Cheap Guitars

My favorite all-time guitar was a mahogany Martin 0-17 from the 1930s that was gifted to me by a friend as a wedding present. He had acquired it while in college, but it was in bad shape. Fortunately, I was working with a guy (business partner in a startup engineering firm) who was friends with the Martin family. I took the guitar to the factory in Nazareth PA (we lived in Bethlehem PA at the time) and they reworked it as best they could and did not charge me anything. It was a joy to play. Sadly, we had an overheating condition in our house one winter - the furnace got stuck on while we were away - and the guitar cracked all around the bout because the wood was so dry. It became the property of the insurance company. I miss it.

Here is a photo of the enigmatic, late Leon Redbone playing the identical model.

I got the 12-string bug, having listened to Leo Kottke for many years, so I bought a Taylor 150 dreadnaught like this one. I found it to be pretty unplayable - partly due to a lack of hand strength. But I was also unhappy with the action, so I took it back to the shop where I bought it and the guy said - "Oh the neck needs to be reset". Ok - it turned out Taylor did this under warranty - but it took a local luthier a couple of months to fix it. I had pretty much lost interest after a couple of years, so I sold it at the same shop along with the Strat on consignment. I got back most of what I had paid for it so not a great loss, money wise. I learned that 12-strings were not my thing and that I should stick to badly playing 6 strings, which are challenging enough.

More recently, I got the jazz bug. So I wanted another cheap guitar, of course! I had read a lot of buzz on the internet about Firefly guitars. These are made in China and very cheap, but the buzz has created a sort of viral demand for the guitars and they are almost always out of stock on Amazon - they sell out as soon as they get them. Why? Because they are good value for the money and production numbers are low. Not great instruments and they often have quality issues, but a lot of people buy them and do upgrades or tweaks to improve them. If you buy one on Amazon and get a bad example, you can return it.

I managed to get one for $190 shipped - this is a red copy of a Gibson 335 (hilariously referred to as a Chibson). How on earth these can be built and sold at this price point is a mystery - one wonders if slave labor might be involved, which would be bad karma. This is not a true jazz guitar, but the humbuckers can get a pretty good sound.

I was pretty lucky in the quality department - the finish is very good and the neck is straight but it needs a little fretwork - there are a couple of high ones and the ends are sharp. I have a set of guitar files, so I will soon attack the guitar with them. Meanwhile, it is pretty playable, enough so that I can teach myself some jazz chords.

I have a small Ibanez practice amp to play through and still have a Peavy Backstage Plus for when I am alone in the house (which is not often Haha).

My next brilliant move in the cheapo category was to get an effects pedal box. This is a Flamma FX100 box with about 200 presets, most of which are unusable. But there are a few good ones, including vintage amp and cab models, so for $117, I could not resist (the price has since gone up - you can see it here on Amazon). It can do a decent job of getting some mellow jazz sounds out of the Firefly. The pedal can be useful for volume control but can be programmed for other effects like wah. It also has a looper for self-accompanying and can be hooked up to a computer for programming the FX. I would say that the sounds are not pro-level quality, but for a budget box, not terrible either.