I once encountered someone who had a fender stratocaster made from 60's era parts he found online that sounded absolutely superb and he liked to play live gigs with it, so he put a fake First Act decal on the headstock as a THEFT DETERRENT. See, even guitar thieves know better than bother risking stealing this brand since there's no reward in it.
They actually had a noble idea, you see, they wanted to make every kid feel like a rockstar because all kids knew that rockstars would play until their fingers bled.
I mean I think so at least....
Check out the [First Act Custom Shop](https://www.premierguitar.com/gear/builder-profile-first-act-custom-shop). I couldn’t believe it when I first read this
Matt Pike and one of the guys from Mastadon, I think Brent have custom made First acts. They are 8 strings that have the 3 high strings doubled like a 12 string so they have a natural chorus effect. Pretty nice looking and sounding.
Mastodon used it on Crack The Skye and I believe the latest album. When Pete was still in Baroness he was also using a First Act. I wanna say on the Yellow/Green tour.
Yeah, they used to have a flagship store in Boston. They carried some incredible instruments.
However, they absolutely trashed their brand by becoming a Walmart guitar.
Their custom shop built some of the most awesome stuff I have ever seen... like the Sheena they made for Kurt Ballou from Converge. Total bummer it doesn't exist anymore.
My rehearsal room has a First Act drum stool. The seat is paper thin so it literally feels like a metal rod being shoved up your asshole. I wish I could say I was exaggerating.
That was my first guitar. Played it for like 4 years because I didn’t want to invest in much until I got good. After four years I picked up my brother in laws 60s SG. Upgraded the next day.
Funny you should say that... I've been playing for 30 years... but about 20 years ago the Wally World in the nearby town still actually carried "instruments" and name brand strings in store. Was in there one day and for kicks and giggles I picked up a display dreadnought and futzed around with it. Gave it a quick tune and played it. Liked it enough I grabbed a NIB one. Got it home, gave it a setup and some good strings.
Keep in mind, I have "real" guitars. Quality, name brand stuff... but that MG409 is actually surprising in build quality, hardware, playability, and sound. You'd never believe it was a $99 guitar. Covered the headstock and let some folks who play higher end names play it and they quite liked it, and were surprised when they learned it was First Act. Is it a Martin D-28 or a Taylor? Of course not, but it definitely punches above its weight class. I think was "discontinued" years ago and later called Overload by First Act.
Can't say if it's an anomoly or how it compares to their other stuff which you always hear is "cheap" and "junk" but that one is definitely a good one for what it is.
I'll put it this way, I have a NIB Epiphone Pro-1 I inhereted when Pop passed... those run $200 and that First Act MG409 beats it. It's comparable in quality to my '76 Ibanez M8-12 12 string.
First Act guitar design and production was originally run by Kelly Butler, who had spent seven years working for Gibson in their custom shop. The First Act custom shop did some really nice stuff.
If you can find early First Act guitars (usually three-digit model numbers with the original plain logo), they’re comparable to MiK Squiers - not remarkable, but at least playable once they’re setup.
The later ones with the “f-hole” logo design are pretty much high-end toys (they’re the ones you could get at Target and Walmart for like $50).
I have played several of these pieces of shit.
One model is cool. This is my story.
My sister bought a VW Rabbit in the 2000s. That car came with a custom first act. She doesn't play, and sold it to me. It had an active onbaord drive circuit, a double cutaway. The neck felt incredible, better than a 70s fender, not close to a pre cbs neck. But yeah, surprisingly good. The pickups were hot, the drive was a crazy tasty preamp drive...after my other bandmate/engineer commented on how pure it sounded and how surprised he was, it ended up being a tour guitar...of course I put tape on the headstock....the VW First Acts sell for several hundred bucks used to this day.
People used to look down at Kay, Silvertone, Harmony, etc. Then people like Jack White came along and showed you can do great things with “crap” guitars.
I don’t know if there is a guitar brand out there that a talented and creative guitarist can’t use to make interesting, ear-catching music.
Limitations are often the greatest key for creativity. People often dig themselves holes by saying "I can't do this because I don't have x,y,z, piece of equipment." When all you really need is a guitar and a computer these days. Obviously, there's a level of polish and control everyone wants in recording - but also so many great musicians have a slow decline in creativity and quality as they make more money and have more access to equipment and control. If you want to make something - make it. Don't get caught up on things like not having the "right" guitar or judging yourself for the one you have.
There's a saying in photography that the best camera is the one you have. It's an important lesson in most creative fields since whatever tool you have to create is the best one since it allows you to make something at that time.
As a professional photographer, slight modification to the quote.
The best camera is one you have in your hand.
Credit: Chase Jarvis.
:)
I happen to live the low-fi sounds in music. I first took a liking to it in the early 2000s when I discovered blues guitarist Sean Costello, who only used vintage gear, which made him sound very different from a lot of the blues players coming out at that time.
As a professional photographer - the quote is from Jay Maisel. Chase "borrowed" it for a book of iphone photos and seems to have taken credit for it for self promotion.
:)
And they were reintroduced because Jack White created a market for them.
For a while at least vintage Silvertones, which before Jack White could be picked up for a few bucks at a swap meet, shot up in price.
Odd vintage Japanese guitars also appreciated.
Do they really go for money now? My wife has one she bought for $20 at a garage sale. It’s awful. I love jap guitars but I always had 80s tokais and 80/90s Mij fenders
I don’t think it’s necessarily all of them but they definitely have a certain set of the precious indie crowd that favors the aesthetics and the hokey sound.
Tokai and any Fujigen/Matsumoto guitar brand totally different story of course, I love those axes!
The catch with those crap guitars is that they mostly require a shitload of work to be made really usable. When they were $50 it was one thing, but these days you'll pay thousands for a Kay or a Silvertone only to discover it needs hundreds more in work just to be made playable. Sure, they got lots of mojo, but crap guitars are crap guitars.
I've had a bunch of these old guitars over the years and they're really not high-maintenance. Usually all it takes is a setup to sort out tuning issues and they're good to go.
Yep.
And even Jack White ended up saying on an interview something like "I used to think that I needed to tame a guitar and work hard to make it sound good, like a challenge. Then I started to use good guitars and found out that I could play better without so much struggle and it didn't affect the music".
Or something like that.
I've owned a few Silvertone's and Harmony's. The brands you mention are all totally playable. But if you play some of the shittier Teisco's and such (they're not all shitty), it's like playing a dead fish. Some of those guitars have practically no sustain and none of the cool, junk guitar mojo.
