How a $93 guitar changed my life (the guitar part of it anyway)

The best guitar you can buy for around $100.

I've often said that the right guitar will find you, not the other way around, and if you don't recognize it when it happens, you'll forever regret it. Well, a few weekends ago, the right guitar found me, and I'm glad I was paying attention.

I have a big birthday coming up (one of the ones that end in zero) and my wife wanted me to get something special, so I was given a generous budget of $400 to get whatever I wanted. Since I'm not a professional gigging musician, I have no need for a $2,000 custom shop guitar, which means that $400 would buy a nice mid-level guitar that I would be perfectly happy with.

But what's better than buying one guitar? Buying two guitars, of course.

I'm nothing if not cheap, and I have an affinity (no foreshadowing pun intended) for cheap guitars, so I decided to look at the low end of the guitar spectrum and see if I could get two decent guitars for my $400. It's been a goal of mine to complete, in one form or another, the Holy Trinity of Guitars - Strat, Tele, and Les Paul. I already have the Strat, so I needed one of each of the other two to complete the trifecta. Could I do it on $400?

Short takes: Airline Bighorn, Squier Affinity Tele, Fender Mustang II

I went to Guitar Center again this past weekend to waste time while my wife got her hair done, and I ended up trying out some gear. I played an Airline Bighorn and a Squier Affinity Tele through a Fender Mustang II amp. I'll share some quick first impressions of each one, starting with the amp.

Fender Mustang II

Fender's Mustang range of solid-state modeling amps has been very well received in the music press, and I've been eager to try one out. I recently bought a Roland Cube 40XL that I love, but the 40-watt Mustang II was on my short list of amps to buy, and after playing it, I know that its place on that list was justified. It wasn't enough to make me regret my Cube purchase, but if I would've bought the Mustang instead, I wouldn't have been disappointed.

Midlife re-evaluation and gear simplification

When people get to be my age, they go through what most people call a midlife crisis. I don't like to think of it that way. I view it more as a midlife re-evaluation. It's the stage of life where you finally realize that you no longer have all the time in the world to do everything you want to do, so you re-evaluate those goals and figure out which ones are viable and which ones have to be abandoned. It's a bittersweet time as it's sad to see some of your old goals and aspirations die, but it's good to be refocused on the things you really want to do. It doesn't happen at once and the plans often change until you finally figure out what you want.

This re-evaluation happened to me recently. I'm fortunate in that I have a logical, analytical mind, and that I can do a lot of internal analysis without doing anything rash. Many people end up doing crazy stuff like quitting their jobs, divorcing their husbands/wives, and buying outrageous sports cars, boats, motorcycles, etc., only to realize they love their spouse, they liked their job, and the new bike hurts their back. I'm also fortunate because the only part of my life being re-evaluated is music - I enjoy my career, I love my wife, and although I'd love to learn to ride a motorcycle, it's not as important to me as it used to be, so I could take it or leave it.

Maybe a winner?

I took a trip to Fort Collins on Saturday (an expensive one, thanks to the fine folks at the Colorado State Police) and stopped by Guitar Center. I didn't have time to play a lot of guitars, but I saw a lot of them that are (and were) on the Short List and ended up playing one of them.

Here are some observations.

As I suspected, all of the non-Gio Ibanez guitars that I have left on the Short List have identical specs, including woods, pickups and hardware, so any choice among the RGs will be made strictly on looks alone. They had both flavors of RG5EX1s in stock - black and pewter - and although the pewter one was definitely better looking, neither of them floated my proverbial boat. They also had an RG350DX (the white one) and while I liked it better than the RG5EX1, it still wasn't my favorite.

I was surprised to see that they had a Sterling JP50 in stock, especially since their Web site didn't say they had one. Another surprise was how small it looked in person. It always looks huge in photos, but it's really not, especially the neck. Music Man guitars are known for their narrow neck profiles, which players either love or hate. I didn't play it, but I will be back to try it out.

The one I did play, though, was impressive. Amazing, actually. It was the RG4EXQM1 in red (Blackberry Burst, to be more precise). It really was a work of art. The quilted maple top was high quality, the sunburst paint was flawless, and it had added niceties like a bound body, a bound neck, and a chrome logo on the headstock. I had to play it. I ended up going through a Line 6 Spider Valve 112, which was surprisingly awesome (many surprises on this trip). The guitar played and sounded incredible. The 5-way switch and HSH configuration did everything from clean to bluesy overdrive to all out shred with ease. This is the third RG I've played and it was by far the best. Unless the JP50 really blows me away, methinks I found a Short List winner.

On a side note, my first attempt to play the RG4 (as I will call it now) was thwarted by a bad cable, but being the geeky troubleshooter I am, I picked up the first guitar next to me to make sure it was the cable and not the guitar. That guitar turned out to be one of the new Gio RGAs that are on the Short List (a black one) and although I didn't end up playing it, it made a good first impression. It felt solid, the carved top was nice, and the knobs had a quality feel. I especially liked how the knobs were grooved. It made them nice and grippy. I still want to try one out.

So it looks like the Short List is down to three guitars, with one clearly in the lead:

Ibanez RG4EXQM1 (ahead by a few carlengths)
Ibanez GRGA32T
Sterling JP50 (back on the list now that I know I can play one).

Watch your AC adapters

This will be a short one today, but an important one.

After my recent success selling my Telecaster, I started looking for other unused pieces of musical equipment I had lying around my house that I could potentially sell. One of those pieces of equipment was a Dunlop Wah/Volume pedal sitting in a drawer, where it's been since I sold my Fender amp and picked up a Line 6. The reason I wasn't using it anymore is because it never sounded right with my Line 6. Every time I plugged it in it caused cacophonous buzzing, which I attributed to the amp, as it always worked just fine with my Fender. Since I had no plans to buy another amp, I thought it was a good time to sell the pedal.

Pick of the gods

People find god in all sorts of places. The details. Burnt pieces of toast. Sticky buns. Clapton.

I found it in a pick.

Not just any pick. Simply the best pick I've ever used. It instantly turned all my other picks into just pieces of plastic, or potential shims. Things to use to fix the wobble in the kitchen table. Certainly not to play guitar with, because I'll never use another kind of pick again.

What is it?