_humidifier.pdf A better (but more expensive) option is to get a guitar case with a humidifier system built in. Those usually include a gauge. But those case may cost almost as much as your guitar. What I do is just maintain the 40-50% in my house and use a digital gauge to monitor where it's at in the house. But I have so many guitars, there is no other practical way to do it. Webmaster http://www.acousticfingerstyle.com Last Edited By: Paul Kucharski 05/20/09 08:37:51. Edited 2 times.
ItsTheMatthias		#6	[-]
Posts: 4 (05/21/09 23:36:13) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	I've just bought the Seagull 25th Anniversary Mahogany Spruce Dreadnought Guitar and I'm very impressed with it's quality. Honestly you've given me valuable information to carry for a lifetime. Again, thanks a bunch and I really appreciate the help!
Paul Kucharski		#7	[-]
Posts: 1075 (05/22/09 07:50:15) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	Congratulations! I think you made a good choice. Webmaster http://www.acousticfingerstyle.com

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