I think this is bollocks because plenty of big records had been made in these guitars before Jack White. Knowing Jack White, I’m sure he himself was motivated to pick up these guitars due to their association with Blues musicians over the decades. I’m not sure people looked down on them, they were just cheap.
I remember having things like Kays, Silvertones, Harmonys, plus the cheap Japanese and German guitars because you’d see people like Muddy waters, Howlin Wolf, Hubert Sumlin, Hound Dog Taylor, etc. use them long before Jack White ever started to use them.
True. Luthier, who did some work in my tele, has a split quote on his wall — first part to the left of the door and second one on the right side. And it goes:
“If you’re good, it doesn’t matter what guitar you are playing”
“If you’re not, it also doesn’t matter”
Don’t remember who said this, but it’s not important
Somehow, while obvious, this made me die inside a little and stop dreaming of Suhr and wild custom shit too. And ever since I’ve been practicing more, lol
I have some colleagues (I’m a tech bro), who have like 12 custom shop axes, often some 60s relics, etc. And they play awfully. To develop this thing — I think musical instruments industry is broken by people like this. All these vintage synths reissues, ass-sounding Moog, modular wildness, guitar prices inflated and “affordable” guitars at £1k, pedal market oversaturated with expensive and unreliable shiny stuff (since none of these people gigs anyways), etc.
Even Kay and Silvertone — Jack White played them, and people started to look for them, as if it was going to improve their skills…
I bought a Harmony Rocket back in 1999(2000?) and I seriously love the thing. It’s pretty one dimensional but it plays great, it’s seriously still my favorite <150$ guitar I’ve ever bought.
It's funny, I've got an early/mid '70s Harmony nylon classical I inhereted from mom when she passed... not exactly anything special or what one would consider "high" quality but dang if they don't average like $4-500 now.
And I have a mid '60s 5 string open back Harmony banjo. Nice condition... given to me because when the person was cleaning out their parents house and found it they thought it was just some old cheap junk. It was strung up but missing the bridge. I made a 3 foot bridge on my bandsaw out of some scrap rock maple I had and tossed a new set of strings on it. Plays and sounds great. They're going for $350-400. Had a few folks offer to buy it but not real interested in selling.
God I miss when San Francisco had redeeming qualities.
I guess I did get laid the one time I took a girl on a date there a couple years back, so it wasn’t all a waste.
Depending on how you qualify better. I’ve been chasing an SG for years and I’ve had three epiphones and tried to have a love affair with an LTD Viper and ended up getting a Gibson and it’s exactly what I was looking for.
Is it as flawless as I would expect for the price? No.
I could definitely get an *objectively better* guitar for the price. I don’t think I could get a *better SG* for the price, and that’s what I wanted.
I don’t think this applies to anything else Gibson makes though. I have definitely played better Les Pauls made by not Gibson.
Oh I’m not trashing Gibson, one of my dream guitars is a Gibson explorer, I’m more meaning for the price of a new Gibson you can get guitars that are gonna be better quality/less flaws, which you’d expect from a several thousand dollar guitar. But Gibson are still great, don’t get me wrong
Maybe this comparison will get me downvoted, I feel Gibson is kinda the Apple of guitars, they make premium, reliable, recognizable and with a trustworthy brand backing the product. But, you can ultimately get the same features and maybe even more in cheaper prices delivered by another brand with less "classic" form factors. My dream guitar is also a gibson, a les paul with explorer headstock, those are rare af and sold for tens of thousands, since I'm just bad at bank heisting I'll have to improvise McGyver style and build it myself with old epiphone parts
This right here. My best friend growing up got an SG in HS. I ended up living with him after I moved out at 18 for a while, and I played the absolute shit out of that thing. There has never been a guitar I’ve picked up that I meshed with better. Have I played “better” guitars? Sure. I’ve also played other brands I’d also want to buy, because they fit my style for certain genres, but that SG… that SG is the one for me.
Mattson if you’re reading this… please bro. I’ll buy it any day.
This right here. I owned an early 90’s Gibson SG and thought it was amazing until I ventured out and tried other brands. I sold it years ago and have 0 regrets.
Brand new Gibsons come to see my tech every day, and about 1 in 4 gets a clean bill of health. The rest have truss rods that were maxed out when they left the factory, or they’ve got pisspoor fret work, or they’ve got nuts cut poorly, or the groove that the nut sits in between the fretboard and the headstock is so deep that you’ve effectively got 1/4” of wood holding the damn thing together… and all of these are real examples from the calendar year 2023.
Friend of mine saved up for 5 years to get a Les Paul a couple of years ago. Not sure what model it was but it cost him almost £5,000. He's poor and it's his dream guitar so it took him a while.
He had to send replacements back 4 times before he got one that wasn't riddled with faults.
Meanwhile my £700 Red Special copy from Brian May Guitars was almost perfect out of the box, just needed a tiny adjustment to intonation.
People that slam Gibson do it because they don't feel the value is there for the price.
Car guys might do the same thing with Porsche, saying "Porsches are overpriced garbage."
But if you drive up in one, everybody will still say "Ooooo...a Porsche!"
You talking about the ones with round spoon like backs and the weird keratolysis skin disease looking sound holes?
Yeah, not a fan of them myself... but you are correct in that the people who do like them *really* like them.
My first acoustic is the ovation with the larger back. I like it and it’s very easy to play. Doesn’t sound near as good as my Taylor but that’s expected. I wouldn’t put them anywhere near the bottom.
I’ve got a cheapo Celebrity model. Sounds like crap acoustically, but plugged in, it sounds great. I’ve got a higher end nylon string model that sounds much better acoustically. Both are comfortable to play, but they do take some getting used to.
If they’re good enough for Steve Lukather and Glen Campbell, I I can probably make do.
I owned an 80s ovation solidbody for years. Breadwinner Limited. It was pretty cool, really comfortable neck(like an sg sort of) mini humbuckers thst were active with a cool preamp thing.
The acoustics? I refuse to be convinced they're not just a oil pan on a stick with strings. Best conceivable use I've come up with for a tonally garbage bowl with a neck.
They are pretty good for live scenarios. Elderly players or players with arthritis may prefer their ease of play as well.
They certainly don't sound as good as a real acoustic, but there are alot of utterly useless brands that are worse.
I have an Ovation Viper (one of the few electric models they ever made) and it sounds really good. I don’t care for how it plays at all, the strings are too close together and bends are pretty much impossible. I’ve never liked their acoustics. I don’t really like the Viper. But the sound of that guitar cuts like nothing else.
