Biggest guitar mistake?

Ben Randolph

Ben Randolph

Power User
I saw this question posed on HCF and thought it would be interesting to ask here.

What's the guitar purchase that you kick yourself for making today? You bought it, was excited bringing it home, then realize later, "WTF was I thinking?"

Mine has to be in 2009, after a 10+ year hiatus from guitar, I was within 48 hours from pulling the trigger on a nice 2009 Gibson SG Standard. I then found a Youtube video of someone playing an Ibanez JS1200 Satch signature guitar. I immediately fell in love and knew I had to have it, despite its high price.

I just never did bond with this guitar. I found, as I worked through my guitar studies, took lessons, diligently practiced, that the style of music that the JS1200 excelled at was simply not what I gravitated toward. I also realized that I didn't abuse the whammy bar enough to justify the locking trem system.

I wound up selling the JS1200 and taking a bath on it.

Later on, I wound up with...you guessed it, a Gibson SG as my #1 player.

Sigh, live and learn. The lesson for me is that you shouldn't buy such an expensive guitar before you really know what you want.
 
For me, it was probably a Marshall JCM800 stack. I had it 2 weeks, then upgraded to an ENGL stack, then a week later took that back for a Dual Rectifier stack that was nearly £2k more.

Money WELL spent.
 
Hermann Li Ibanez - the purple one w/ his handprint on the horn. Thought it would be good for me when I joined my 80's band a couple of years ago, and loved it in the store but couldn't really bond w/ it after I broght it home. It just didn't have the tone I thought it would for what I was playing, and it was too cheesy looking for me as well. Fortunately, I had 30 days and returned it. Ended up w/ my PRS 513. Nuff said ;-)
 
too many to list...letting my Jackson Phil Collen sig go at a pawn shop because i was broke, trading my wolfgang on a whim then selling the guitar i traded for like a month later. letting my maple highway one strat go, then buying a rosewood version that i've just never bonded with like i did the maple.

funny thing is, i'm neither a huge VH or Collen fan (highly respect both and dig their playing), i simply bought the guitars because the looked/played/sounded fantastic.....still miss them, especially the Jackson, that sucker was a stunner....
 
A 1994 custom 10 top PRS. As hard as I tried, I couldn't live with the way the wood resonated, which felt kind of restricted. It played great, awesome in fact. But I eventually sold it and bought a Les Paul. I like it, but it doesn't work for me at church. Regrets? Some, but it's not the guitars fault, I just didn't think it through. I ended up with an Ibanez JS2400 that works ok for cleans and really well for all the dirty stuff.

Amps - Mesa Road King. Used it at church for years because my wife would have killed me if I hadn't used it after dropping that much cash. Eventually came to my senses and sold it. Nothing wrong with it in the right setting mind you.
 
if we go into biggest "selling" mistakes I have 3...
1. selling my Pink(yes,pink) EBMM EVH last year to Brett at gilaguitars.com
2. Selling my MONSTAH blue quilt EBMM EVH last year
3. Trading my Custom Shop Peavey Wolfgang deluxe with pearl flame inlays to Brett at gilaguitars...

These are the 3 biggest mistakes I have made and regret them everyday...as I was posting these pics, I was infact playing dust in the wind...
 
Ben Randolph said:
I saw this question posed on HCF and thought it would be interesting to ask here.


I just never did bond with this guitar. I found, as I worked through my guitar studies, took lessons, diligently practiced, that the style of music that the JS1200 excelled at was simply not what I gravitated toward. I also realized that I didn't abuse the whammy bar enough to justify the locking trem system.

I wound up selling the JS1200 and taking a bath on it.
Click to expand...
Ditto Ben, Coincidentally, my love-hate experience was with an Ibanez RG3550MZ (black). Gorgeous guitar, bought it brand new for $1600. Took a bath on it also. Ended up spending more money on a used Les Paul. My biggest headache with the Ibanez was with the "Edge zero" bridge. Intonation adjustments were a friggin nightmare. I do miss the whammy bar. I also loved the tuners on the bridge with the nut locked. I definitely bonded with the Les Paul. My lesson is...I need to pay less attention to what I play and more attention to HOW I play it!........But hey...how about that AxeII?
 
this is my biggest guitar mistake,EVH brand wolfgang usa. I love everything Eddie has done, up until this point.They're nice guitars but not worth the new price tag. Luckily I bought mine used from an out of state guitar center for 1100. PLayed it for 2 months and sold it back to my local guitar center for 1600 lol
 
lessthanone said:
this is my biggest guitar mistake,EVH brand wolfgang usa. I love everything Eddie has done, up until this point.They're nice guitars but not worth the new price tag. Luckily I bought mine used from an out of state guitar center for 1100. PLayed it for 2 months and sold it back to my local guitar center for 1600 lol
Click to expand...

If you made $500 on the deal are you sure it qualifies as a mistake? Sounds like you got to try a guitar and make some cash! I should be so lucky!
 
