Friday Fretworks - Why I Play Cheap Guitars

hey guys and a very warm well cold Christmassy snowy December II welcome to Friday fret works firstly I didn't quite want to look like I'll do it again sat around the Christmas tree telling stories but I had to physically with the Christmas tree in order for any light to come in through the window in order to illuminate me so apologies for the whole kind of bizarreness of the setup reason I'm doing a video of the reason for this particular video is to answer some questions that I get very frequently about what guitars I use but also kind of echoed a question I saw pop up on a Facebook from the other day primarily about why you see not only myself but much bigger players than myself using quote unquote cheap guitars obviously cheap is a relative term and I guess one man's cheap is one man's exorbitant expensive so it's all relative but I guess in a world where a lot of these players I think Jeff Beck was the guy in question as to why you sometimes see him playing us a stand the struts like I said not a cheap guitar by any stretch but for a man who went obviously affords and infinitely more expensive meet I guess we're talking custom shops were talking hand-built custom-made stuff why would he be playing a u.s. strat it's a question like I said I get echoed at me a little well very frequently in terms of why use highway 1 strats why are you Squires why I use what I guess even more so than a US drag you would be able to kind of consider cheap two answers primarily one be very boring and one being a little bit more but marginally more exciting firstly it's a kind of it's an economic thing I guess it's ER it's being afraid of what might happen to them which prior to touring I was very naive the kind of possibilities and situations that guitars might find themselves in where things can go wrong ultimately whether it's in a plane sold whether it's in the back of the van whether it's even in a bad car if the car is in a bang you know if you get an accident or whatever all kind of emeriti of situations which the guitars may take the kind of brunt of the damage kind of Gibsons especially being notorious so the headstock brakes strats not so much but again it only takes a slight knock in the right wrong direction for some very serious to have a guitar again like I said prior to and this kind of slightly naive to the situation but having done a fair few number of tours now you realize that there there are lots of situations where your guitars end up in that a less-than-ideal I like I said well that's being in a plane told well it's kind of transit or storage generally to more mundane stuff like what happens to your guitar after soundcheck for example I do the tour Spain in April and the people that promoters everyone we met was nothing but absolutely lovely but it would only take one guy irrespective of what kind you're in to take a bit of a shine in your guitar during a moment when your back is turned for example we would do sound check and then they would inevitably be up a couple of hours where you're not looking at your guitar whether you're just kind of weaving pop back out to the hotel over the road or even upstairs in the venue sometimes as close as that you don't really want to have to be worried about taking your guitar with you you know you might have three four guitars out with you and there's certainly it's a little bit of a pain in your ass to be having stuff around on so many occasions we would do sound check and then we were just pop down the road or restaurant and get some food before we'd play all of these kind of situations you don't really want to taking a guitar on a restaurant do you have some funny looks even more so than normal looking like I do so it's just mundane situations like that where if you can minimize the potential loss and if it was a toss-up between getting back after soundcheck and notice and then my guitar was gone if it's a toss-up between it being custom shot that cost me three grand or being a squire that cost me a hundred thirty quid you kind of start a scene where the kind of thinking comes into it so that's the very mundane answer just the whole kind of situation of not wanting to be putting yourself out there for potential upset I guess the marginally more exciter is that hand on heart genuinely it's my experience like knowing speak for myself in this respect but you don't need to spend a lot of money to get a very good guitar as I mentioned I play a squire a lot of the time which is not I'll grab in a minute that cost me hundred thirty quid it's a Japanese choir from 1991 and he's one of my throat and three kind of main strats that I alternate between it's a bloody gorgeous guitarist I could decent SAP pickups in it and gave it a little bit of a setup a new nut actually the guy's a radio shot dead so I take credit for that bit of TRC and it was good to go and hammer heart sounds pretty much as good as any scrap that I've ever picked that plays beautifully had it set up to my specs which people asked it was something I'll do a video on my kind of my setup I guess I like a relatively high action not too high but a relatively high one just sort of able to dig in a little bit had it set up to my specifications and it's good to go it sounds great and if nothing else