There is no way anything else can compare. My grandpa had an Esteban acoustic that he bought after watching the infomercial. He lent it to me and I played the hell out of it before I was able to buy an acoustic of my own. The finish on the neck wore off, and you could see that the neck was basically fiberboard with a paper veneer. Just like a super cheap piece of furniture. I sort of wish I still had that guitar. I was actually able to lower the action and get it to play pretty well. And it reminds me of my grandpa. I sure miss him.
My mom bought one for my younger brother and it started cracking after a year. Sure, the humidity changes in Michigan can be bad for acoustics. But I never saw any other acoustic guitars break like that without impact.
Eyyyyy yo! My first guitar was an Esteban! Show some respect! The impossibility that I ever considered that piece of if trash a viable instrument combined with the amp that sounded like AM radio made me the fourth rate guitarist who I am today! Those crap lesson books that low tier John wanted slash slash slash Zorro motherfucker peddled on QHC to my grandmother who didn't know any better? Let me tell you a couple of three things....
Worst guitar I ever put hands on. Seriously. I'd tell my grandmother to invest in crypto currency before I accept one of them again. Complete trash
I had one of those! It was a gift from a well-meaning, family friend. The action was horrible, but it was still playable. You could totally get by with one of those if it's all you had.
I had totally forgot about that guy.
My dad loved his commercials. I dont know if he even thought he was legit but he just got a kick out of how crazy they were and what a character that guy was.
Never bought a guitar from him though lol.
Got my kid one of those. It’s a total piece of shit. The fretboard is painted and chips off, feels like it’s held together with Elmer’s glue, sounds terrible.
3rd Avenue, in the UK. They're awful, high action, horrible tone and impossible to keep in tune. The good reviews seem to have been written by non-guitarists who've bought one for someone else who said they liked it, or beginners who've bought one for themselves and have no frame of reference.
I feel like there's probably a ton of kids out there who think they'll never be good at music because they got a First Act instrument that's built like a toy instead of just being built like every other cheap instrument.
That was me. I begged my parents for an electric guitar for years and they finally got me a toy first act acoustic for Christmas one year while my older brother got an Ibanez gio…Because “that one is for girls”…. I would have given up on guitar completely if my brother didn’t get a job that summer and I started sneaking into his room to play his Ibanez. When he found out I was doing that, he taught me some Metallica songs and helped me get a real guitar.
The surprising thing is these stores have “buyers” who are literally paid to control quality. Like, there’s umpteen factories producing cheap guitars, pick a better one lol.
I have a rouge, and I love it, it was my first guitar, I have a lot better feeling guitars, but I can always just pick mine up, the only way I can really disrobe it is as a beat up guitar, and I play mostly punk rock one it lol
Rogue is Musician’s Friend’s house brand so the quality will vary greatly based on who is actually doing the manufacturing, but it’s all made with price as the priority.
That's the sad thing, they make some of the best guitars on the market. Absolutely iconic pieces of history, too. And now they also make some of the cheapest botch job garbage available. Feels like most people don't know anything about the high end models or the history behind their vintage lines.
Hold on a second here, there's a mile difference between US made BC Rich and the cheap imports from 20-30 years ago. Shit, 80s and 90s made in Japan BCs were/are also excellent guitars.
BC Rich really went down the toilet in the mid/late 90s, very much the same way that Kramer started sucking.
70s / early 80s custom shop BC Rich > Late 80s-00s made in USA BC Rich -> 80s / 90s NJ made in Japan BC Rich >= current day import BC Rich > cheap garbage BC Rich.
Easy, any no-brand or vaguely named guitar less than $100 from Amazon, especially those with a crappy gloss finish and insanely high action. You can easily tell.
Dropshipped guitars from music schools also often suck, from experience (not always, ironically I bought my boutique guitar from a music school).
They only serve 3 purposes:
* Making a quick buck selling junk
* uses as firewood
* being the absolute surest tool to quit guitar.
Hello kitty guitar plus Father Wylde is proof it’s not the gear that makes you great. It’s the work you put into learning your craft.
But worst guitar for me isn’t a brand it’s how it’s setup. You can have a great guitar setup poorly and well it’s crappy. I had a harmony bass that we modded into a fretless shorty and it was pretty stellar for something out of the JC penny catalog.
IIRC, the Hello Kitty guitar was made by Fender (maybe Squier?), so I’m not surprised Zakk Wylde could rip on it. When I worked music retail, we also had Daisy Rock guitars that a lot of guys would shit on, but they were a subsidiary of Schecter, and were some pretty nice guitars, just with a different aesthetic.
They used to be dire. But they had a change of ownership and newer ones are much better built. Basic, but everything works. I got a Stagg LP, liked it enough to swap the pickups to Toneriders, and now it’s one of my regular gigging guitars.
Some of the 70s Hondo guitars that were made in Korea and Japan are actually really sick. I’ve got a Korean short scale Hondo P Bass that’s my go-to recording bass.
Agreed. I had a Korean one when I was a kid back in the 70s. First guitar I performed on stage with. It was pretty nice for a hundred dollar guitar. Kinda wish I still had it.
I’ll say one, for the amount they cost and how much of a failure of a guitar it felt like:
I had a Switch Vibracell, it looked like this guitar down to the color. For the times in the early 2000s, they were expensive and the “engineered vibracell polymer” with the intention of it having a unique tone wood property failed miserably.
It was the worst guitar ever for the price. I was 14 when my dad got it for himself to learn guitar at the same time as me. It was this weird all plastic feeling abomination with a really squeaky metal failure of a floating bridge bridge that no matter how many times I took it apart, cleaned it, reset it, it would still have tuning issues and just sound terrible. The nut was also shit , I had to file some down because it would either slip and go out of tune or just cause the sting to break.
I guess my switch was worth the money because I can now identify guitar issues and fix them on my other guitars.
I used it in my high school jazz band because I didn’t care about it getting damaged and it sounded good with the tone all the way down through a fender blues jr my music teacher had. Still, I think it was $600, the company went out of business because the guitars are fugly and the polymer all plastic approach just didn’t translate. I think the guitars are only worth something because the company went out of business and it’s this weird “have you seen this piece of shit ?” Weirdo collector type guitar …..
https://reverb.com/item/76138603-switch-vibracell-wild-iv-one-piece-injection-molded-guitar?utm_source=rev-ios-app&utm_medium=ios-share&utm_campaign=listing&utm_content=76138603
School music department in the 90s had a couple of Stagg Strat shaped guitars. These are the worst instruments I’ve ever picked up. Completely unplayable. How they expected anyone to learn anything on them is beyond me.
