I'm glad you pointed out in the end that there have been some guitars made with plywood back in the day. I was literally thinking through the whole video about an old Honer guitar I have (my first guitar when I was a kid) that is made of plywood. I once had to replace the neck and you could see clearly inside the neck pocket that it was plywood. It was a cheap guitar made probably sometime in the 90s. But you're right, these days with CNC machines and whatnot, guitar building has gotten much less expensive to do and fewer corners are cut given the massive decrease in production time with the new tech.
You could just sand it inside beside destroying it, a cheap guitar is just a cheap guitar for privileged people, for the other 95% of humanity it's the only guitar somebody could afford.
Yeah. And I wish this 24 minute video went a little more in depth exploring this notion, as the title kind of eludes to. But sadly no. We spent 24 minutes exploring something that this guy could have thoroughly covered in maybe 3 minutes. “Guitar not made of fake wood. Guitar made of real wood”. The title was a little click-baity.
It’s usually the elitist in the hobby. Just like in the watch community, I’ve learned in the community, having a great value for money item in the market is just damning to an elitist. Something that shouldn’t exist, couldn’t exist but it does and “average people” can afford it. Boils their blood right quick. I’ve run into Gibson snobs that literally laughed at my Epiphone Black Beauty for being a Chinese “fake”. It’s funny because Gibson authorized their creation and it was also built in Korea 😂 but even if it was Chinese, modern Epiphones are made in China now and you can get an ebony board, Gibson CTS500 pots, real 7ply binding and real MOP in the headstock inlays! Can’t beat it. But again to an elitist, it’s a cheap hack.
People who spend massive amounts of money want to believe they have acquired a vastly superior instrument compared to the guy who bought a budget guitar, despite both being fully capable of making great music. It's a strange obsession with a false sense of status. People should just get the least expensive guitar that does the job and go make some music. The quality of your music matters far more than the name on the headstock. At minimum, if the body and neck are constructed well and the frets are done right, everything else can be easily upgraded for cheaper than a big name guitar. If you put good hardware and electronics in it, it can be better than a Shitson or a Bendover for a fraction of the price. If you buy a boutique guitar, you're paying for the labor of a custom build, which is fair. The mass produced guitars, such as Fender and Gibson, have no right to cost thousands of dollars. They're charging for the name. I give zero fucks about names. If it feels good and sounds good, it's good. It doesn't matter if it says Glarry on it.
The sound of an electric guitar does not come from the body, it comes from the metal strings vibrating above the magnetic pickup, and that Signal gets send to an amplifier and played through a speaker. You can make an electric guitar out of solid metal and it would still sound killer
My first electric guitar was a plywood SG copy; Japanese-made, single coils in humbucker housing and all. It was with m for about 5 years, during which time my playing improved incredibly, so I'll always be grateful to have owned it, for all its sins. The best guitar is the one in your hands.
I would argue: "the best guitar is the one you like" instead. My first guitar was atrocious. It was literally injuring me to play, but I didn't know any better, I thought that's how it used to be. Nowadays, I have many guitars, some of them being fully custom USA made instruments and yet, I find myself gravitating towards some of my least expensive instruments still. I will always say this to newer players looking for a new guitar: "choose one that inspire you and feels good TO YOU"
I've been hot rodding pawn shop guitars for years. I think it's absolutely amazing that we can now own a great guitar without taking out a second mortgage.
That’s my whole deal! I have very specific taste in guitars and it’s all in feel. I’ll take a MiM Strat home and modify the hell out of it. Nothing against the American ones, I just can’t afford them haha!
Yep. The best pickup I ever split was an unknown generic I found at a pawn store. The coil is now half generic/half Seymour Duncan. It is now a full humbucker.
I have a pawn shop strat body with decidedly suspicious 'wood' that I put a pawnshop neck on. Changed the pickups, tuners and pots and it's now my go to guitar for playing slide.
@@dsan94correct, because not all wood is the same. Hell, not all mahogany is the same. Sometimes solid wood comes from trees that were very weak and sickly in their lifetime, maybe weakening thanks to a fungus infection.
I bought a $69 Kramer that is all plywood, modified it gutted it and installed Fender Fat 50s pups and fronted a surf band for over ten years. I still have it and I still love it.
Plywood isn't even a cheap material, it's a construction material of reall wood veneers sandwiched together. Ppl also forget semi-acoustic guitars costing thousands of dollars have the main body (not the place where the pickups are mounted) made from plywood, although it will be called laminated wood of course even though it is the same thing.
I have an ‘86 Kramer 100ST that’s “composite” and it sounds better than many high end modern guitars. It just has this thing about it. And the neck is exceptional.
My first electric guitar was a Cort M200 that I bought new (along... long time ago) for around $200. I still have it and I still play it. What a great guitar! Stays in tune and the frets were finished correctly. I've played guitars that cost over a $1000 that I've lost skin on the frets (yep, Gibson). Expensive doesn't mean good and cheap doesn't mean bad.
my old guitar teacher taught me that the expensive guitars are very consistently made, wether that’s good or bad. and the cheap ones are looser in their QA but it means you can score a blinder OR you can find a dud so you should just try them in the shop. and he’s right- i have a couple of €1000+ guitars but my first electric- a €120 squier strat is still my favourite thing to play, it feels fantastic.
