This is the Fourth post in a 10 post series!  We’re going to find the best instruments at each price point up to $1,000.

Used

If you know what to look for in a used guitar, used is almost always the way to go.  You can save a ton of cash.  So I’m going to pretend I have $400 in my wallet and I’m off to the music store to buy a guitar.  Honestly, I thought this would be a difficult price point, but boy was I wrong!  I can’t limit this list to just 2 choices.

  1.  Fender Standard Stratocaster (Made in Mexico.) It used to be that you could find these all day long for $300, but those days are gone.  Now I’m seeing them for between $400 and $500, which is wacky to me.  But if you search long and hard you can sometimes still find a MIM Strat for around $399, and it will look and sound like a Strat because it IS a Strat.
  2. G & L Legacy.  These are basically Strats, but some would argue they sound and play better.  I don’t own any, but I do like these a lot, for the price.
  3. Music Man JP70 John Petrucci.  I’d have a hard time walking away from one of these.  If they are set up well, they’re great, great guitars for this price.
  4. PRS SE Custom 24.  I have one of these.  I think they’re fantastic playing guitars.  The fretwork coming out of World Musical Instruments in South Korea is top notch.  If there’s a knock on these, it’s the pickups and the fact that the guitar is a little thin-sounding.  But pro recordings have been made with these.  I did almost every solo on my latest CD with one of these.

New

You know what I’m going to say.  The list above makes much more sense than this.  Really.  But if you just gotta get it new…

  1. Epiphone Les Paul Studio.  Not a bad guitar.
  2. Schecter Model… whatever.  There are a lot of Schecter guitars around $399.  They’re decent guitars – they’re well made, and they feature cheap pickups and hardware.  So they’re good upgrade platforms.
  3. Squier Vintage Modified Strat/Tele/Jaguar.  I like these guitars – I think they’re a good value.  If I had to buy new, this isn’t a bad way to go.

I am a very firm believer of used instruments, except for cases when new guitars are on sale.  The $400 price range is a place that makes a very very strong case for buying used.

The next entry will be the $500 level, and I suspect it’ll be more of the same, but there are some quite good guitars you can buy new for $500.  So that should be interesting.