Finding The PERFECT Guitar | Which Guitar Is The Best?

so one thing that I often say is I think we live in the Golden Age of guitar I mean in my opinion I don't think it's ever been a better time to be a guitar player there's more people playing guitar than ever there's more people making content on Instagram and YouTube talking about guitar there are more companies now building guitars amps pedals anything that you might need to play record or use a guitar on a daily basis the reality is I think the gear that's being made today is as good or better than anything in the past but there is a trade-off and that is it can actually be quite overwhelming when it comes to buying a new guitar or searching for your new guitar a lot of times we're spending thousands of dollars that we've scraped together to buy these instruments so in today's video I want to talk about how to find the perfect guitar in my experience there's a bit of a process involved to finding the right guitar for you and it's different for each person but there are a few key things to look out for and to do when it comes to purchasing your next guitar and so today we're gonna talk about those things but we're not gonna talk about this in my home studio instead we're gonna go to my local shop righteous guitars and talk to the guy who sold me my best guitar my number one best instrument I've ever owned de novo Sarris J that dude's name is Ben Calhoun you've seen him here on the channel before and he is my guitar guy he's the guy I go to whenever I want to buy a new instrument so we're gonna head over to righteous and we're gonna talk to Ben about how to find the perfect guitar [Music] all right then hi we're buying guitars today I love it I mean not literally because I don't have the money to buy a new guitar really but we're gonna try and buy one for you we're gonna try and equip people with the right questions to ask basically how to find perfect guitar so how do you do it well if you are a guitarist which I'm assuming you probably are if you're watching this if you go into some shops you'll get good people that want to help you out and they're gonna ask a bunch of questions to determine what the right instrument for you is you don't always get that though so what Brett was talking with me this morning about was how do we how do we equip you with those tools so you can go into any shop anywhere and find the right instrument for you so if you come to righteous you may notice that we ask a lot of questions to try to learn about what you're into so we're gonna want to know a few really key things one of them is your your budget is and you need to know that before you go guitar shop and figure out what you want to spend you can have a little leeway but figure out what you'd like to spend that's really important once you've got that nailed down for us we need to know what all you play you know luckily you know what you play what you like so we're gonna ask you kind of answer into what kind of guitar joints are you gigging are you playing at the house are you recording what have you played that really excited what are you not into so for example for me if you were to ask me a bunch of these questions you thought yes I do get a bit of a pretty loud amp guy I'm an American HAMP guy not really a box or a Marshall type of person love strats so there's a real key thing there live we can talk about a little bit but don't like Les Paul's and those two things are hugely important when I'm trying to find a guitar so once you've kind of narrowed down some of those things and you're gonna go into a shop I think it's really important for you to think about okay like for me what is it about Les Paul's that I don't like mm-hmm all right because there's a lot of guitar I mean there's tons up Bryan oh yeah there's a ton of us balls right there has nothing do with the sound right and I think all of us love the Les Paul sound its iconic so for me it comes down to actually where the guitar sits how it feels like physically as a Glee on my body right right so actually like I take a Les Paul and I hold it because of where this cut is it's it's a little further I can't really play up here right so with a strap it's a little bit better but it still feels there's something there that doesn't quite Sufi that's really important for me to know because I can almost guarantee you and you get far with the waist in this area is probably not gonna feel great other things you might want to consider is like what are you trying to achieve tonally maybe that you're not getting right now or what are you trying to improve on all right so if you're like strats for example I'm pretty pretty pleased with my strat sound got that covered so what kind of things am I trying to do to further my kind of journey that we're all on and when I asked myself those things I come up pretty quickly right now probably the thing that I'm most interested in as a p90 guitar cool again we've narrowed it down so now if I'm looking for p90 guitars that don't weigh a lot right that have a narrower about this and I know my budget I'm just taking a thousand guitars and turn it into maybe five right and now I've got a much better ability to kind of hone in so what would you tell somebody who maybe doesn't have access to a store like this let's say you just have you know your local big-box Guitar Center Sam Ashe or whatever and they still want to be able to go into a store and look at a wall of Les Paul's and be able to find the best guitar on that wall I think some of the key things like we picked Gibson's out for example and we go to Nashville to handpick all of our custom shot guitars it's not always convenient just to plug them in that's not a big deal though because if I pick up the guitar like that first guitar that I think about you know one thing it's pretty heavy okay and there's a lot of conflicting views on heavy guitars but from my experience contrary to what a lot of us