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Buying A Cheap Guitar Online
by Kurt Kurosawa
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| Do you want to buy yourself
or a family member a first guitar, but find you're hanging back because of a
tight budget? Don't worry. You needn't flatten your wallet like a flounder
to get a decent instrument.
This Christmas, I set out to
buy the cheapest acceptable Strat copy I could find online, fully expecting to
drop two to three hundred dollars. But I found what needed for only $69--the
Kramer Focus VT111S. Old-timers will remember Kramer's now-defunct line of
innovative aluminum-necked guitars and basses. Now the Kramer name is back
(under the Gibson umbrella) on a line of amazingly inexpensive Korean-built
guitars. Kramer makes some great full-featured guitars for killer-low prices,
but for my purposes, the plywood-bodied 111S, the cheapest in the line, was the
star of the show.
Hundreds of difficult
decisions must be made correctly to build a good cheap guitar. The lower the
price, the more challenging the engineering. The first cuts are the
easiest--going from a triple-ply pickguard to single-ply, for instance, or
moving manufacturing offshore. There are plenty of capable $200 guitars. But a
guitar that offers all the basic virtues of the Strat design for only $69 is
nothing short of genius. I ordered my guitar in black (if any color will show
finishing shortcuts, it's black) with a secure credit card transaction from
MusicYo.com.
The body is a nato/alder
laminate. The body finish is remarkably good. Except for a minor mismatch of
the curvature of the body to the curvature of the pickguard inside the lower
cutaway (almost unnoticeable in black on black), the fit and finish are nothing
to be ashamed of. The satin-finished U-shaped maple neck feels wonderful, as
does the 12" radius rosewood fretboard. As delivered, the whammy bar
interfered with the domed chrome Tele-style knobs, the neck had no bow, and the
nut slots were cut way too high for my tastes, but an important fact of new
guitar buying is the necessity of budgeting for a competent setup.
Kenny Marshall of Audio
Light & Musical in Norfolk, Virginia (new guitar set-up: $40), came highly
recommended (I took the word of a friend, and later found out Kenny does work
for Bela Fleck, Dave Matthews, Phil Keaggy, etc). Kenny points out that if a
guitar has the basic right stuff, a customer who brings in a cheap guitar for
set-up is going to get a whole lot more for his dollar than one who brings in a
thousand-dollar guitar. Both guitars will get his full attention and his best shot,
so the cheaper one, with much more room for improvement, will benefit most from
the work. I dropped off the guitar and Kenny promised a 24-hour turnaround, so
I was back again the next day.
The guitar was a different
instrument. While it had all the right stuff to begin with, Kenny cut the nut
slots cut down to proper height, leveled the bridge with the body, tightened
the tremolo spring tension, put a little bow into the neck, installed a quality
string set (bypassing the string tree), made the usual bridge adjustments, and
put a little oil in each nut slot. The guitar plays great and returns to tune
even using the tremolo. Of course, heavy finger bends will put it out of tune,
but a couple of blips on the whammy bar snaps it back in tune. Kenny also
swapped me some Fender Strat knobs straight across for the Tele knobs and they
clear the whammy bar just fine.
As he tuned and intoned the
Kramer and adjusted the pickups, he commented "The blend sounds are real
good. The bridge pickup is unusually bright, but some players pay extra for
pickups with that kind of character. And it goes right back in tune after
whammying." He also recalled some very picky guitar masters who still find
the original tremolo perfectly satisfactory, and noted that the right touch
gives the sound a wonderfully light
shimmering quality. The only thing Kenny could find fault with was that one of
the bridge saddle height screw holes had been stripped.
As soon as I got home, I
wrote left a comment on the MusicYo.com web site asking for a new bridge
saddle. Just 12 hours later, I had an apology from them and a promise to get
the orders department to send me a new bridge, and less than 24 hours after
that, I received an e-mail from UPS telling me a package from MusicYo.com was
on its way. A good company can deliver products on time for great prices, but
it's only when there's a problem that you can tell the great companies from the
good ones. Judging by what MusicYo.com is willing to do to help an everyday
customer fix a nit-picking problem with a $69 guitar, even among great dealers,
this company stands out.
This guitar cost $125,
shipping, tax, and all. Now I can afford a much better amp than I'd originally
planned for--one that, teamed with this guitar, will make the full range of sounds
I need, and that's the bottom line. Going cheap doesn't have to mean going
second class or gambling with your money. Nail down the right maker, the right
dealer, and the right technician, and you'll guarantee yourself first-class
results all the way.
Kurt Kurosawa
Email- kurosawa@iname.com
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