How to Buy an Acoustic Guitar

Buying a guitar is an investment and going through the steps of how to buy an acoustic guitar can ensure a guitarist is much happier with their purchase. There are a variety of subjective aspects when buying an acoustic guitar, but a few are fairly universal for all guitarists. The process is a little different than with electric guitars because unlike an electric guitar, the acoustic guitar is in itself the whole instrument and doesn’t include amp or effect usage as a component on the sound.

Features For Everyone

The most important and universal feature is simply to ensure the guitar stays in tune. Replacing parts to fix tuning issues is going to be rather expensive for low end guitars, and a good middle to higher end guitar should not be having those sorts of issues in the first place. Another area to examine is to make sure there are no sharp fret ends protruding from the board, and in general make sure the guitar is in good shape and well put together.

Tone

Unlike an electric guitar, the tone of an acoustic guitar in entirely dependent on the guitar itself and there really isn’t much that can be done to change a particular guitar tone.  Be sure to use the knowledge of how to play guitar chords to make sure a variety of chord shapes all sound pleasant as well. Perhaps the most important thing to examine in terms of how to buy an acoustic guitar is actually the tone, as opposed to comfort.

It isn’t enough in terms of buying a guitar for it to sound great, but feel awful to play. However, buying an acoustic guitar that feels great, but sounds awful is going to be just as bad in the long run. Without the amp creating the lion’s share of the tone, like an electric guitar, the guitar itself becomes that much more important.

Electronics

Many modern acoustic guitars now come with built in electronics, even many relatively inexpensive ones. This is a rather nice out of the box feature, particularly for performers who may very well some time down the road have to hook up to an amp for a performance. Even if that isn’t an issue, built in tuners can be a nice feature in their own right, particularly for getting in tune quickly when practicing.

These aren’t likely to be make or break features for most people, but if the guitar comes with electronics, it is a good idea to ensure those electronics work, even for someone with no intention of using them. It will be very disappointing down the road to decide to use them only to find out that particular guitar had faulty electronics and should have been swapped for an identical guitar when it was purchased.

Confort

Comfort should not be overlooked in terms of how to buy an acoustic guitar, but since acoustic guitars are significantly more uniform in comparison to electric guitars, this is usually less of an issue. That isn’t to say when buying an acoustic guitar that one feels exactly like another, but the differences are not going to be quite as extreme as comparing a Stratocaster body to a Flying V guitar.

If at all possible, the time should be taken to try a variety of guitars out before buying a guitar. Even just running through exercises a guitarist is familiar with from training materials, such as guitar lesson dvd can tell volumes about whether or not it is the right guitar.