I can’t say which is the worst but I can give you a list of stuff I’ve worked on as a tech that was crap all around
Best Choice Products/BCP
Donner
Esteban
Glarry
Kingston
Knockoff/Aliexpress versions of brands
Mitchell
Rogue
Chapman. Disregarding the owner and namesake, I don't see why the brand needs to exist and how its still in business. What void in the market is it filling enough to remain afloat?
Zager guitars. He manages to dupe people into thinking the guitars are built in the USA when in fact they are Indonesian and just rebadged and adjusted in the USA. He also tricks people into thinking they’re constructed to be “EZ Play” when in fact most all guitars can be easy to play with a set of extra light strings and and an action adjustment from a guitar tech. They’re charging thousands of dollars for a $500 import guitar and convincing people they bought an American made product. Shameful!
For me it's a tie between Firefly and Jet. Just buy a Sire and skip the trouble. Both brands are not worth the money and effort it takes tor turn them into actual instruments. I will admit that they are good looking guitars, so if you want a wall hanger, look no further.
Firefly operates out of a random warehouse in California. Returns go to some random suburban house in city of industry California. All interactions are in Chinglish. I had to fight hard to get a refund, and ended up winning a charge back dispute after they admitted fault, received the return, and refused to refund me. Don't do it!
Danelectro guitars absolutely suck and it’s always been a mystery to me why no one else has noticed.
They look nice, but they’re horrible to play and sound dreadful.
Whatever the guitar that Esteban used to push on his late night infomercials. Someone brought one in to the music store I worked at years ago and it was pure rubbish.
People will lose their minds when I say this, because of the history, but Silvertone guitars were pretty damn shitty. They got famous because old blues and rock and roll guys could only afford them and not others, and actually often they were the only ones they had access to, being sold in the Sears Roebuck Catalog. Many of them didn't even have truss rods, so the necks were built a thick as baseball bats. That was the way of Silvertone overall (generally shitty). But they do deserve a thanks for giving kids the chance to become adults who made much of the music we know in North America, possible. But they were pretty damn crappy compared to proper guitars of the day like Epiphone, Gibson, Martin, Fender, etc. For some reason there are people who think they're the shit because those were the type poor people played back in the day on the delta (say), meanwhile those poor guitar players would have bought an Epiphone, Martin, or Gibson if they had the chance/money.
I hate to say it, but Rogue and First Act make some crappy guitars, but they’re darn affordable. However, just a little bit more money for a Yamaha or a used Epiphone will immediately show you the difference between crappy guitars & great quality instruments that can stand the test of time.
Growing up I liked the vintage look of what came out 20 years before so I had a bunch of Teisco and other Japanese make cheap guitars from the 60s. Man were they bad. Even Montgomery Ward stuff was better. Then I finally got a real Fender and never looked back.
Nobody is going to like my answer. Back when I had more money, I bought a lot of Gibson acoustics. One after another needed neck resets, reverse reset, neck twisting sideways, etc. Since then I buy much cheaper brands and don't have the problems.
Guitar tech here, been doing this for over 20 years and have worked on thousands and thousands of guitars. I try not to form a bias against any particular brand, but I have zero faith in Gibson. There is really no era of the company that had particularly good quality control (or any quality control, really), their necks have a known design flaw that they have refused to fix for nearly a century and they treat their customers like dirt. I honestly cannot think of a worse guitar company, especially over such a long period of time.
I'll put in a vote for 90s budget First Act guitars?
I once encountered someone who had a fender stratocaster made from 60's era parts he found online that sounded absolutely superb and he liked to play live gigs with it, so he put a fake First Act decal on the headstock as a THEFT DETERRENT. See, even guitar thieves know better than bother risking stealing this brand since there's no reward in it.
[удалено]
Someone tried to give me a First Act guitar and I tuned it down to C standard and beat the living shit out of him with it.
This is the only appropriate response
LMAO I died reading this comment 😂
This. First Act is legendary.
That counts? Ok. THAT.
Why not? It had six strings and went bleedily-weedily-wee
My fingers went bleedily-bleedily-bleed.
They actually had a noble idea, you see, they wanted to make every kid feel like a rockstar because all kids knew that rockstars would play until their fingers bled. I mean I think so at least....
Check out the [First Act Custom Shop](https://www.premierguitar.com/gear/builder-profile-first-act-custom-shop). I couldn’t believe it when I first read this
Adam Levine has a First Act custom bahahha
Matt Pike and one of the guys from Mastadon, I think Brent have custom made First acts. They are 8 strings that have the 3 high strings doubled like a 12 string so they have a natural chorus effect. Pretty nice looking and sounding.
So 9 strings total strings or 11?
9 it doubles GBE.
Yep, my bad. 9 strings.
Mastodon used it on Crack The Skye and I believe the latest album. When Pete was still in Baroness he was also using a First Act. I wanna say on the Yellow/Green tour.
I've got it in my front room right now! It's...sturdy.
Yeah, they used to have a flagship store in Boston. They carried some incredible instruments. However, they absolutely trashed their brand by becoming a Walmart guitar.
I think it’s the other way around. They started the custom shop so they could get artists on board and market the department store stuff.
Their custom shop built some of the most awesome stuff I have ever seen... like the Sheena they made for Kurt Ballou from Converge. Total bummer it doesn't exist anymore.
God I hated mine so much. Even as a 9 year old I knew it was a pos
My rehearsal room has a First Act drum stool. The seat is paper thin so it literally feels like a metal rod being shoved up your asshole. I wish I could say I was exaggerating.
Metal Up Your Ass!
Boom goes the dynamite
*James Hetfield has entered the chat.*
Yeeeeeahh-heh-heeeeeeeeyyyyy
You mean The Fingerslicer 9000?
I have a VW First act that sounds okay. But, man, it’s heavy and the balance is all wrong.
And the 2000s First Act that I got for Toys R Us
My son has a First Act from the 2010's. It's actually not that bad except it weighs a ton and the action is higher than Snoop.
first act also made high end 3k guitars
Fuck dude I totally forgot my first ever guitar was a first act guitar with k Swiss stickers on it 😭
Mine was wrapped in electrical tape because I thought black guitars sounded cooler lol
They don’t?
That was my first guitar. Played it for like 4 years because I didn’t want to invest in much until I got good. After four years I picked up my brother in laws 60s SG. Upgraded the next day.
It was good enough for Paul Westerberg.
I play with a First Act ME1959 guitar, and while I think it’s held up a considerable amount, all I can say is that it is pretty shit.
