I just want a budget priced acoustic/(maybe resonator) to toy with?
suggestions?
Recomend a gewd & cheap acoustic
-
- Rated: 5 ↑
Oct 12, 2008 12:28 p.m. AshCow:
-
- Rated: 41 ↑
Oct 12, 2008 12:35 p.m. dubkitty:
define "budget priced"...$100? $250? $500? or what?
-
- Rated: 5 ↑
Oct 12, 2008 12:41 p.m. AshCow:
250 at highest.
im ashamed...
-
- Rated: 13 ↑
Oct 12, 2008 12:46 p.m. Joao Erbetta:
AshCow, Last year I scored a Epiphone EJ160 ("Lennon model") for about $250 on Ebay. Mine is Korean and I know most people hate this one but after a right setup it plays really well. I'm recording a lot with the guitar but never used live. I'm sure there are other options out there.
-
- Rated: 41 ↑
Oct 12, 2008 1:28 p.m. dubkitty:
insist on a solid top. in your price range Yamaha and Epiphone are probably the best bet. Alvarez has a low-end line which i haven't played, but which looks promising. Washburns are popular, but they seem kind of leaden and thumpy to me. you're probably best off with a dreadnought shape, which is the Swiss army knife of acoustic guitars. the main thing is to play as many examples of the models you like as you can hunt down, because the ratio of great guitars to crap guitars of any one model in this price range is at least 3:1 in favor of crap. but if you get lucky, you can find a guitar that will cut a $1000 guitar.
to get a resonator guitar in your price range, you're going to have to go with one of the budget-line marques like Rogue, Johnson, or Agile/SX. you can get a low-end Regal for about $325 new, which is probably a step up. i don't know what the budget-line resos are like; i have a Regal dobro which is very nice.
-
- Rated: 30 ↑
Oct 12, 2008 8:01 p.m. Wishinfora(nother)Falcon:
I have a cheapie Epiphone that sounds pretty darn good for a budget guitar. I have heard a few other good ones too. They probably vary a bit at that price point. I just wouldn't expect a whole lot for that kinda cash though.
-
- Rated: 2 ↑
Oct 12, 2008 9:35 p.m. Growler:
If you need something quick I'd add a vote for an inexpensive Epi. I bought an AJ-200 for playing around the campfire. It's a pretty good player.
If you can watch and wait, you may find something equally good or better used for the same price on craigslist and pick up a case to boot.
-
- Rated: 20 ↑
Oct 12, 2008 9:53 p.m. TAG4:
Looking at Epiphones and Washburns would be a place to start.
TAG4
-
- Rated: 16 ↑
Oct 13, 2008 7:16 a.m. Gigatron:
I have a Yamaha F310 that cost me about 100 euros new. It's a plain looking tobacco sunburst, but it sounded better in the shop than all the other guitars in its price range. It came with a lousy setup, but after I filed down the bridge and the nut slots, it has a nice action.
-
- Rated: 19 ↑
Oct 13, 2008 9:32 a.m. TyPierce:
My wife bought me an acoustic last year from the local bluegrass shop, and it sounds much, much better than a guitar at its price has any right to.
It's made by a company called Indiana - the Scout model, I believe - and is 25.5" scale. Sounds great, plays great and was around $200, I believe.
My father-in-law is a hobbyist luthier who builds Martin kits and he helped my wife pick the guitar out - every time he picks it up, he remarks how great it sounds. Also, a family friend builds very high-dollar mandolins for a living and played the Indiana recently, his quote was, "That's exactly why I don't build guitars, the cheap ones sound so good."
Not sure if there's an Indiana near you, but it'd be worth a googling to find out and give one a strum or two.
-
- Rated: 19 ↑
Oct 13, 2008 2:01 p.m. cielski:
I've seen Indiana guitars. I just wonder, being a Hoosier, just where they're made, if in state, or, just using the name. They look to be a decent instrument for the cost.
-
- Rated: 15 ↑
Oct 13, 2008 5:43 p.m. AndyJ:
Epi and Alvarez make my list for top budget acoustics. Good sound. Good action. They both make sub $300.00 guitars that don't feel like toys.
-
- Rated: 212 ↑
Oct 13, 2008 6:27 p.m. Proteus:
Ty may very well have gotten a good Indiana guitar; maybe the shop where he bought it cherry-picked an exception and set it up properly. I don't argue that.
But that hasn't been my experience with the brand.
I've played many Indiana and Morgan-Monroe instruments since I first saw them several years ago, and done a little digging into their marketing. The parent company, SHS Int'l is, I believe, a wholesaler based in Indianapolis (though the site doesn't seem to want us to know much about the company other than it's wonderful).
The instruments are built nowhere near Indiana. They're Chinese (some maybe Korean) and every one I've picked up has been uniformly mediocre. The cheapest Indiana models do seem a cut above Hel-Mart; the slightly up-market Morgan-Monroes, while better instruments, still disappoint badly compared to Epiphone, Seagull/A & L, or Blueridge.
It may be that with the general rise in quality of Chinese acoustics over the last couple of years, they've gotten better. But I've played new ones in that period, and I hear no improvement. (The MMs do LOOK great.)
Where the marketing isn't completely lacking in specificity (that would be EVerywhere), it's borderline deceptive. The instruments are named for places in southern Indiana, and an earlier version of the Morgan-Monroe website featured an overblown bit of BS that all but said the guitars were chewed from Indiana trees by state forest squirrels and assembled by Hoosier gnomes under the direct supervision of old-man-in-the-mountain luthiers, right in the heart of the Hoosier Uplands.
That snake-oil hokum seems to be gone now anyway.
I know, I know ... the brand name Blueridge suggests a bogus Appalachian heritage, so what's the difference?
The difference to me is that Blueridge instruments at least honorably chase the quality they imply, are legitimately fine guitars, and do honor to the region they evoke. Indiana and Morgan-Monroe aren't and don't.
There are great luthiers hereabouts (I live in Monroe County), and a respectable heritage of great acoustic music (the Bean Blossom name SHS has appropriated comes from a small town with a venerable Bill Monroe Bluegrass Festival). The marketers of the mediocrities I've played insult the region in Indiana they lay claim to.
But if you get the chance, you should definitely try one. I'm NOT saying they're all bad. (Just the ones I've tried – and really they're only worse than most 100.00 - 200.00 guitars because of the marketing.)
The whole line is here.
Note: I am not affiliated with the Indiana Guitar Company.
-
- Rated: 30 ↑
Oct 13, 2008 9:48 p.m. greg:
If you can find a dealer who sells Cort,I'll bet you come home with one.Damn fine guitars more than reasonably priced.
-
- Rated: 212 ↑
Oct 13, 2008 9:54 p.m. Proteus:
See, and Cort at least is honest. We've known they were built "over there" from the very beginning. Guy's based in Chicago - he coulda called them Chicago Blues or something.
