Cheap Gear vs. Expensive Gear: Does It Even Matter?

At the tail end of 2022, as the world seems yet again to be careening toward armageddon, the internet is mostly split on the value of cheap or expensive music gear. Some argue that subtleties like fancy tonewoods are worth the multi-thousand price tags they demand. Others swear that the added value you get for spending more on guitars or basses diminishes rapidly after around 800 USD.

So, which is the correct perspective, and how can you see beyond the manipulative and deceptive marketing efforts that try to convince you that pricier is better?

*Charge of diminishing returns. You can think of Y as price and X as value.*

Consideration #1: What Gear Do You Sound Good on?

You may have heard the internet refrain, “a good player can make a cheap instrument sound expensive, and a bad player can make an expensive instrument sound cheap.” This is an excellent and totally valid point. If you don’t know how to play, set up, and use your instruments or amps, you’re going to sound terrible. But the real question you probably want to ask is whether a good player sounds discernibly better with an expensive instrument.

This depends entirely on the genre you intend to play. Generally speaking, the muddier your preferred music, the less you’ll be able to differentiate your guitar or bass tone. If you use tons of distortion, fuzz, reverb, or modulation, you have a lot more to hide behind than if you simply plug in clean.

You may have figured this out already, but you might be surprised how many experienced youtube guitar channels compare the tones of their devices with the distortion set to 11. Death metal and thrash genre creators are especially guilty of this, as they can’t seem to help themselves from diming a Mesa Boogie or Soldano cab, just to show off their djent skills.

The process of targeting an ideal sound is simpler than most people make it out to be. Basically, if you ever plan to play clean, be sure that you’re okay with your clean sound. Then, set up your gear as you would play live or on record. Does it sound as good as you could conceivably want it to? If yes, then great, you’re done. Still don’t know what gear to get? That’s where the next consideration comes in.

One of many handy tone comparisons on Youtube

Consideration #2: Do You Understand the Gear You’re Playing?

Music and audio production can get very complicated and technical. Just like you should learn the basics of music theory before you try to put out a record, you should know the variables on a guitar, bass, keyboard, or amp before you commit to buying one.

Here are some string instrument dimensions you should familiarize yourself with:

Neck radius
Scale length
Tuners
Nut
Pots
Pickup types and outputs
Coil splitting/tapping
Neck shape

Here are some amp variables to remember:

Wattage
Headroom
Solid state vs tube
Preamp/gain

As long as you understand exactly what you’re buying, you should have a good idea of when you’re getting a deal and when you aren’t. You should know, for example, to avoid insane prices (usually, instruments under 150 USD are dubious), and familiarize yourself with brands that make quality budget products. Epiphone, Squier, Harley Benton, Firefly, and even Glarry are known for making amazingly playable budget guitars, though each has put out at least one stinker in recent memory.

Understanding Guitar Marketing

If you attend shows or watch performances online, you’ve probably noted that most professional guitar or bass players play one of a small handful of guitars. Gibson Les Pauls, SGs, and Flying Vs are ubiquitous in stoner or doom bands. Strats and Telecasters seem to be virtually everywhere. High-end Jacksons and Ibanezs disproportionately occupy metal venues. This has likely given you a sense that skilled players need such expensive instruments.

While high-end devices are generally more reliable than low-end ones, in most cases, cheaper ones would work absolutely acceptably in their place. Big brands pay players a lot of money to use their gear, and this can create the impression that these brands are the only true choices. Don’t allow yourself to be manipulated. Instead, let your budget, knowledge, and experience guide your decisions.

Understanding Guitar Modifications

If you plan to cheap out but still want great-sounding gear, be prepared to do a little work. Cheap products often require modifications and adjustments that expensive ones don’t. For some, the comfort of buying a completed axe is well worth a huge price tag. For others, modifying and personalizing is a valuable part of the experience. Plus, modders who know what they’re doing can wind up with something better than they might get for thousands more.

Understanding Amp Marketing

Most cheap music stuff targets beginner players. Even if you are a beginner, you probably don’t want to be forever, so you should recognize and avoid “one size fits all” or “combo” marketing strategies. A guitar bundled with an amp for 100 bucks is simply not going to be any good. Nor can a budget amp perfectly emulate 200 different classic rigs.

To the beginner, more often sounds better. More modulation options and effects mean more tonal possibilities, and more watts mean you’ll be able to play bigger gigs. While you should explore different tones and sounds to find your voice, if you’re on a budget, you should only buy gear that does one thing well.

An Orange 12-watt amp, for example, can be had for under 100 dollars. With it, you’ll get decent power for home recording, and a great distorted tone. A Line 6 spider that costs around the same can give you dozens of unusable, digital-sounding combinations of modeled amps and effects.

If you’re the kind of player who can’t nail down a single style or sound, budget gear might not be for you. Spending even a little more money can give you some great tone-shaping options. An Eventide multi-effects pedal or a full Amplitube 5 package will cost you a few hundred bucks, but they offer you an infinite variety of pro or near-pro quality tones.

Consideration #3: Is Your Gear Comfortable and Reliable?

Pickups are fairly simple. In most cases, they’re little more than wire wound around magnetic poles. Other guitar electronics are also easy to produce, perhaps now more than ever. So it isn’t hard to make a cheap instrument that sounds nearly as good as an expensive one. The real trick is making one that feels and plays as good as a top-quality product.

While you might struggle to tell the difference between a cheap and pricy product from a youtube video, you’d likely have a much easier time if you could touch and play one for yourself. Some cheap guitars simply feel cheap. Some buzz and struggle with intonation. Others fall out of tune every few minutes. These problems are fixable, but each fix costs time and money. At a certain point, you’ll be even with the pricier comparable instrument you turned down.

Fortunately, true deals exist in the music world, and with enough experience, you can figure out where to find them. Whenever possible, shop in person so you can feel and handle products for yourself. When you shop online, you’ll be subject to whatever quality control procedures your chosen company has implemented. In many cases, this can be a bit of a crapshoot.

In the end, choosing between budget and non-budget items is a matter of personal preference. Ask yourself this: do you want a virtual guarantee of quality, or would you rather save money and risk having to start a minor restoration project?

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