I have an expensive PRS Custom 22 and an SE. About $2000 difference in price from the "same" manufacturer. I prefer the SE. The Custom is all that and a bag of chips but the SE is the whole meal lol. I also bought a Gibson Les Paul Standard back in the day and it was a real POS. Played nice and all but man did it look like crap when you took a close look. You would swear it was a cheap Chibson based on the finishing flaws. If I hadn't bought it from a reputable dealer I would have sworn I was ripped off.
As a middle aged guitar player, I gotta admit, I'm actually jealous of the guitars you can buy today for less than $500. Back in the 70's and 80's, $300 would get you a unplayable pile of lumber. As far a new, cheap guitars go. You younger players, this is the golden age for guitars. Between UA-cam, Instagram and the equipment you can buy, you've got it made. I think back to learning songs from a album or cassette. Everything was by ear. But, there was a benefit to that. I learned to hear keys without playing. Or at least close. Which became really helpful while I was still gigging. Keep playing Peace ✌️
Interesting….in 1995 I bought a used 66’ SG Junior….actual Gibson …..for $500, with its Gibson branded case at a tiny shop in Venice Ca. where the guy lived in back…Rose Ave. Attention MAX! He is now having a store closing sale all these years later, discounts! If I never played it, it was a fantastic investment, ya all know how much that would cost now! A hand built era guitar! And later I found out that that one year, the neck tenon is much longer, (better stronger) they never made one like it before or since the ‘66 model year. I’ve since added a Tone Pros replacement for the Leo Quan adjustable wrap bridge, and SD PU and refretted it, someone put Grover’s on it before I bought it! So back in the day new was just as you say, you didn’t get much for under $500 new….but fab deals were available used, now, modern manufacturing makes new guitars for amazing prices. WHY would you shell out $5k for a new Gibson, especially when an axe like an AIO is set up to play brand new for under $500😳
I totally agree with you. I would have loved to have began on a cheap guitar like they are made today. People don't understand how good they have it now. Cheers!
Assuming the hardware isn't poor quality, yes. More often than not, the tuning pegs are terrible and have to be replaced. Everything else you can get away with, even pickups.
@@proudbrogressive315 Even alot of the lowest cost guitars nowadays have 'acceptable' quality tuners, bridge etc. The 'low end' bar has definitely gone up. Cheapest guitars right now are like, 10x better than cheapest guitars even 15 years ago
There's a further consideration: the "so what?" factor. My brother is a retired architect, so I hear about new materials or new uses of traditional materials pretty regularly, and am often surprised at how what used to be considered impossible is now commonplace: softwoods on soil, fibreboard bathroom floors, compressed pine in place of hardwood for structural used... the list is almost endless. The bottom line with a solid body electric guitar is how it plays through an amplifier, not its resonant qualities. The issue with materials is how well they stand up to the rigours of tension, transport and trauma. People are building guitars from carbon fibre, fibreglas, aluminium and ofher composites, If a non-traditional material or a non traditional construction method meets the criteria for effective playing over the long term, so what? I like the look and feel of wood, but the only time I really think of materials is if I damage a guitar, something I have fortunately only done to replaceable plastic or metal parts.
silverstreettalks343: I just went into detail in a comment similar to yours...such that what matters with electric guitars is the electronics, setup, playability & cosmetic appearance...and the core of the thing "be damned". And, in general, the only exception, in regard to all guitars, is with the top of acoustics (& probably any acoustic stringed instrument). I am pleased that most of the commenters here agree with us, with comments of, basically: (Sound quality, playability & durability is all that matters...). Frankly, just to prove a point, it was not worth it to destroy a couple of guitars that, at worst, could have been properly set up and donated to those who could not afford the instruments.
Frets might matter more but wood matters. If you have ever owned multiples of the same guutar type like a strat you would see that wood and how it matches adds to the quality of the tone. And I dont need to plug in a strat to buy I know when a strat has good resonance and the neck and body work together. If you just try a bunch of the same model at a shop you can feel this. But thats my expierence.
@@Airhead348 Sorry but standard pickups convert strings vibrating in a magnetic field to electricity. They don't respond to sound from the guitar body or the air. You are attributing tonal qualities to the resonance of wood, that derive from entirely different things, even with multiple models of the same guitar: Strings, intonation & setup, bridge & nut composition. Plus, electronic components (resistors, capacitors & "pots") have a tolerance compared to their nominal rating...typically 5-10%...so supposedly identical components in two different guitars will rarely actually be identical. Component manufacturers can't guarantee better than those tolerances for items that rarely cost more than $1.00 And NO-ONE pays the enormous price for precision rated components that are available for critical applications To prove this assertion wrong, you would have to do more than compare examples of the same supposedly identical guitar model: You would have to swap guitar bodies of different materials, while keeping EVERYTHING else identical, from neck to electronics to setup. Tonewoods matter with acoustic instruments, but not with solid body guitars. There are even guitars that, effectively, have no body....little more than a long neck with a bridge at one end, & tuning pegs at the other end, and they sound great. For that matter, I've seen a solid concrete guitar that also sounded good.
