As a beginning guitarist, have you ever thought of quitting your guitar? Why your guitar sounds bad no matter how good you squeeze the fretboard? Why your fretting fingers can’t stay longer on the fretboard without having pain?

Some people think that a budget acoustic guitar is good enough for beginners because if they decide to quit they don’t lose much money. This maybe half true but sometimes people forget that beginning guitarists often stop playing because they feel they can’t take the pain anymore without realizing that they picked up the wrong axes.

You can buy budget guitars as long as they meet some criteria below:

The first thing to check is the guitar neck. Don’t buy a guitar with bowed neck. To check this you can press the sixth string at both first and 12th frets. It should leave a tiny gap only between the string and the frets.

The second thing to check is playability. If a guitar has a good playability you can play any chords on its fretboard at different position without problems or finger pains. You should feel comfortable playing all over the fretboard.

You should pick a guitar with low action. Action is the clearance between the thickest string’s bottom to the top of 12th fret. A measurement of 3mm to 4 mm is desirable. With low action you need less pressure to form chords and this means you will have less pain in your fingers. This increase the guitar playability.

Never neglect the guitar intonation. Good intonation will give you in tuned notes at any fret on the fretboard. It is very common to find a cheap guitar with perfect strings tuning but when playing bar chords on the high numbered frets all you get is out of tune chords. This is related to bad intonation and you can’t fix it. If you are in doubt take some measurement on certain frets with the help of a guitar tuner.

Cheap guitars tend to sacrifice the guitar playability and/or intonation. If you are unsure it’s a good idea to get one of your friend that has guitar experience to guide you and recommend you some guitars to test. Based on his/her recommendation you then choose one that is comfortable in your hand. Guitar appearance may fool you easily.

A budget guitar that meets the basic criteria above is worth buying. With very limited budget you can’t expect much but you won’t get a crap guitar either if you follow this guideline correctly.