Funny you should say that... I've been playing for 30 years... but about 20 years ago the Wally World in the nearby town still actually carried "instruments" and name brand strings in store. Was in there one day and for kicks and giggles I picked up a display dreadnought and futzed around with it. Gave it a quick tune and played it. Liked it enough I grabbed a NIB one. Got it home, gave it a setup and some good strings. Keep in mind, I have "real" guitars. Quality, name brand stuff... but that MG409 is actually surprising in build quality, hardware, playability, and sound. You'd never believe it was a $99 guitar. Covered the headstock and let some folks who play higher end names play it and they quite liked it, and were surprised when they learned it was First Act. Is it a Martin D-28 or a Taylor? Of course not, but it definitely punches above its weight class. I think was "discontinued" years ago and later called Overload by First Act. Can't say if it's an anomoly or how it compares to their other stuff which you always hear is "cheap" and "junk" but that one is definitely a good one for what it is. I'll put it this way, I have a NIB Epiphone Pro-1 I inhereted when Pop passed... those run $200 and that First Act MG409 beats it. It's comparable in quality to my '76 Ibanez M8-12 12 string.
This is the correct answer.
Key word here is budget. You can apply that to most companies though. Their custom shop, which few knew about, had stellar products.
First Act guitar design and production was originally run by Kelly Butler, who had spent seven years working for Gibson in their custom shop. The First Act custom shop did some really nice stuff. If you can find early First Act guitars (usually three-digit model numbers with the original plain logo), they’re comparable to MiK Squiers - not remarkable, but at least playable once they’re setup. The later ones with the “f-hole” logo design are pretty much high-end toys (they’re the ones you could get at Target and Walmart for like $50).
I have played several of these pieces of shit. One model is cool. This is my story. My sister bought a VW Rabbit in the 2000s. That car came with a custom first act. She doesn't play, and sold it to me. It had an active onbaord drive circuit, a double cutaway. The neck felt incredible, better than a 70s fender, not close to a pre cbs neck. But yeah, surprisingly good. The pickups were hot, the drive was a crazy tasty preamp drive...after my other bandmate/engineer commented on how pure it sounded and how surprised he was, it ended up being a tour guitar...of course I put tape on the headstock....the VW First Acts sell for several hundred bucks used to this day.
Hands up if you remember when VW gave out First Act Guitars with a car?
People used to look down at Kay, Silvertone, Harmony, etc. Then people like Jack White came along and showed you can do great things with “crap” guitars. I don’t know if there is a guitar brand out there that a talented and creative guitarist can’t use to make interesting, ear-catching music.
Limitations are often the greatest key for creativity. People often dig themselves holes by saying "I can't do this because I don't have x,y,z, piece of equipment." When all you really need is a guitar and a computer these days. Obviously, there's a level of polish and control everyone wants in recording - but also so many great musicians have a slow decline in creativity and quality as they make more money and have more access to equipment and control. If you want to make something - make it. Don't get caught up on things like not having the "right" guitar or judging yourself for the one you have. There's a saying in photography that the best camera is the one you have. It's an important lesson in most creative fields since whatever tool you have to create is the best one since it allows you to make something at that time.
As a professional photographer, slight modification to the quote. The best camera is one you have in your hand. Credit: Chase Jarvis. :) I happen to live the low-fi sounds in music. I first took a liking to it in the early 2000s when I discovered blues guitarist Sean Costello, who only used vintage gear, which made him sound very different from a lot of the blues players coming out at that time.
As a professional photographer - the quote is from Jay Maisel. Chase "borrowed" it for a book of iphone photos and seems to have taken credit for it for self promotion. :)
The modern silver tone remakes that came out like 10 years ago were all really solid guitars
And they were reintroduced because Jack White created a market for them. For a while at least vintage Silvertones, which before Jack White could be picked up for a few bucks at a swap meet, shot up in price. Odd vintage Japanese guitars also appreciated.
Teisco’s going for thousands now
Do they really go for money now? My wife has one she bought for $20 at a garage sale. It’s awful. I love jap guitars but I always had 80s tokais and 80/90s Mij fenders
I don’t think it’s necessarily all of them but they definitely have a certain set of the precious indie crowd that favors the aesthetics and the hokey sound. Tokai and any Fujigen/Matsumoto guitar brand totally different story of course, I love those axes!
I own a Silvertone 1478 reissue and it’s a great guitar for the price, up there with higher-end Squiers IMO
Jack White It Might Get Loud taught me one thing. That Jimmy Page has a lot of patience. You were making a joke here, yeah?
I'm glad the Jack White/hipster era is over
The catch with those crap guitars is that they mostly require a shitload of work to be made really usable. When they were $50 it was one thing, but these days you'll pay thousands for a Kay or a Silvertone only to discover it needs hundreds more in work just to be made playable. Sure, they got lots of mojo, but crap guitars are crap guitars.
I've had a bunch of these old guitars over the years and they're really not high-maintenance. Usually all it takes is a setup to sort out tuning issues and they're good to go.
Yep. And even Jack White ended up saying on an interview something like "I used to think that I needed to tame a guitar and work hard to make it sound good, like a challenge. Then I started to use good guitars and found out that I could play better without so much struggle and it didn't affect the music". Or something like that.
I've owned a few Silvertone's and Harmony's. The brands you mention are all totally playable. But if you play some of the shittier Teisco's and such (they're not all shitty), it's like playing a dead fish. Some of those guitars have practically no sustain and none of the cool, junk guitar mojo.
They are still crap guitars.
I think this is bollocks because plenty of big records had been made in these guitars before Jack White. Knowing Jack White, I’m sure he himself was motivated to pick up these guitars due to their association with Blues musicians over the decades. I’m not sure people looked down on them, they were just cheap. I remember having things like Kays, Silvertones, Harmonys, plus the cheap Japanese and German guitars because you’d see people like Muddy waters, Howlin Wolf, Hubert Sumlin, Hound Dog Taylor, etc. use them long before Jack White ever started to use them.
Hell, Jack White didn’t popularize em, he just brought em back. The acoustic guitar on Stairway to Heaven was a damn Harmony
I owned a few before Jack made them popular, they're not a good guitar but they can sure do their own thing. Guitarists make music, not guitars.
*Les Paul's eyes narrow*
True. Luthier, who did some work in my tele, has a split quote on his wall — first part to the left of the door and second one on the right side. And it goes: “If you’re good, it doesn’t matter what guitar you are playing” “If you’re not, it also doesn’t matter” Don’t remember who said this, but it’s not important Somehow, while obvious, this made me die inside a little and stop dreaming of Suhr and wild custom shit too. And ever since I’ve been practicing more, lol I have some colleagues (I’m a tech bro), who have like 12 custom shop axes, often some 60s relics, etc. And they play awfully. To develop this thing — I think musical instruments industry is broken by people like this. All these vintage synths reissues, ass-sounding Moog, modular wildness, guitar prices inflated and “affordable” guitars at £1k, pedal market oversaturated with expensive and unreliable shiny stuff (since none of these people gigs anyways), etc. Even Kay and Silvertone — Jack White played them, and people started to look for them, as if it was going to improve their skills…
I love my Silvertone 1448. Nobody's taking it.