My case is specific, I live in a small island in the Indian ocean with maybe 5 music shops, none of which has something better than a Ibanez prestige, and most of the time serious guitar players order their instrument from online music shops. But that is today, in the nineties it was eve worse, there were only two music shops and the better you could get was a Yamaha RGX1212 and that's all. So, at the time, having had trussrod problems with a guitar, I asked a friend who was cabin crew in Air Mauritius to buy me a Vigier Excalibur in France (with the carbon part in the neck which stabilizes it, replacing the trussrod). Big mistake. The guitar was really pretty looking, but the neck was too fat for my taste, the frets too thin (I like jumbo), the pickups anemic (some Seymour Duncan…). And it has cost me a lot ! Mistake number two : I decided to put some EMGs on it, which I just hated as soon as I tried them (sterile clean sound) - not mentioning that I had to remove some wood in the guitar because of the bigger pickup and the battery. Later I asked a guitar tech from nearby Reunion island to change the pickups for another brand (maybe be Bartolini, it was a French brand with a tuning fork logo) and to put on jumbo frets. At least it was playable now but I sold it for a Jackson Professional, which I never regretted. The Vigier is the best looking guitar I ever had though ; recently, on Facebook, Levi Clay was gasing for the exact purple amethist model I had
 
I really want/wanted an Ibanez S7420 (an S not an RG) in this blue/denim color...

I saw one on craigslist- emailed the guy 1000x he ended up selling it- a few days later the same guitar popped up... didn't get it then...
A week or a few days later saw the guitar a third time- got in touch- and over paid for it. even though it was far from as good condition as it was described....anyway....

Took it to my guitar guy- said it was irreparably broken/warped and even a full refret wouldn't make it play like it should...

It gets better at least...

When home and was about to list the guitar again on ebay (hmm i wonder why it exchanged hands 3-4 times in a week)...

Saw an add on craiglist 'wanted the ibanez s7420 that was on craigslist last week'
I emailed the guy 'DUDE I HAVE THAT GUITAR ITS YOURS IF YOU WANTED IT!!!'

Sold- next day... twice as much as i paid...
the guy even checked to see if the neck was good when examining the guitar - looked it over and said 'neck looks great'

I've been on a pretty shitty streak with buying fucked up guitars lately... had to return two basses I got from guitar center (Conklin)
Still trying to track another down
 
lessthanone said:
this is my biggest guitar mistake,EVH brand wolfgang usa. I love everything Eddie has done, up until this point.They're nice guitars but not worth the new price tag. Luckily I bought mine used from an out of state guitar center for 1100. PLayed it for 2 months and sold it back to my local guitar center for 1600 lol
Click to expand...

I dig this pic!
 
Every Ibanez electric I've bought. That includes a Jem7WH, S series Ibanezes and RGs. None of them were mine for over a month. Piece of shät guitars for my tastes.. however my truthful acoustic is the Ibanez AEL which has officially killed a few Martins. :D

This one is weird... I regret trading my Mesa Mark IV. It was pure magic! I want it back. Guess what I traded it for? The Axe-Fx Standard. :) So I might've never gotten into this whole Fractal thing so I can't regret it that much.

Aww... selling my PINK Fender Strat for 350€. Aww man how lame that was... aaaaaargghh!
 
Hmmm... that one is extremely easy for me to answer. About 2 years ago I fell in love with an ESP Formula FR. That particular ESP model was not/is not dealt in the United States(where I live). I had contacted many retailers about a custom order but I didn't have any luck. Of course, I HAD to have it, so I eventually sold every piece of gear I could part ways with and purchased it from a very reliable company from Australia. After the exchange rate, shipping, customs, and whatnot... it ended up costing me about $3,300. I finaly received it...and loved it! About a week later... I got an email reply from a dealer in the US telling me that they could custom order the exact guitar for $1,699 US. Hahaha. I immediately wanted to return it for a refund. But I didn't feel like paying $400 for shipping plus Insurance. I beat myself up about it for a while, but it is a great guitar so I'm glad I have it. I'm possibly the only person in the US with the exact model (God I hope so). But...the experience could have been much worse. And it taught me a great lesson on patience. Hahaha
 
3 things...

1) a '57 LP Custom Black Beauty with 3 pickups.
2) a Marshall TSL 100 full stack
3: a Taylor 914ce.

never bonded with any of them.
Sold the LP and the Marshall for a big loss, but still have the Taylor
 
Dillion DBM-012 Red Special. I was really excited to get it. It played great and sounded great...at first. There were little issues with it that kept popping up, but in the end, the wood swelled to the point where it ruined the guitar. Yes, it swelled. As in, when I popped the trem cover off the back, I had to pull hard, and it chipped the finish around it in a couple of spots, and then I had to actually sand it down considerably to get it to go back in. It pooched the neck out of it's slot slightly...or something, the truss rod wouldn't give any relief in the neck anymore and it even broke one of the inlays. I did a warranty return on it and after the luthier I sent it too looked at it, Dillion called me and said he was sending me a new one. The new one shows up and the electronics compartment was cut wrong. One of the pickguard cover screws just fell out when I picked up the guitar because there was nothing under it. Examining it further, I found that the screws all around it were put in rather sloppily.

That guitar had every spec I ever wanted in a Red Special to fit me and my preferences, but the quality of them was just crap in so many ways that I just didn't want to bother with it anymore. One of these days I'll end up with another Brian May model I guess. I had one at first, before the Dillion, but it wouldn't intonate. It was constructed wrong and I guess the trem was installed in the wrong spot so I had to send it back.

I have ZERO luck with Red Specials. Someday I would really like to find a good one though.

Another one...

Schecter Hellraiser. The guitar is gorgeous, but I never was able to bond with it and I really don't dig the EMG pickups at all.
 
Brian Moore iGuitar.
Arrived with a hairline crack. After a few months it developed into a full crack - broken neck.
I had to send it back.
No refund for shipping charges.
And when it arrived, the hairline crack was back.
only advise they gave me was to fill it with super glue and sand it.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom