I have written plenty on the so-called “cost of tone” in this column, and celebrated the glories of a lot of boutique guitars and amps too, but I feel it’s worth dedicating some virtual ink to the fact that you don’t have to spend a fortune to achieve the sounds in your head. In fact, aiming low and working your way up might actually have some benefits over the sky’s-the-limit budget.
There’s so much talk of high-end gear these days, and so many makers introducing new guitars and amps at ever-escalating price points that would have been unheard of several years ago, that you can begin to feel you need to spend a ton to have any chance of satisfactory tone. It’s worth pausing to consider your options if you just don’t have that kind of budget to work with, or simply don’t want to spend it out of personal choice, principle, whatever. Let’s remind ourselves that you can end up with outstanding and highly personalized gear without spending the price of a compact car to get there, and you will often learn a lot in the process.
One Piece at a Time
This “ultimate tone quest” that many guitarists are on is often billed as a rich man’s game. We bemoan the lawyers and dentists and otherwise well-heeled weekend warriors who turn up to the jam sessions with their $6k custom shop guitars and $4k boutique amps. The truth is, the relatively more down-at-heel quester can still benefit greatly from the chase, and often hone his or her preferred sounds even more precisely, while shopping in the bargain bins and project aisles.
On one hand, if our entry point is at the lower end of the scale, but we’re willing to work toward the right ends bit by bit, we often end up more precisely where we want to go, and for far less money. If the “donor guitar” at least has good bones, for example, for a few hundred dollars more—swapping pickups better-suited to our tastes, changing some hardware, getting a re-fret or other essential pro maintenance—we might come away with an awesome guitar, one that plays great and sounds superb, and still be ahead of the game cash-wise. Indeed, the results might be “better than new,” as far as they suit our own purposes, at least.
"If you’re starting at a more affordable price point, chances are you’ll end up closer to where you want to be for less money overall, even after investing a few hundred bucks more to get there."
So many of the particulars of any guitar run so intimately according to taste that even when shopping in the high-end market, many players find themselves tweaking and swapping and modifying, regardless. I know there’s an accepted wisdom that any truly great guitar-maker will understand how to render each instrument as its perfect self before sending it out the door. And often, sure, we’ll pick up such a guitar and decide that yes, it really is perfect. But you might also pick up that otherwise-perfect creation and think, “Man, I love this thing… but I’d love it even more with slightly hotter pickups/locking tuners/different tone caps…,” or whatever.
What I’m getting at is this: the fact is, there’s plenty of changing and altering and modifying going on at all ends of the spectrum. If you’re starting at a more affordable price point, however, chances are you’ll end up closer to where you want to be for less money overall, even after investing a few hundred bucks more to get there.
Modder, Know Thyself
Arguably above and beyond all of this, however, another benefit of the cheapskate mentality is that you learn a lot about your gear, and your own requirements, by starting with a project and working towards a calculable conclusion, or even just an improvement.
If you’re at all like me, that project guitar is going to get you out there researching the difference between Alnico III and Alnico V magnets in vintage-style Strat pickups, or the sonic variations between nylon and bone nuts on Les Pauls, or the difference between matched or mismatched coils in humbuckers, or the ratio of twang-to-sizzle in steel Tele saddles compared with brass saddles.
You’ll call up transformer manufacturers to find out what differently spec’d output transformers will really do for the amp you’re fixing up, or read user’s comments on the characteristics of different makes of 12AX7 preamp tubes, or peruse spec sheets for replacement speakers to check efficiency and resonant characteristics.
And while you’re doing all of this, you’ll learn a lot. No, you won’t know everything. But you’ll develop a better understanding of the gear you are using, and of what you might need to do to get it closer to your own tonal wheelhouse. You will undoubtedly take some wrong turns along the way, too—and that’s where you’ll really learn a thing or two—but if you educate yourself as you go, keep some detailed notes when necessary, and work towards your own the-whole-is-greater-than-the-sum-of-the-parts conclusion… chances are you’ll end up with something truly spectacular, and very much your own.