I bought a fake ESP explorer from eBay for $280 and changed the pickups to actual EMG 81’s. Not one single person at a local music shop knew it was a fake. They only thing they noticed they couldn’t figure out was white ESP logo was placed differently on the headstock. I finally told them and they just knew it was the $2900 dollar original. Only THEN they wanted to say “ok the bridge looks cheap, the tuners seem off, the knobs turn weird……etc.” about a year later I brought in a fake Jim root Fender and they did that shit all over again. I have four total fake ESP’s and after playing for 30 years all you have to do is change all hardware (tuners, pickups, bridge/tremelo) and it’s mysteriously a $1800 guitar.
I do the same with an OLP it sound like the Real LUKE since i put some Schaller autolocked tunner and Real Steve Lukather EMG pickup it was night and Day compare to the shity mics and pot they put on it same for the Schaller tunner, it make the guitar playable and in tune, but it was not a Musicmann but an Ernie ball OLP from the same company .
I still have my 1st electric guitar. Got it in 1977 for Christmas. It is plywood. I keep it for nostalgia and sentimental reasons. It's still pretty cool to me. It came from the old Sears catalog.
Plywood guitars are actually really useful depending on the make up. You can make your own composites to get some really interesting tone depending on how it travels through the material.
I started out the same myself with several Sears guitars, one that was even a no name but is a single coil strat style that is just as good as my other guitars. The real secret to great sound is in the processing. I've kept all my old cheap guitars because even they end up surprising me whenever I can get new FX pedals and processers to play them through.
Got a 1994 Squire strat mik cort factory. Bought it off my mate in 95. Just set it all up again with new Wilkinson tuners strings fret polish and intonation set. Cheap 3 single coil pups pots and plywood body. Maple neck is actually brilliant with worn in frets butter to play and great tones. Love it no other guitar I’ve played sounds like it just love it
I haven't had any Harbor Freight tools burst into flames......either the mechanicals fail first or they just quietly stop working, while getting rather warm. They usually work once. It's the second time that's a surprise.
Ironically, my first guitar way back in the 60s was a Silvertone single pickup that had the amplifier in the hard case. I can't tell you how cheap it was new but my (ever so supportive) Mom bought it from a friend and started my journey. That "cheap guitar" model is priced today on Reverb in the range of anywhere from $600-2,000. So, quite obviously, time has a strange way of altering the meaning and perception of words in unpredictable ways. I'm most definitely a member of the group of players who kick themselves for not keeping the vintage gear they've owned at one time or another. I long for that '63 J-45 Gibson, or the 60's Epiphone Sheraton, the Gibson tweed GA-5 amps, especially the very early Fender Telecaster that I routed out to put a Gibson Humbucker, many years before Fender thought of it. Hey I was only 15 in 1969, vintage wasn't a thing, but I can't imagine the value that guitar would have today in the pristine condition I originally got it in. Sure there's more, but it's that first "cheap guitar" that's launched most every star into fame, so any of those who leave comments that are negative towards them, will no doubt never be touched by the magic inherent in the art. Virtuosity comes not with a large price tag, but from a priceless breath that falls from the Creator to permeate that first spark that wakes the love of sharing your gift...
That point is so well made that some of it could be the advertising blurb on a cheap guitar! " One day, You'll be Proud to say my first guitar was a (insert name here). I still have my lefty Ibanez acoustic from 1977 and my heart still bleeds for the Ibanez Rick bass stolen from the shop in 1976 that I ordered but never got to play. I hurt over the Rickenbacker 4001 that I sold because we "needed the money". I now have a Benton Chickenbacker, a Benton 335, a lefty Variax 300 and rightly Variax 500. They will be worth thousands in about 30 years time!
The reason why those Silvertone guitars go for a lot of money is because they're collectible. Although the same can be said of vintage Gibson and Fender stuff, those are a bit different in my opinion. Unlike many things from that era, guitars from the late 50's into the late 70's were incredibly well-built. Because of this, musicians with a lot of money to throw around will spend big bucks for the feel of an old guitar - as well as a particular sound they may have heard on an old record. The same can't really be said for a Silvertone because they were never good guitars to begin with, but ironically some people (like Jack White for example) really love that "bad" sound. Vintage guitars are a rabbit hole that A TON of people get sucked into. My take on it is that if you're a really good musician making records and playing a lot, then it makes sense - just like any professional has the right tool for the job.
There are actually some old jackson guitars that have plywood body. I had to take off the finish from a pink jackson to change the color and surprise surprise, it was all plywood.
Even though it wasn't a production quality instrument, I still shed a tear when you took the saw to that Firefly. And as for how they can make quality instruments for such low prices...alien technology.
Man I appreciate you. Not all of us can afford big brand guitars. Not to mention being snubbed for buying them. So thank you for being a voice for us 🙂
@@richsackett3423Are you really trying to act like you don't know how insufferable Fender and Gibson fanboys can be? You know exactly the kind of person who snubs people for using cheap guitars. You probably know a few, yourself.