heard heavy does not necessarily equal better sustain a better singing tones as a matter of fact a lot of times it's the opposite right so that's actually a less expensive guitar this guitar is actually a little louder than that guitar something feels different about if the guitar sounds great unplugged if it's resonant and feels you know sloughed has some punch to it it's almost guaranteed that you can get it to sound go plugged up if it's lifeless you know it's unplugged not that that is some R then it's it's a lot harder to try to make it come to life and so one thing I would recommend is play unplugged just get a feel for them and see how they feel without actually plugging into an amplifier take out any of the variables now you've just got a guitar right so anything you do pass that is gonna kind of embellish on what's already there yeah so if it's not there it's not there so how was going into just a random shop and trying guitars I really don't ever plug them in until I've played a few yeah I think this is one yeah and and from my experience that's something that only comes with time and experience like picking up hundreds of guitars over the years you start to develop a feel instantly like you and I can probably pick up just about any guitar in this room and pretty much agree on what is gonna be a great guitar and what it's gonna be a not-so-great guitar just another excuse to go down to your local shop and play guitars yeah all right so I have an idea the last time you did this it worked ended up buying the guitar but I want to test your theory and I want to test your knowledge I want you knowing me you know what I like pick out a guitar in here that you think that I'm gonna play and instantly fall in love with I'm gonna tell you my thought process while I'm doing it yes like walking into the process and then I'll actually go and play it I'll tell you if you tell you if you're right okay so what's going through my mind immediately right now is I know what you have yes I know what you don't I know that as much as I would love to show you some strats you've got some nice straps you're good is that they've got a killer 335 Les Paul you think you're covered on that front you've got the Novo so you've got the bolt on p9e kind of thing covered I also know that you cross platforms as far as your the feel of a guitar you know so you're think you're less sensitive to that than I am so that gives me some good insight as to where I can go right now I'm automatically discounted pretty much that whole wall okay Hillary cars on that wall right love to show you however you don't need any of those guitars I know one thing you don't have so you need a junior yeah I don't have a junior and you've been playing a lot of stuff with fuzz and kind of more nasty raw rock type of stuff I mean what's more raw rock than the G you're right so that's where I would immediately go to I don't even know what we have as far as juniors but I would actually this is where you got to know you got right so even though I know I probably have a few juniors here I would tell you a hundred percent hang tight and be patient for a minute because I know for a fact that I'm about due for a TV junior to get in here I don't think we have a TV right now and I think a TV if you get a junior I feel like that's the kind of gotta beat the ng gonna be to you and it's got to be a single cut right for me and I think for you that's the look and everything for when you're not playing it's just got the vibe so this is cool very cool it's a cool guitar matter-of-fact and a double cut this is pretty sweet it's not the guitar for you but it is the guitar what you play that's super cool totally not you yep also super cool totally definitely not me those are juniors though those fans but even if they were juniors those aren't for you you're a single cutaways like a 57 reissue TV yellow not mustard with like the lime green kind of TV yellow of jr. that's what I would have you play let me play that instead so you can kind of just enjoy the right thank and I'll ask on Sally's truth it's like that you're gonna love [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] and it's that it's the harmonic thing that inversion that happens you know [Music] [Applause] [Music] the other thing I love about these is you can simulate a neck pickup [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] all right do it that's uh you're off to a solid start there [Music] all right what else do you have in mind well a couple things actually this is just enough funk on it to maybe be cool to par meter harmony meteor move so could be a cool guitar or not for you but I think it's definitely worth checking out and with some of the fuzz tones you've been getting recently this might be really fun but there might be some cool tones in there with the gold falls that you're not really gonna get out of anything else you have so you know it might be not something that you necessarily take on tour maybe it would but it could definitely be cool to get some fun studio turns out of yeah [Music] that's cool that's a nasty sound that is [Music] [Music] [Music] before Eddie grab the movie this one that you probably wouldn't expect he's have to trust me okay oh yeah Strandberg would be a perfect artist I'd love to but I just basically can also have this Floyd Rose screaming charbel I thought you might guys yeah so that's the third one huh yeah okay this is when we hand pick out a Gibson it's um camera flipped look at the head neck heel I can't it's a 61 or 62 but it's a really resonant guitar the whole thing is gold which is cool when it's relat and the whole thing is relic so it's checked at Scott it's just a really cool guitar and it's nasty I can tell just from I don't know that I've actually plugged this in I don't have to again back to the earlier comment I know it's gonna be screaming okay it looks cool the weights right doesn't neck dive too bad mm-hmm