I’ve dedicated this post to the most important decision you’ll ever make in your life. How to chose the perfect rock guitar for under $500.

This is a subject that shouldn’t be taken lightly, because current statistics prove that the your guitar will out last your first marriage 10 to 1!

After owning a very decent collection of guitars in my day, I wanted to pass on some knowledge that will help your buying decision, and give you some tips that will make sure that with whatever you decide to purchase you’ll be happy.

Let’s begin:

1st step to choosing the perfect guitar – Opt for tone over looks any day!

Whether you’re new to the guitar or not, it’s easy to get caught up in a guitar that ‘looks cool’, but rest assured after you lay out the dough for that axe the hype will quickly fade if it sounds like crap.

Tone is king. Nothing will make the worlds greatest guitarist sound like horrible faster than a crappy sounding guitar. Not only for the obvious reasons (it sounds like crap), but because it’s near impossible to play good on a rig that you’re not 100% satisfied with.

The licks you used to be able to shred through with ease now sounds like pure mush, and that KILLS your confidence no matter how good of a player you are.

Lack of confidence means hesitation. That hesitation will make you sound sloppy, which will soon bring an overwhelming embarrassment that will take weeks to recover from.

If you’re looking at a guitar in the entry level market ($500 or less) then I would highly suggest staying away from Ibanez, Jackson, Danelectro, or any type of flying V, SG, or explorer type bodies.

Although these companies/brands have some sought after models in the higher price range, the cheaper counter parts have second rate electronics. (aka – crap tone)

2nd step to choosing the perfect guitar – Cheap guitar shouldn’t equal cheap craftsmanship!

The first thing you should always do is tune up the guitar (with an actual tuner, not your ear!). Play around with it, and play hard. Then re-check the tuning after about 10 minutes. If there is a drastic difference in the pitch, then that’s a little indicator that the guitar isn’t made well at all.

Itís normal for a guitar, even expensive ones, to lose tune in music shops. This is caused from dead, old, strings that are either rusted or have a years worth of caked on finger grease.

But if after playing it for ten minutes, it’s so out of tune that you can’t even distinguish what key you’re playing in, then you need to set that guitar down, and run far, far away.

This could be cause from defective hardware, often times cheap or improperly installed tremolo systems.

That’s a problem that you can not fix without paying almost as much for the repair as you did for the entire guitar in the first place.

My recommendation: If you want a good entry level guitar, that you can make sure will sound great, play great, and it’s something that you can actually keep long term, then look at a Jimmy Vaughn Signature Fender Strat.

This would be my first go to guitar for under $500 hands down. It’s built to last, sounds great, and no matter what style you want to play you’ll feel comfortable playing it on that.

Now if you want to up your budget a little bit, then we can definitely get you into an axe thatís tailored made for you, but we’ll have to deal with that on another post.