The Guitar Resource

GuitarFact.com has an interesting post titled Common Amplifier Myths Guitarists Should Know About . This is a great post that sheds light on two common guitar amplifier myths about wattage vs. volume and Hybrid amps, two areas I don’t really know much about. So check out the post and please post your thoughts to the comments.

Here is a great article on getting your guitar set-up I received from one of my readers, Giles Dickerson. Thanks Giles for the great article! If you would like to submit content to be posted on this site please contact me.

Following the purchase of my used PRS electric guitar my friend told me he'd refer me to someone to get it "set up". Just beginning on guitar back then I wasn't really clear on what this meant. Let me tell you, it means the world. I suggested I save some time and get it set up at the local music shop (which incidentally is out of business now), his immediate reaction was "No way dude, I have a guy for you". So began the amazing experience I had with Richie's Guitar Shop in the East Village, only a stones throw over the Manhattan bridge.

My friend set me up with a referral with Richie (he's by referral only) and I headed over to the shop. We got there a little early so we ended up testing the deep fried hot dogs and beer up the street from him at Griff Dogs. Entering Richie's shop is amazing. Guitars everywhere! It's an apartment but it is clearly his workshop/labor of love. His custom 12 string electrics are on the wall, his custom Strats lined up on stands on the floors, custom Tele's on the other wall, and a wealth of pickups and tuners and any other possible mechanical item a guitar could require in fantastically organized rows only a space challenged New Yorker could dream up an organizational strategy for.

Many of you are already familiar with the 12-bar blues, but since I plan on doing more advanced blues and jazz lessons in the future I wanted to start of with the basics to make sure everyone is up to par (or should I say “up to bar”:)) on the 12-bar blues. I am not really going to go into the history of the blues. You can always go to Wikepedia for that. I want to dive straight into how to play the blues.

Before you read this article on buying guitar effects pedals you might want to read Part I of the Buying On eBay series which gives a general overview on buying from eBay as well as some specifics to buying guitars. In this post I am just going to dive right into the specifics on buying guitar effect pedals on eBay.

I personally think that effects pedals are the easiest guitar gear to buy on eBay and have the least risk involved. Why? Well for one most guitar pedals do not cost close to as much as a guitar or an amp. So even if you did end up getting scammed it is not as high of a risk as shelling out $500+ dollars.

Don’t you hate it when you’re in the mood to jam but there’s no one around? Or when you just learned a new guitar scale but you have no way of applying it? Well this is an essential practicing tool I use all the time. It is called the Groove Builder and it’s on wholenote.com.

Most guitar players are always looking for ways to improve their playing from almost any source available. And with the wealth of information available on the Internet, guitar players can find almost anything they are looking for on guitar topics. But I think this has caused many guitar players to overlook guitar magazines.

Don’t get me wrong; I have learned tons from the Internet. But I learned so many things from guitar magazines that I have not seen online yet. If it weren’t for the guitar magazines I subscribed to over the years I would not be even close to the level of guitar playing I am at today. Many of the ideas I use on this site are things I learned at one time from a guitar magazine.

So why don’t more guitarists subscribe to guitar magazines? Well, I think the main reason is that a lot of people think that anything they can get from a guitar magazine, they can get online. So why pay for it?

Here are a number of reasons why that is bad reasoning and why the Internet is no replacement for a guitar magazine subscription:

Introduction
Many people often consider buying their guitar gear on Ebay but are hesitant to do so for fear of being scammed. In this series on buying guitar gear on Ebay I hope to cover some of the pros and cons of buying guitar gear on Ebay. I will break this down into separate series for different types of guitar gear. In this post I will cover buying a guitar on Ebay.

Reasons people buy on ebay
Before I get into the specifics, let’s talk about the main reason people buy anything from Ebay—to save money. Buying on Ebay will save you money for a number of reasons. First, you have the opportunity to by something used off someone else. If that item is in good condition you can save significantly compared to buying it new. But you can even save on new items on Ebay. Because everyone is bidding on something you will end up paying the fair market value because most people aren’t willing to bid more than an item is worth. It’s classic economics—supply and demand.

Other reasons people buy on Ebay include being able to purchase something that s no longer available in stores and buying non working items and parts to fix themselves.

Why people don’t buy on ebay
The biggest concern with buying on Ebay is getting ripped off or scammed. But Ebay wants you to buy from them and therefore they have put practices in place that drastically limit the chances of you being scammed by another ebayer:

Ebay Feedback System
Ebay has a unique feedback scoring system that gives buyers information on sellers. The feedback system allows users to rate buyers with positive, negative, or neutral feedback, as well as leave a short comment about the transaction. While you I wouldn’t say you should only buy from sellers with 100% positive feedback, I wouldn’t buy from anyone with less than 90% positive feedback. But I also like to make sure the person I am buying from has over 50 feedback scores, and they should be a good mix of buyer and seller feedback.

Fraud Protection
The best way to make sure you are protected against any fraud is to pay with a credit card through PayPal. PayPal offers buyer protection ranging from $200 - $2000 at no extra charge. Plus most credit card companies do not hold you liable for fraudulent charges. This way if anything does happen you will be reimbursed. For more information on fraud protection Click here or read about buyer protection programs.

Buying a guitar on ebay
Now let’s talk about buying your axe on Ebay. Most guitar players need to play a guitar before they shell out cash for it. This prevents a lot of guitar players from even considering Ebay as an option for buying a guitar. But these worries should not stop you from buying on Ebay. Why? There are a few reasons.