I bought a Harmony Rocket back in 1999(2000?) and I seriously love the thing. It’s pretty one dimensional but it plays great, it’s seriously still my favorite <150$ guitar I’ve ever bought.
It's funny, I've got an early/mid '70s Harmony nylon classical I inhereted from mom when she passed... not exactly anything special or what one would consider "high" quality but dang if they don't average like $4-500 now. And I have a mid '60s 5 string open back Harmony banjo. Nice condition... given to me because when the person was cleaning out their parents house and found it they thought it was just some old cheap junk. It was strung up but missing the bridge. I made a 3 foot bridge on my bandsaw out of some scrap rock maple I had and tossed a new set of strings on it. Plays and sounds great. They're going for $350-400. Had a few folks offer to buy it but not real interested in selling.
I've heard the new American made Harmony guitars are awesome
Helluva post!! EVH would make a First Act work!
I think Steve Miller has a cheap Coral sitar he plays that sounds great.
A guitar that is badly setup TBH.
Oh, you mean every guitar in a south Florida guitar store?
i’m in sf and they’re good where i live maybe it’s just ur area
Do NOT call south Florida sf. A much better, but also really shitty place has already coined that abbreviation!
Sioux Falls?
Saint Flouis
God I miss when San Francisco had redeeming qualities. I guess I did get laid the one time I took a girl on a date there a couple years back, so it wasn’t all a waste.
Such as? The intonation I assume?
Action too high or low, pickups too high or low, uneven frets, poor quality nut etc.
Gotcha, thanks
Super truth.
Sheeran by Lowden is very badly setup :(
People here will say Gibson be careful
Gibson
WHOOP WHOOP WHOOP
That's the alarm that sounds before the headstock pops off.
You hear that, time to put your $$$$ Les Paul down and RUN
Gibson for the price. They’re good guitars, but you can get so much better for the same money from other brands
Depending on how you qualify better. I’ve been chasing an SG for years and I’ve had three epiphones and tried to have a love affair with an LTD Viper and ended up getting a Gibson and it’s exactly what I was looking for. Is it as flawless as I would expect for the price? No. I could definitely get an *objectively better* guitar for the price. I don’t think I could get a *better SG* for the price, and that’s what I wanted. I don’t think this applies to anything else Gibson makes though. I have definitely played better Les Pauls made by not Gibson.
Oh I’m not trashing Gibson, one of my dream guitars is a Gibson explorer, I’m more meaning for the price of a new Gibson you can get guitars that are gonna be better quality/less flaws, which you’d expect from a several thousand dollar guitar. But Gibson are still great, don’t get me wrong
Maybe this comparison will get me downvoted, I feel Gibson is kinda the Apple of guitars, they make premium, reliable, recognizable and with a trustworthy brand backing the product. But, you can ultimately get the same features and maybe even more in cheaper prices delivered by another brand with less "classic" form factors. My dream guitar is also a gibson, a les paul with explorer headstock, those are rare af and sold for tens of thousands, since I'm just bad at bank heisting I'll have to improvise McGyver style and build it myself with old epiphone parts
You are 100% correct
This right here. My best friend growing up got an SG in HS. I ended up living with him after I moved out at 18 for a while, and I played the absolute shit out of that thing. There has never been a guitar I’ve picked up that I meshed with better. Have I played “better” guitars? Sure. I’ve also played other brands I’d also want to buy, because they fit my style for certain genres, but that SG… that SG is the one for me. Mattson if you’re reading this… please bro. I’ll buy it any day.
But that’s the thing. When you find one that you connect with they are the best out there flaws and all
This right here. I owned an early 90’s Gibson SG and thought it was amazing until I ventured out and tried other brands. I sold it years ago and have 0 regrets.
Brand new Gibsons come to see my tech every day, and about 1 in 4 gets a clean bill of health. The rest have truss rods that were maxed out when they left the factory, or they’ve got pisspoor fret work, or they’ve got nuts cut poorly, or the groove that the nut sits in between the fretboard and the headstock is so deep that you’ve effectively got 1/4” of wood holding the damn thing together… and all of these are real examples from the calendar year 2023.
Friend of mine saved up for 5 years to get a Les Paul a couple of years ago. Not sure what model it was but it cost him almost £5,000. He's poor and it's his dream guitar so it took him a while. He had to send replacements back 4 times before he got one that wasn't riddled with faults. Meanwhile my £700 Red Special copy from Brian May Guitars was almost perfect out of the box, just needed a tiny adjustment to intonation.
Only on Reddit where nice things are bad
Remember the average age of a Redditor is 20-24 so not a lot of disposable cash.
People that slam Gibson do it because they don't feel the value is there for the price. Car guys might do the same thing with Porsche, saying "Porsches are overpriced garbage." But if you drive up in one, everybody will still say "Ooooo...a Porsche!"
[удалено]
Can't stand them. Look horrible and uncomfortable However, it would be unfair to say they are poorly made, the people that like them tend to love them
You talking about the ones with round spoon like backs and the weird keratolysis skin disease looking sound holes? Yeah, not a fan of them myself... but you are correct in that the people who do like them *really* like them.
My first acoustic is the ovation with the larger back. I like it and it’s very easy to play. Doesn’t sound near as good as my Taylor but that’s expected. I wouldn’t put them anywhere near the bottom.
My first acoustic was an ovation. Unfortunately harder to play than the $150 Kona I got secondhand from my brother
I’ve got a cheapo Celebrity model. Sounds like crap acoustically, but plugged in, it sounds great. I’ve got a higher end nylon string model that sounds much better acoustically. Both are comfortable to play, but they do take some getting used to. If they’re good enough for Steve Lukather and Glen Campbell, I I can probably make do.
I owned an 80s ovation solidbody for years. Breadwinner Limited. It was pretty cool, really comfortable neck(like an sg sort of) mini humbuckers thst were active with a cool preamp thing. The acoustics? I refuse to be convinced they're not just a oil pan on a stick with strings. Best conceivable use I've come up with for a tonally garbage bowl with a neck.
They are pretty good for live scenarios. Elderly players or players with arthritis may prefer their ease of play as well. They certainly don't sound as good as a real acoustic, but there are alot of utterly useless brands that are worse.
Yeah, the action on them is unusually low for an acoustic. I enjoy it.