you got to impress people that you could make a squire sound a half-decent my other main guitar or one of them at least is this one which you may or not familiar with is it 2004 I want to say hi wave one of them dedicated video on this if you want to check it out this one was the only one of my three mate strats that I guess you could maybe not call cheap it was 500 quid on eBay technically is a made in USA strikes gonna make an USA written on Head Start again it's all discussion that's the kind of how my children are made in the USA and how much I made in Mexico but again I've placed a bloody beautiful Mexican strats so whatever 500 quid on eBay which was initially man there's a doughnut guitar for my pickups and then lasting this one which is another recent acquisition is another highway one in sapphire transparent blue I think it's called which cost me 300 quid it's a 2003 I think it's marginally earlier than the other one and it's pretty much identical in every way of car from colour so my main one Magana mistake I said my signature pickups in there which sound great Allegiance aside and it's just the gorgeous guitar and it cost me 300 quid and you're just not that worried about it I love this guitar I would be devastated if anything happened to any of these guitars but again like I said it's a toss-up between finding the somewhat half inch to your custom shot that you spent months backing out and designed and taking care of and delivery and all that kind of stuff or something that you just stumbled across you know stumble across in a local shop and bought 300 quid become start see my fingers so as I said we've got this one I still do a dedicated video on this one any time it doesn't get out too much it's my backup from my main work but as I said they pretty much identical in every way so we've got this one which I'm considering spraying by the way please chip him with comments I'm thinking a little bit white always loved Olympic white strap with a mint green squash plate and have rolls with Magda stone to get our 60 singin on I said we've got this one which is 2004 highway 1 if memory serves it's really solid sound margining nice connection I would say number one just feels a little bit more solid I guess for the bat phrase and then lastly as I said we've got my Squire I think that's what again you've seen this in videos recently needed a little bit of TLC it's got a couple of things on it again I've shown this in a video recently the weather is showing up in this light summer I don't know threats probably need replacing at some point soon I imagine structured signs of the way threat world itself has been warned death and God will be back of the guitar on the back of the neck it's really kind of seeing all the love so again let's not say that I wouldn't be devastated if anything did happen to these guitars but in all reality if it's a toss-up between expensive one or treat' cheap one going missing getting Nick getting damaged all that kind of stuff but you do read about like I said I was naive to the entire situations before I started touring myself but you know even stuff as well-meaning as people coming up to you after the show and insisting on giving you hand over the gear hand out of the van with your own gear I'm still at the stage where it nobody wants to carry my stuff yeah hopefully we'll get there someday but you know you have you're not relying on it but people very kindly come up and offer their help just to kind of grab stuff and again it would only take one person with a slightly less than scrupulous motive just half inch something when you're not looking it's a bit of a melee after a gig is people clamoring for your attention autographs all that kind of cool stuff and they would only take someone while your back is turned for something to disappear forever especially in a foreign country you got no bloody chance of finding it so reason one boring reason to don't have to spend a lot of money to get a great guitar for Squire was hundred thirty quid the blue strat was 300 and this one was 500 so I guess this one was the last cheap of the three but still compare that to a custom shop or whatever and you laugh it so there we go sorry there's no wheat are played in this episode I've just realised and you get to see me supper treats like Val do it again so all in all a bit of a strange one but it's snowy and it's cold and I'm not ringing a little so thank you very much for watching guys taking it and I shall see you next week for another episode of Friday fret works incidentally please do subscribe like share all that kind of good news team stuff it helps me keep on doing this so my subscriber since I started in this rider threat books thinkin gone to the roof which is bloody wonderful so please keep on subscribing share the words with your guitar playmates share it with you makes don't play guitar if you want to bore someone senseless for 10 minutes so just generally spread the word thank you very much for watching and I shall see you soon cheers guys you

Channel: Chris Buck

Views: 321,158

Keywords: Fender, Stratocaster, Cheap Guitars, Guitar Comparison, Squier, MIJ, Made in Japan, Highway One Stratocaster, Japanese Squier

Id: S7WsehqCNVk

Length: 9min 40sec (580 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 15 2017