@@razztastic I've been playing music with other musicians for forty years with more one-offs than I care to remember. Hundreds and not one being weird about somebody else's gear. Anyone who's any good only pays superficial attention. "That weird thing's your ride? Cool." I've played auditions where they didn't notice I was playing fretless until I was putting it in the case. Can't find any "jazz snobs" either, fwiw.
@@richsackett3423You know, I think what he is speaking of is way more prevalent in the online forum community than amongst musicians. I find lots of tone snobs online, but what I've encountered playing with other people is an attitude of "play what you got" or "play what you can afford".
Keep in mind, it is not about how expensive a guitar costs or that it has the best materials. Case in point, Queen's Brian May built his Red Special guitar, which cost him 8 GBP in 1964, which is equivalent to 161 GBP in 2023, which is about $203 usd today. The main body of the guitar was blockboard (a type of plywood) and oak. It had a neck that was from a century old fireplace mantle, buttons used for it's fret board markers, saddle bag holders for the tremolo arm, motor cycle valve springs to tension the trem arm, a knitting needle tip for the end of the trem arm. All these were things mostly laying around the house. The most expense part of that 8 GBP was the pickups. His homemade pickups just had the wrong magnetic polarity, otherwise, those would have worked too. So when you think about it, it's mostly what's in the player's mind and the player's fingers! Brian could probable play one of today's cheapest guitars and he would still sound like Brian May!!!
I don't really understand the obsession with wood type on an electric guitar. On my acoustics i feel like the wood has great impact on the tone but on electric i generally have no clue what materials they've went with.
Funny thing is, Inyen Vina (IYV on the headstock) actually now makes a replica of Brian May’s Red Special! At around $300 used on Reverb, I may snatch it up in a moment of weakness! 🤣
@@jaybirdk7414 The body looks a little different from a real one. But looks pretty close. I picked up a replica years ago (can't remember brand). Slapped some Burns Tri-sonics in it and happy days.
I got an Epiphone second hand for next to nothing. Not sure how old it is, but it had a plywood body. I dont know what to say, it played like a guitar. The only real difference was the weight, it was a thick body but it felt lighter than it should. Painted and modified it and it was an awesome guitar
Thanks for the video...I am a wood turner and use spalted maple quite a bit. The spalting comes from intergranular fungus growth after the tree is cut. I get my spalting by leaving my logs outside for a few months before drying. It costs nothing except time and everyone loves the look!
All good stuff. In addition to everything you said, by the time people have run a guitar through the 94 pedals everyone has on their board these days, the original instrument and whatever woods and wires it's made from mean nothing; all that counts is how accurate and comfortable the thing is to play. Also, you could probably glue those sections back, kick the instruments down a fire escape a few times and sell them as 'relics'.
I've been saying for a long time, "a lot of guys have no idea what their guitar sounds like, or their amp." IMO when they are running 97 effects, no matter the gear, they all sound exactly the same, like crap. And if there's two guys in a cover band, both using 97 effects, it escalates to absolute shit.
Hey Max, thanks for another great video 👍. I have a’69 Fender Mustang that I have owned since 1970. I never play it because I have 5 other guitars and the Mustang has a grounding problem. I have considered have it upgraded with new pots, new pickups etc. Please let me know what you think or should I leave it original ?
I have a Firefly LP guitar. Its made well. The binding Rocks. Love mine. Only thing id change would possibly the pickups. It's a good guitar for the money 👍✌️
@@MainPrism it plays well. Heavy like a Gibson. Neck is good. I was shocked how well it was put together.good guitar for the money buddy. Going to put some Seymour Duncan pearly gates pickups in it when I get enough money. You know bills uggh.
To me there are NO bad guitars. They are all uniquely beautiful both with sound and shape. All works of art. You can put a decent guitar player on a Stella Harmony and it will still sound good.
@@jeffbosch1697 Within reason, agree, but if the neck is twisted it can be a problem not easily fixed and can take the kind of effort and expertise that would make it not worth fixing.
@@ericmills9839 Well, I did say "almost". 😁 I should probably clarify that I wasn't referring to damage but to deficiency in the guitar design or manufacturing.
@@jeffbosch1697 LOL, I say it from experience. My first acoustic was a cheap Ibanez and it developed a twist. Was a goner at that point, as it would have cost more to get it fixed than get a new one!
@@ericmills9839 I can relate. Back about 30 years ago I spent the money to have my acoustic six and twelve strings set up. Man, they just about played themselves. Then I moved to Arizona in the summer. Tweak!! Both guitars twisted and became decorations.
My first guitar (in the 80s) was a really cheap Les Paul knock off by Cort. It had a bolt on neck. I naturally knew very little about guitars when I bought it, but eventually decided to replace the pickups. When I did so, I found that the curved top was in fact a separate, thin piece of plywood that was bent over some curved forms attached to the flat back.The back of the guitar was likewise plywood. The pickups were actually single coil disguised behind humbucker chrome covers. This is probably where these myths come from. I have no doubt that cheap guitars these days are much higher quality, we really used to have to put up with some awful guitars in the bad old days!
