How to make a crap guitar sound charming.

[spudgirl]

I have a little garbage Stargazer acoustiic guitar.

I didn't intend on playing it, I only wanted it to paint on (I painted a shark battleing a UFO on it).

But now I'm wondering if I can make it playable with some kind of cheap hacks. This guitar is not worth getting real work done on it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I threw some cheap strings on it that I got for free, but it sounds AWFUL. It's all twangy and cacophonous.

Anything I can do with like a paperclip and a rubber band?

Of course, I'm not trying to make it sound good so much as I'm aiming for quirky or cute.

I'm totally willing to accept that there's no saving this piece of junk.

[Tomm Williams]

If you possess lutherie skills then yes, you could improve (to some level) the "playability" of your guitar. Other than that , fork out your checkbook or buy a new guitar. Cheap guitars are cheap for a very good reason. They seldom (if ever) are worth efforts at improvement compared to replacement.

[normh]

If you really wanted to, you could carefully sand the braces inside and change the sound.

[Graeca]

Cool paint-job!

If the intonation is good and the neck straight, so that it'll play "in tune" with itself, you could install a pickup and plug it in...some great sounding acoustic/electrics "plugged in" sound awful played "unplugged".

[onegig]

That's one of a kind guitar in the world. Unique!

Put it on eBay with starting bid of $1,000,000. Someone may bite ... the shark and you'll be rich.

[MDLMUSIC]

You could always raise the action at the nut and make it a lapsteel or bottleneck-slide guitar.

[igrapablov]

Great aricle +1

[dkurtz]

A GOOD set of strings might make some difference, but nothing is going to make it sound like a Martin or Taylor. The challenge with cheap guitars is to see what unique and funky tones you can get out of them, and then tailor what you play on it to take advantage of that tone. It might only be a niche player, useful for only a subset of your repetoire (maybe even only one or two songs). If, as an acoustic, it rattles and honks, remember that Leadbelly and others played on cheap mail-order guitars that often rattled and honked. Maybe you have an instrument that can give you some of that vibe for those songs that call for it. If you're willing to amplify, as some folks have suggested, remember that Elmore James' rig was a cheap Kay acoustic with a pickup shoved in the soundhole. It wasn't WHAT he played, it was what he played together with how he played it!

And, ultimately, there's nothing wrong with it just being an art piece or decoration. We have a couple of unplayable old {censored}boxes hanging on walls around our house just because they look cool and say something about who we are. You've used this one as a canvas, and that's pretty damned cool in its own right.

Rabbit

 

[britnilinda]

Extravagant yourself a guitar fretboard wizard? To rise on the ranks of guitar master--that is, an exceedingly talented and charismatic guitarist, you must spend your dues. It isn't really just about learning the best way to play guitar; it is about eating, deep breathing, and sleeping guitar. Read on to check out the lead connected with widely respected, guitar playing legends including Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page, Yngwie Malmsteen, Eddie Suv Halen, Angus Young and also Randy Rhoads--maybe you may have it in an individual, maybe you will not, but there's only one fashion to find out.

[Eric Von Kimble]

lmao! I see those a lot.