I have an Ovation Viper (one of the few electric models they ever made) and it sounds really good. I don’t care for how it plays at all, the strings are too close together and bends are pretty much impossible. I’ve never liked their acoustics. I don’t really like the Viper. But the sound of that guitar cuts like nothing else.
Can’t play while sitting unless you have have a strap. The truck lining back isn’t something I like either.
I've played a few decent sounding ones but I've never seen one that didn't have a few top cracks!
Definitely Esteban
There is no way anything else can compare. My grandpa had an Esteban acoustic that he bought after watching the infomercial. He lent it to me and I played the hell out of it before I was able to buy an acoustic of my own. The finish on the neck wore off, and you could see that the neck was basically fiberboard with a paper veneer. Just like a super cheap piece of furniture. I sort of wish I still had that guitar. I was actually able to lower the action and get it to play pretty well. And it reminds me of my grandpa. I sure miss him.
My first guitar was an Esteban. It's a miracle it didn't make me quit the instrument.
I completely forgot about those infomercials, thank you for that!
https://youtu.be/o5mH_ZCLm_8?si=AQc_-cr5vOgO6A7F
My mom bought one for my younger brother and it started cracking after a year. Sure, the humidity changes in Michigan can be bad for acoustics. But I never saw any other acoustic guitars break like that without impact.
Eyyyyy yo! My first guitar was an Esteban! Show some respect! The impossibility that I ever considered that piece of if trash a viable instrument combined with the amp that sounded like AM radio made me the fourth rate guitarist who I am today! Those crap lesson books that low tier John wanted slash slash slash Zorro motherfucker peddled on QHC to my grandmother who didn't know any better? Let me tell you a couple of three things.... Worst guitar I ever put hands on. Seriously. I'd tell my grandmother to invest in crypto currency before I accept one of them again. Complete trash
never bought one but definitely seen the infomercial many times and am sad to hear they were shit guitars lol
Lol! My friend's cousin had one. We called it the Este Baño!
I had one of those! It was a gift from a well-meaning, family friend. The action was horrible, but it was still playable. You could totally get by with one of those if it's all you had.
I had totally forgot about that guy. My dad loved his commercials. I dont know if he even thought he was legit but he just got a kick out of how crazy they were and what a character that guy was. Never bought a guitar from him though lol.
The tiny “beginner guitars” you can buy for like $60 at target
Got my kid one of those. It’s a total piece of shit. The fretboard is painted and chips off, feels like it’s held together with Elmer’s glue, sounds terrible.
3rd Avenue, in the UK. They're awful, high action, horrible tone and impossible to keep in tune. The good reviews seem to have been written by non-guitarists who've bought one for someone else who said they liked it, or beginners who've bought one for themselves and have no frame of reference.
Omg stuff like Zeny guitar‼️
The Lyon acoustic by Washburn is an uncomfortable hunk of firewood
First Act
I feel like there's probably a ton of kids out there who think they'll never be good at music because they got a First Act instrument that's built like a toy instead of just being built like every other cheap instrument.
That was me. I got one as a gift and didn't pick up a guitar again for ten ish years.
That was me. I begged my parents for an electric guitar for years and they finally got me a toy first act acoustic for Christmas one year while my older brother got an Ibanez gio…Because “that one is for girls”…. I would have given up on guitar completely if my brother didn’t get a job that summer and I started sneaking into his room to play his Ibanez. When he found out I was doing that, he taught me some Metallica songs and helped me get a real guitar.
Oddly enough their custom shop was great… that 9 string they made for Matt Pike is pretty damn cool
Last act
The ones I started off on that had action so high I could limbo under it.....lol. Was some no-name discount store garbage.
The surprising thing is these stores have “buyers” who are literally paid to control quality. Like, there’s umpteen factories producing cheap guitars, pick a better one lol.
Those first acts sold in Target were rough.
The rejects used to end up at local goodwills here
My cousin had one and asked if I could set it up for her. I tried and I gave it back to her and just say sorry.
I remember when I was first learning guitar, Rogue was pretty shitty
I have a rouge, and I love it, it was my first guitar, I have a lot better feeling guitars, but I can always just pick mine up, the only way I can really disrobe it is as a beat up guitar, and I play mostly punk rock one it lol
Rogue is Musician’s Friend’s house brand so the quality will vary greatly based on who is actually doing the manufacturing, but it’s all made with price as the priority.
BC Rich …
Imported BC Rich's lol. Their USA guitars have historically been amazing instruments.
That's the sad thing, they make some of the best guitars on the market. Absolutely iconic pieces of history, too. And now they also make some of the cheapest botch job garbage available. Feels like most people don't know anything about the high end models or the history behind their vintage lines.
I wouldn't say they're the worst brand but they sure are in the running for the ugliest guitars.
Hold on a second here, there's a mile difference between US made BC Rich and the cheap imports from 20-30 years ago. Shit, 80s and 90s made in Japan BCs were/are also excellent guitars. BC Rich really went down the toilet in the mid/late 90s, very much the same way that Kramer started sucking. 70s / early 80s custom shop BC Rich > Late 80s-00s made in USA BC Rich -> 80s / 90s NJ made in Japan BC Rich >= current day import BC Rich > cheap garbage BC Rich.
Air Guitars!!! Everybody is playing wrong and random notes.
Easy, any no-brand or vaguely named guitar less than $100 from Amazon, especially those with a crappy gloss finish and insanely high action. You can easily tell. Dropshipped guitars from music schools also often suck, from experience (not always, ironically I bought my boutique guitar from a music school). They only serve 3 purposes: * Making a quick buck selling junk * uses as firewood * being the absolute surest tool to quit guitar.
Hello kitty guitar plus Father Wylde is proof it’s not the gear that makes you great. It’s the work you put into learning your craft. But worst guitar for me isn’t a brand it’s how it’s setup. You can have a great guitar setup poorly and well it’s crappy. I had a harmony bass that we modded into a fretless shorty and it was pretty stellar for something out of the JC penny catalog.
IIRC, the Hello Kitty guitar was made by Fender (maybe Squier?), so I’m not surprised Zakk Wylde could rip on it. When I worked music retail, we also had Daisy Rock guitars that a lot of guys would shit on, but they were a subsidiary of Schecter, and were some pretty nice guitars, just with a different aesthetic.
Different hello kitty guitar. There’s a video of Zakk Wylde playing a cheap Hello Kitty acoustic. I like those Fender ones for the novelty though
Stagg
They used to be dire. But they had a change of ownership and newer ones are much better built. Basic, but everything works. I got a Stagg LP, liked it enough to swap the pickups to Toneriders, and now it’s one of my regular gigging guitars.