I have an early '80s Harmony strat (the only parts left of the original guitar are the body and bridge). The body is plywood, and it's the most resonant and sustaining guitar I have for some reason. It was my first guitar and the only one I would never ever sell. Nothing wrong with plywood, even though it's not exotic.
@72Dodge340. I bought a neck and some parts from a guy for a Jackson and he had a Platinum series BC Rich he had taken apart to refinish and saw the body was plywood so he lost interest and basically threw it in with the deal for the parts just to get it out of the way. Just recently I refinished the body and put all new electronics a good humbucker I had and got it together. last week finished the set up and I was blown away how good it sounds hahaha, and like yours this body is quite resonant to. Kinda goes against what you'd think. Plywood body should not sound this good, but it does. Damn thing got a spot on one of my daily player wall hangers .
Been playing 20 years. I just keep buying cheaper guitars and modifying them. The last 5 guitars I bought were like $80-160 DIY kits or Tele knockoffs. Replace the pickups, add a ground wire, and conductive isolation paint in the cavities, maybe replace the tuners and then you have yourself a way cheaper great sounding guitar. 95% or more of the electric guitar’s sound is the pickups and distance from strings. That last 5% is a mix of wiring, and other hardware deadening the strings. Wood has very little if any tonal impact. Might get a bit more sustain, but could also get that from wiring as well. 3D printed guitars, metal guitars, and plastic guitars all sound great with the rest of the hardware being good. The wood is just the platform or medium everything else is mounted to.
It's really too bad that some folks need such a graphic demonstration. And - sorry to see these beautiful objects cut up even though they are low priced. Thanks for your videos.
@@treetopjones737Even so, the cheapo could have been worked on. But *_I really don't care that he cut both of them up,_* I'm just saying that if he wasn't into making videos for this and if he had tools to do it, the fret ends could have been trimmed back and anything else could have been fixed with the right time, tools, and educated effort.
74 yrs young here - Good wood glue, dowels and clamps would be a good start to reunite the severed pieces! The result might be a better sounding guitar, you never know!
Years ago, I bought a couple of Jackson Dinkys (while Fender was still the parent company) real cheap at GC for $109 ea. I flipped one and painted the other psychedelic. I didn't like the first paint job I did on the body, so I stripped it and found the top and bottom layers were *_masonite_* (like what a workshop peg board is made of but smooth both sides and very dense). The specs said the body was paulownia, which probably were the center pieces. For the price, I wasn't complaining except the specs could have been more honest. It probably cost the factory more to add masonite then just stack rows of the correct thickness paulownia. The ax was little light, and I bet the masonite not only allowed for thinner body pieces, but added needed weight to balance a standard weight neck. With decent replacement pickups and switch, it plays and sounds just great else I wouldn't have kept it. I like the slightly larger but not jumbo frets a lot. Also, the separate top for the arch-top solid body is standard and was innovated by Les Paul. They're all like that. Those quilt tops are not called quilt solids. 12:00
I think Martin Stingers were made of plywood, but they were still decent guitars. Actually, I think the wood is a pretty small factor in a solid body electric. Taylor made some acoustics from pallets to prove the point that wood type is not a crucial importance.
Cant say for sure about the original Stingers but I still have my ST2 (Dinky body style,) that I modded in the 2010s, I cut off the sharp ends of the horns and turns out the body is made from MDF.
@@BatFan1 Martin stingers are made out of piano-grade plywood. It's a better than average manufactured tonewood. They are still just a cheap strat guitar, but the bodies are heavy and hard.
I've come to opine that "tone wood" DOES exist... it's just that it entirely applies to necks & fretboards, not at all to bodies. This even includes aluminium necks which have a tone of their own. (This opinion is not set in stone and I'm open to the insight of others.)
I have bought several inexpensive guitars and recently a bass (firefly and sawtooth) that I learned about on this channel. I am very happy with them. Thanks Max for the education and entertainment!
One of my favourite guitars (I have 11) is a cheap Squire Stratocaster that I bought when I was working in Saudi Arabia for 8 months. I REALLY needed a guitar to bide my time, and that's the only guitar the music shop even had. The paint job was atrocious (I've left it that way, 'cos the drip lines are fantastic for the memory of it all) and I had to file the frets so they'd stop cutting my fingers. I strongly suspect it is counterfeit because even the cheapest Squires I see at home don't have paint streaks. When I got back home, I replaced the pickups with old Charvelle pickups a friend gave me, and now it's a serious shredding beast. I use that guitar a lot, and it sounds amazing! Oh, and I scalloped it, because why not? (All my electrics are scalloped btw... only my bass, acoustics, and ukes are not)
My first electric guitar was a Gibson Sonex, basically a sawdust epoxy guitar I think, heavy as hell, but I loved it. They were cheap but looked and played great.
