As a budding guitarist, this may be the most crucial choice you make in your playing career. How to choose the ideal rock guitar for under $500.

This purchase should be carefully considered because your first guitar may well outlast your first marriage, several bands and or pets.

Having owned a very nice collection of guitars in my time, I wish to pass on the accumulated knowledge to help you with your purchase and pass on some tips that will ensure that you’ll be happy with whatever you decide to buy.

Here we go:

Step 1 to choosing the perfect guitar. Tone will always trump looks!

Newbie or old pro, it is easy to get sucked in by a guitar’s shiny plate or sparkly finish but believe me, there is no point to paying good money for an axe that sounds like trash. The love affair will die away fast.

Tone is everything. Even the world’s greatest guitarist, like Jimmy Hendrix, will sound awful playing a lousy sounding guitar. There are the blatant reasons, it doesn’t sound good, but even a great guitarist won’t feel comfortable playing on a bad guitar, it just won’t sound right.

The licks and fingerings you should be able to play with ease sound like they’ve been put through a grinder and that will destroy anyone’s confidence no matter their experience.

No confidence means any player will hesitate. Hesitation will make your playing sound uneven and haphazard which will lead to a further lack of confidence. It’s a vicious circle.

If your guitar budget is $500 or less then you should steer away from the following; Jackson, Ibanez, Danelectro, or any of the SG, flying V or explorer type bodies.

These companies/brands have some very nice and sought after models in the higher price range, the less expensive equivalents have second rate electronics. (Which means lousy tone)

Step 2 to choosing the perfect guitar – Inexpensive guitar shouldn’t equal cheap or lousy craftsmanship.

Thing number one, tune up the guitar, with an actual tuner. The store should have one available. Play the guitar. Play it like you would play it normally. If you play hard, play hard! After about 10 minutes, recheck the tuning. If it has gone drastically out of tune within that time, there’s a good indication that the guitar is poorly made.

It’s common for a guitar, even the high end ones, to lose tune hanging in a music shop. Old strings, many different people playing them, being hung in sunlight, (which is very bad) temperature changes and various other things will cause this.

But if you have tuned it up and after playing for 10 minutes you it sounds like you may have entirely changed key, or can’t even hear a key, then please step away from the guitar!

Causes of this could be defective hardware or frequently cheap or improperly installed tremolo systems.

You could easily end up paying as much to repair the problem as you did paying for the original price of the guitar.

My recommendation: A good entry level guitar that will have great long term holding power, sound wonderful, and play well is the Jimmy Vaughn Signature Fender Strat.

This would be my best suggestion for a good entry level, under $500 guitar any day. It’s well built, has great tone and whatever style you’ll be playing in you will be happy sliding up and down the fret board of this guitar.

Now if your budget is a bit larger, then we can talk about a tailor made axe, which is a whole different deal but will also involve another post