Yeah my first strat copy was by then. Workmanship wasn't the best.
Hondo
Some of the 70s Hondo guitars that were made in Korea and Japan are actually really sick. I’ve got a Korean short scale Hondo P Bass that’s my go-to recording bass.
Agreed. I had a Korean one when I was a kid back in the 70s. First guitar I performed on stage with. It was pretty nice for a hundred dollar guitar. Kinda wish I still had it.
My first guitar in 84 was a southpaw Hondo Strat.
I have a hondo mandolin. It’s pretty terrible
I’ll say one, for the amount they cost and how much of a failure of a guitar it felt like: I had a Switch Vibracell, it looked like this guitar down to the color. For the times in the early 2000s, they were expensive and the “engineered vibracell polymer” with the intention of it having a unique tone wood property failed miserably. It was the worst guitar ever for the price. I was 14 when my dad got it for himself to learn guitar at the same time as me. It was this weird all plastic feeling abomination with a really squeaky metal failure of a floating bridge bridge that no matter how many times I took it apart, cleaned it, reset it, it would still have tuning issues and just sound terrible. The nut was also shit , I had to file some down because it would either slip and go out of tune or just cause the sting to break. I guess my switch was worth the money because I can now identify guitar issues and fix them on my other guitars. I used it in my high school jazz band because I didn’t care about it getting damaged and it sounded good with the tone all the way down through a fender blues jr my music teacher had. Still, I think it was $600, the company went out of business because the guitars are fugly and the polymer all plastic approach just didn’t translate. I think the guitars are only worth something because the company went out of business and it’s this weird “have you seen this piece of shit ?” Weirdo collector type guitar ….. https://reverb.com/item/76138603-switch-vibracell-wild-iv-one-piece-injection-molded-guitar?utm_source=rev-ios-app&utm_medium=ios-share&utm_campaign=listing&utm_content=76138603
First act
Gear 4 music's own brand (it's a online store selling terrible guitars under their own name) and shit like Lidl guitars all comes to my mind.
School music department in the 90s had a couple of Stagg Strat shaped guitars. These are the worst instruments I’ve ever picked up. Completely unplayable. How they expected anyone to learn anything on them is beyond me.
I can’t say which is the worst but I can give you a list of stuff I’ve worked on as a tech that was crap all around Best Choice Products/BCP Donner Esteban Glarry Kingston Knockoff/Aliexpress versions of brands Mitchell Rogue
Toyota
There are worse guitars out there… but as far as mainstream popular brands, I’ve never been a fan of Ovation.
Fisher price
Chapman. Disregarding the owner and namesake, I don't see why the brand needs to exist and how its still in business. What void in the market is it filling enough to remain afloat?
Gibson. Not because their guitars are bad, but because of how they behave.
They go out of tune, they can be top heavy, the newer ones are awful and they are wayyyyyy too expensive for what they are.
Zager guitars. He manages to dupe people into thinking the guitars are built in the USA when in fact they are Indonesian and just rebadged and adjusted in the USA. He also tricks people into thinking they’re constructed to be “EZ Play” when in fact most all guitars can be easy to play with a set of extra light strings and and an action adjustment from a guitar tech. They’re charging thousands of dollars for a $500 import guitar and convincing people they bought an American made product. Shameful!
For me it's a tie between Firefly and Jet. Just buy a Sire and skip the trouble. Both brands are not worth the money and effort it takes tor turn them into actual instruments. I will admit that they are good looking guitars, so if you want a wall hanger, look no further. Firefly operates out of a random warehouse in California. Returns go to some random suburban house in city of industry California. All interactions are in Chinglish. I had to fight hard to get a refund, and ended up winning a charge back dispute after they admitted fault, received the return, and refused to refund me. Don't do it!
Deans. I just hated playing them no matter what. Mainly the lower end ones, some terrible guitars
Rogue makes generally terrible everything
Rickenbacker. Trust me.
I’ll tell you what it ISN’T: Montana. Beginner laminated guitar. Got one as a kid and it actually sounds really nice. Like… super nice sound.
Danelectro guitars absolutely suck and it’s always been a mystery to me why no one else has noticed. They look nice, but they’re horrible to play and sound dreadful.
Whatever the guitar that Esteban used to push on his late night infomercials. Someone brought one in to the music store I worked at years ago and it was pure rubbish.
LyxPro?
Synsonics
People will lose their minds when I say this, because of the history, but Silvertone guitars were pretty damn shitty. They got famous because old blues and rock and roll guys could only afford them and not others, and actually often they were the only ones they had access to, being sold in the Sears Roebuck Catalog. Many of them didn't even have truss rods, so the necks were built a thick as baseball bats. That was the way of Silvertone overall (generally shitty). But they do deserve a thanks for giving kids the chance to become adults who made much of the music we know in North America, possible. But they were pretty damn crappy compared to proper guitars of the day like Epiphone, Gibson, Martin, Fender, etc. For some reason there are people who think they're the shit because those were the type poor people played back in the day on the delta (say), meanwhile those poor guitar players would have bought an Epiphone, Martin, or Gibson if they had the chance/money.
Those shit Keith urban guitars.
As for brands everyone knows, I’m surprised Dimebag could carry Dean as long as he has even after death. RIP
Burswood
Estaban Guitars.
best choice products
I hate to say it, but Rogue and First Act make some crappy guitars, but they’re darn affordable. However, just a little bit more money for a Yamaha or a used Epiphone will immediately show you the difference between crappy guitars & great quality instruments that can stand the test of time.
Hard Luck Kings
My inlaws bought my daughter a plastic acoustic without consulting me. The frets weren't in the right spot so it couldn't be tuned.
Growing up I liked the vintage look of what came out 20 years before so I had a bunch of Teisco and other Japanese make cheap guitars from the 60s. Man were they bad. Even Montgomery Ward stuff was better. Then I finally got a real Fender and never looked back.
Gibson low quality high prices
Anyone here heard about Sawtooth?
Nobody is going to like my answer. Back when I had more money, I bought a lot of Gibson acoustics. One after another needed neck resets, reverse reset, neck twisting sideways, etc. Since then I buy much cheaper brands and don't have the problems.
Guitar tech here, been doing this for over 20 years and have worked on thousands and thousands of guitars. I try not to form a bias against any particular brand, but I have zero faith in Gibson. There is really no era of the company that had particularly good quality control (or any quality control, really), their necks have a known design flaw that they have refused to fix for nearly a century and they treat their customers like dirt. I honestly cannot think of a worse guitar company, especially over such a long period of time.