That wasn't Gibson's first go-round with composite bodies, their Kalamazoo line from the late 60s was made out of the same material Kohler used back then to make toilet seats
Well, the Sonex actually has a solid wood core with an outer layer of resin. I have one as well. Its a crudely made guitar but a great player. Looks cool too IMO :)
Look at EVHs career with a homemade guitar. I've played for 50 years and I don't spend a lot on my guitars. I will buy a cheap guitar and if I don't like something I may change some of the electrical parts and I've filed down frets so I can get the sound and performance I want. My most expensive guitar was around $5000 my parents bought me. I personally have never spent over $500 for a guitar. It's often the person playing the guitar that's the issue. Some people think they are going to become a better guitarist by spending a lot of money. If you suck at $150 you're gonna suck at $5000.
Man, I’m really glad you did this video. I fix and mod guitars for people in my spare time, so I’m pretty familiar with the woods companies use. Like you, it gets on my nerves when people accuse makers of using “fake wood”.
@@hemidart7 It is also funny that all these "tonewoods" were just cheapest and easiest to work woods Fender and Gibson could find in 50's to 70'a, and they magically all were the best wood for it for some reason!
I've been more and more impressed by cheap guitars lately... precisely in the sub 300 dollar range... way better than what we used to get 20 years ago. In addition, I was given a sub $100 guitar ( that appears to be a 2x4 center with hollow wings). Not terrible. No joke. I'm almost more into cheap guitars that I can mod that are the price of kits, that I have to assemble and still will spend money upgrading.
I have a 1966 Sears Silvertone 1452 (Danelectro Hornet) which are famously made of "scrap" wood. It has been painted with a brush, but all the hardware is intact (including the lipstick pickups). Thinking of a slow rubdown to try and expose the original finish. Otherwise it will be refinished in satin black with a flat back pick guard. No chance of improvising a Jaguar type body cut on the back - they're hollow Masonite.
My first guitar was a knockoff of a Tokai my parents bought at Service Merchandise (this was early 80s). It was plywood. And I'll argue that it doesn't matter. It still sounds great, it hasn't started to separate or anything. Its been routed and re-routed a dozen different ways (its the guitar I learned to mod on) and its still solid. Tonewood is a myth.
@@dionr1168 In all fairness, tonewood became a thing because of ACOUSTIC guitars- where the wood of the soundbox IS the speaker and cabinet combined. Of COURSE that would have a notable effect. But once you go electric and the signal is generated by magnetic pickups, yep- you can make the body out of concrete if you want, it's the speaker cab and speaker that make the sound.
The tone-wood debate (with regards to guitars) is like the pre-amp tube debate. It will never end. Your knock-off guitar sounds like it has tons of character. Such guitars are what defines who we are.
I'm impressed that the Harbor Freight saw lived long enough to cut through 2 guitars. I used my brand new HF recip. saw to help my brothers cut up an abandoned boat, and it only lasted a few minutes before dying. It was dead--not just stopped by thermal protection. It went into the dumpster along with the boat.
@nellayema2455 I'm not busting on ya, but under powered electrical equipment will burn up rather quickly. They design them to work properly at x amount of amps or they just get hot enough to melt. If you had a 15+ Amp cord at 100 ft it looses 5 Amp to operate a 15 Amp tool. So the tool is getting 10 amps and that's not enough to operate properly. Hence, it got hot and melted the windings on the motor. Good thing Harbor Freight stuff is inexpensive. But heavier extension cords are not. BTW, I've done the same thing you did and burnt up a $500.oo air compressor. Use longer air hoses. Oops! Hahaha
@@firebald2915 The other 2 non-Harbor Freight saws didn't fry under the same circumstances. I've run a number of saws and drills using the same cord and never had one fry.
I’ve seen too many idiots at work hurt themselves with a recip saw, this video gave me anxiety! Holding it with one hand fuck me!! You’re already destroying it just put it in a vice!
Max, I had a old Titana 6 string I can't remember. Do a video on this guitar 🎸 and it's full potential. What year was this guitar it was black with orange pinstripe. Volume knob with a 3way pickup switch. I didn't have a pedal and was wondering how this guitar sounded with a pedal. I'm very interested because sadly my guitar was stolen 2 months after I bought this at a garage sale with bag $100.
They're called "Haters". No matter what you do to bring a great, honest production to the public, there's always people who will hate. I played guitar in quite a few bands for years (20+ for sure), 10 years ago I stopped playing but now I'm starting again. Thankfully I came across your channel. I really appreciate and love watching your videos. Thank you and keep up the great work. Let haters be their miserable haters.
Hear the same thing in the gun world. Barrels, Trigger mechanisms, the type of steel the bolt is made from, tolerances... If the gun is cheap it's made from inferior materials, Blah blah blah. Might be true but also might be made in a country with cheaper labor and cost of material.
But but but man nothing there are always a faster rat. I wish I could get guitar's like what you can get today for these prices. It was a real struggle as a young kid.
Through the '90s it was common knowledge that cheap guitars were made of plywood. This is where the stigma comes from. They literally actually were made of plywood. I'm 45, in 1989 when I was 11, my first guitar was a Harmony from JC Penny. 100% plywood body. I know from sanding off the finish to refinishing it from red to black. PRS' rise in popularity, CITES treaty changes and offshoring manufacturing, and the advent of CNC manufacturing caused a change to real wood being more cost effective.
