Shopping for guitars online is big fun, especially if you’ve owned a guitar before and you know exactly what you’re looking for. If you’re looking for your first guitar, browsing the online guitar stores is fun, too. But do you really know how to choose the right guitar?
If you’ve never before purchase a guitar offline or off, you might want to opt to buy one that you’ve actually handled and played first. Of course, you can buy one online if you choose to. But if you can hold and play the guitar before you buy, you can be more sure of what you’re getting.
Of course, you could hold and play a guitar, and look for the same model of guitar online. This option lets you handle the instrument and know what you’re getting. But by purchasing it online, you can probably save a lot of money over buying it from a local store.
At the very least, do a lot of research on guitars so you know that you’re getting a good one. And for your first guitar online or off, consider getting one that’s really good for beginners but not necessarily top of the line.
You’ll want a quality instrument. If you purchase a guitar online that’s cheaply made, you may lose interest in learning quite quickly. Cheap guitars are often barely held together, have poor sound and won’t stay in tune. It’s no fun playing a guitar that sounds awful.
In addition, even if you can overlook the sound and manage to learn some chords and notes, you won’t be getting familiar with the way it’s supposed to sound when played properly. That can be a huge drawback later, even once you purchase a great guitar. Your ear won’t be trained properly to recognize flat and sharp notes, if your first guitar was always sharp or flat!
So do choose a guitar that’s good enough, which will probably cost somewhere between $200 and $400 dollars. But don’t think, even if you get a good guitar sale online, that you need to be a thousand dollar or more instrument.
Once you start practicing regularly and get familiar with the guitar, you’ll discover what you like and what you don’t. And you’ll be in a better position to shop for guitars online or in stores to get exactly what you want. You won’t know which guitar is best for you until you can play a little bit, so consider holding off on that $3,000 Gibson archtop!
If you’re looking for a used guitar online, ask the seller, whether it’s a store or an auction, many pointed question about its condition. Ask about any repairs that have been done on the guitar.
While repairs are not uncommon, certain repairs like a cracked neck, can seriously compromise the quality of the instrument. You can find a guitar online, but be patient. And keep in mind that if something seems too good to be true, like a new Fender for $150, it probably is.