I feel like that's another thing too is if you're looking at a specific type of guitar a lot of guitars like SGS for examples have specific characteristics that are not desirable like some s G's neck dive really bad others don't right so knowing what you're looking for doing some research ahead of time whether it be on forums or YouTube and finding what what to look for is really important we know to that point when you're shopping for a guitar we keep demo straps around always try it with a strap you're gonna play it with the straps so I know for me I can play a lot of guitar sitting down that feel great then as soon as I take it out and play it it's not so great so you want to play it both ways sit down and jam on it make sure you like the guitar and before you make a final decision pop a strap on it stand up another thing that's really helpful is if you're hunting for a guitar we're talking about earlier kind of minimizing the variables so bring your amp and bring your pedal board with you or at least make sure they have the same amp you have because anybody could come here me included and play through an amp that is unlike what I have and fall in love with the amp and then get home and go wow my guitar is awesome but maybe it was the amp I yeah under the light it's just perfect yeah it's right amount of checking and back to that original point yeah that's a lot yeah suppose you put a CG to Jesus small guitars or not yeah it's a lot less mass but feel the weight on this like I said it's like it's a little neck div' but it's not bad [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] this guitar looks like a muscle car from the late 60s early 70s like this thing looks like a 67 Trans Am or something like that which is it literally just makes you want to go [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] things are jumping out to me are it's the right weight it's good weight its very resonant like it sustains it rings which to me means that it's it's a there's life in this thing like it's the the pieces have been put together well the pieces had been married well I'm also learning that I need a flexi so here's the deal he legitimately killed it all three of those guitars that he put in my hands I very easily could have seen myself buying especially that gold SG that thing was I was a ringer but that's what you want you want somebody like Ben who knows you who knows your gear and who you can trust to help you make the right decision now whether that's someone you deal with online on a website or someone in your local shop whether that be the local mom-and-pop or a big box store like Guitar Center you want to know a few people around who have good tastes and instruments who know a lot about what they're talking about who have experience and more importantly they know you they know what you want and what you need not what might be the hot new flavor of the week the thing is I've gone into that shop so many times and had been and Jeff or any of the other people talked me out of something that I was kind of caught up on a flavor of the week kind of thing and they said dude you don't need that don't don't worry about that don't get that wait for something better and pretty much every time they've done that they've been right just like two and a half years ago when Ben put this in my hands I came into the shop looking for a p90 guitar and I kind of poked around at some of the stuff that I was familiar with and he knew he saw this up on the wall and he knew when he put it my hands that this was the one and without a doubt this Tarr is the best purchase I've ever made this is an heirloom piece it will stay with me for the rest of my life and I will pass it down to my children after me it really is a special instrument and I'm really grateful to Ben for getting it in the shop and connecting me with it it might sound a little overdramatic to some of you but to those of you out there who are lucky enough to have a guitar like this a number one the guitar you know what I'm talking about it's a special connection and if you don't have that I'm sure you will at some point and hopefully today's video gave you some tools to help you find that one guitar the one that really speaks to you huge thanks as always to Ben and Jeff and all the guys over at righteous guitars for letting me come in and make these videos for you guys if you're ever in the Atlanta area please drop by and check them out it's really a good time and they're incredibly nice and incredibly helpful over there I'll also have links to their social media and website down below so you can check that out as well let me know in the comments section what's your dream guitar or do you own your dream guitar tell me the story how did you find it how long have you had it and how did it come into your life I want to know if you'd like to support the channel directly be sure to sign up for the green room linked down below for just five bucks a month you can get into the green room forum where we have our second monthly challenge going on it's a ton of fun that's also where you can get involved with Skype sessions with me I've gotten some emails about that stuff recently you can sign up for those through the green room linked down below and there you can also find links to some of my favorite gear that I use to make these videos those are Amazon affiliate links so if you buy through that I get a small Commission which helps me out in making the videos as well as links to my Kemper profiles and helix presets thank you guys so much for watching hope you enjoyed today's video i'm rachel and remember there is no plan B you

Channel: Rhett Shull

Views: 473,093

Keywords: Rhett Shull, righteous guitars, righteous guitars in roswell ga, righteous guitars atlanta, Guitar Shopping, how to choose a guitar, guitar tutorial, guitar lessons, guitar chords

Id: wRI00b4iQYY

Length: 23min 12sec (1392 seconds)

Published: Tue Nov 12 2019