In the early 2000's, I had a small luthier business in Houston. Some of the "pawn shop specials" that people brought in for repairs were made of what I could only describe as dense cardboard. It appeared to be granular like particle board, but it would flake apart in layers where damaged. The worst I ever saw was a SG clone made from a one-inch thick piece of Low-Density Fiberboard. Thankfully, the manufacturers stopped doing that stuff sometime after the 2000ish timeframe.
The particle board guitars do exist. I've seen them with my own eyes. It's just something that used to be a lot more prominent back in the day it seems, as EVERY single cheap guitar I have seen in the past 15-20 years has been regular wood.
Brian May's original Red Special that he built with his father had a bog standard pine blockboard body with mahogany veneer facing. No magial mythical tonewoods. Only a fool would consider it to be a poor quality instrument.
@@samknox4706 Probably because what material an electric guitar is made of doesn't make a hell of a lot of difference. Pickups, their positions & strings are contributors of the sound--and the other 80-90% is the signal chain, amp & speakers.
Me too. When materials were proportionately more expensive and true mass production as we know it today was not yet a thing in the 70s and 80s there were some makers using "fake" wood or more layers/smaller pieces. I certainly have a decent Japanese strat with a body made of two layers of 3 pieces each.
@@ZiddersRooFurry, those Lyon guitars were made with the cheapest materials available at the time, but they were no joke when it came to delivering the goods!
I guess I found the only guitar which has a finish that doesn't match the internal wood. I just stripped an unbranded guitar I wanted to repaint and it has some kind of plastic coat (around 1/2 mm thin) all around it. Even the seem between the neck and body is barely visible through it. You can tell there's wood inside, but I don't know if I should remove it. Can't find anything online about that.
I started playing electric guitar as a teen in 1994, and my first dirt cheap strat copy was definitely made of particle board. It’s amazing how the quality of cheap/budget guitars has improved since that time. I have an SX Liquid that was under $200 and it not only is a great player and looks cool, but has a half sawn maple neck, which is great for that price point.
It's incredible. I got a 350€ guitar that is just like a 1500€ guitar. Had name brand PAFs too... 200-400€ today is a real sweet spot for incredible instruments. I want to try a cheap Jackson Rhoads next.
I have a cheap guitar from the 80s that is half the thickness of my other electric guitar, but it weighs more than twice as much....no way in heck it is wood unless it is some super heavy rare wood....it still plays fine though.
Got a plywood job about 6 months ago. A Karrera strat copy. So they are still around. can see the layers when you take the pickguard off. after a fret level sounds fine.
I own a Firefly LP, and as an novice player I can assure others that it is real wood. Being a hobbyist wood worker helps too. Thanks to Max for dispelling this fake wood myth to the non believers!
In the 70 and 80’s it wasn’t uncommon to find low budget guitars made out plywood… they really weren’t bad guitars… I loved my Washburn g force IV … what really matters is how it feels in your hands.
I have a plywood Korean Squire from the late 80's early 90's...not a thing wrong with it. Though it is one of the heaviest Strat types that I've played.
Yep I commented above that I have a 70s Harmony solidbody that's straight up laminated plywood, and it legit sounds amazing. Feels awful but that's due to the atrocious neck, which is solid wood.
Wood tone only applies to resonant instruments such as acoustic guitars, violins, cello's, and any other stringed instrument like a Mandolin or Lute, including a piano, etc. The Stradivarius violins, etc. were fashioned from a forest that survived a fire. The wood was more dense and as a result it resonated more vigorously. Most half-hollow and hollow body guitars don't sound any different from a solid body. The exception being a hollow body guitar with an internal piezoelectric pickup since it relies on the sound board and resonate cavity. The main pickups are capturing at the string while the piezo captures the sound from the resonating body. Most of the cost of high end electric guitars is the use of exotic materials, high craftsmanship and artistry. Does it affect the sound? Not so much. You could buy an electric guitar for under $200 and have a luthier set it up and upgrade the pickups, fix any neck, nut, or bridge issues and provide the action you desire. A great guitar doesn't need to cost thousands of dollars. Another myth? String gauge doesn't matter unless you want a workout for no reason. Billy Gibbons recalls when BB King strummed his guitar, "I was in the dressing room and BB said to me, ‘Can I play your guitar?’ I said, ‘Sure man.’ He strummed it a few times and handed it back to me. He looked at me rather quizzically and said, ‘Why you working so hard?’ I said, ‘What do you mean?’ He said, ‘Those strings. You got real heavy, heavy strings.’ I said, ‘Well, isn’t that how to get the heavy, heavy sound?’ He said, ‘No! Don’t be working so hard!’"
As a forestry consultant, I was privy to Chinese forests. They have an abundance of quality hardwoods and it's not surprising that they would supply us with solid hardwood guitar stock.
I have a 90s fender p bass. It's so ordinary that you can see the seams in the 3 piece body through the nitro, and where the router didn't do a smooth job near the neck pocket. My Gibson LP has tool marks on the neck binding.
I remember walking into a Best Buy some 20 years ago, and looking at a Lyon by Washburn Les Paul Special clone. Flat top, bolt on neck, and very clear plywood laminations. Cheap guitars have gotten so much better. I just picked up a Glarry Jazz Bass for less than a hundo, and while it did need setup, it's a perfectly playable instrument.
@Deathrape-if4kl I'm well aware, my main axe is an Epi LP Special, plywood body. It was just the fact you could see the ply laminations through the finish.
Time for a new myth (?): As a teen a friend and me “built” a solid body using particle board. The neck was from a cheap acoustic toy guitar. The elements (affordable Dimarzio’s) where mounted using candle wax! The results: As far as ergonomics go it was as bad as one would expect but It sounded excellent and had a great sustain.
I have a Firefly and several other "affordable guitars". I love them all. And love your videos on the subject matter. Keep them coming. You are the MAX !!
Great video! 74 yrs young here. Learned by ear 1967. 1st bass GuyaTone UGH!!! Action galore. 2nd bass Hofner Violin. Gibson EB3-F (yes fuzz!) Fender Jazz, Kramer DMZ (still have it) Fender and Squire Strats, numerous other guitars. I recently bought Glarry guitars as project basses and a six string lead to access quality with modding in mind. The Glarry 5 string jazz and 6 string humbucker basses are very impressive, yes, light weight but played well right out of the box. Minor intonation and string height adjustments. Controls are smooth and sound decent for a starter guitar. One can always upgrade with electronics or better pickups. NO NEED TO BUY NAME BRANDS ANY MORE! If you are on a tight budget this is a great alternative.
I have both, the expensive ones really just look nicer, with few exceptions (PLEK'd Necks cost money for example) . Some people will never admit it. Sometimes it's a feeling, but you can't hear that feeling back in the recorded mix. It's like the emperor's new clothes. I do get inspired to play different things on different guitars, so I guess there is that aspect. I have found that I prefer different ones at different times. It's certainly never always the more expensive ones and sometimes it is the cheapest ones. Lately I have been preferring my PRS SE to my Custom 24, I'll be damned if I can hear the difference between the nitrocellulose and poly, or whether the pickups were wound in Stephensville, MD or somewhere in South Korea.
@@PeterThibault I have had great cheapo pickups sometimes. Then there are the China squealers I bought a few years back. They sound great low volume and recorded but turn up to play with a band and OUCH! High pitched feedback is so strong it hurt my ears worse than a loud concert! They came out new higher money ones went in and issue is solved... except for the one that is a PAF non-potted which still feeds back way less. I would also say that after I set up and level the frets on a cheaper guitar they usually sound just as good if not better than the ones that cost thousands more. They always play better lol. Why would I spend thousands on a Gibson that plays worse than my $300 China guitar that I put better metal parts on and spent under $1000 on total?!? The obvious answer is I would not.
I’m the opposite. I always found paying cents on the dollar to the worker making the same product, just overseas, to be pretty unethical. We consumers rely on it, and the companies don’t really have a choice if they want to stay competitive. However, if you have the money to buy a guitar that has actual labor cost, it’s a nobrainer for me
@@Nadezi I couldn't agree more. When I said I like cheap guitars I did not take this BIG issue into consideration, which makes me blush to be honest. But on the other hand, sometimes I wonder if we are not paying more just for the logo stamped on the headstock, got it?
I just bought my first Harley Benton guitar, because of your reviews on them, and I love it... I used to buy high end guitars back in the day, and once I discovered that affordable guitars could be hot rodded and set up to play like the high end ones, I have never gone back... And it is so much better to have a guitar that if you bump it on something you dont start crying...
@@Monkeypole Harley Benton company was made by 4 long term guitar builders who worked at Gibson that didn't want to move their families out of state when Gibson moved it's factory in America. Harley Benton guitars are for the most part hand made at their factories like Gibson's are and their quality is top notch on most of their models...If you think I'm over exaggerating the way they are made look up their videos on UA-cam... Harley Benton are some of the best made BUDGET "Not cheaply made" guitars on the market...I don't even own one but I played on several of them in guitar stores in my area and they are set up pretty well from the factor, frets play well, no issues with neck warp or string buzz at all. I bought a Epiphone Les Paul Custom Pro for $950.00 that felt and played better than the Cherry Gibson Les Paul Custom that was $2999.99. I didn't find out until looking it up afterwards that the Epiphone Les Paul Custom Pros ARE built in the Gibson Les Paul Custom shop in Mexico...Yes it's a Gibson but marketed as Epiphone for 1/3 the price...Their are great deals to be found out there, you just gotta be able to find them...
I have a 1981ish Harmony Marquis bass (it resembles a P-Bass) that has a plywood body. It has a translucent sunburst finish and you can see the plies through it. I bought it new when I was in high school and I think it cost $170 or so 40 years ago, and that was cheap back then! I still play it now and then and it's never let me down. The pickups are supposedly DiMarzio and the tone is not bad. But I can confirm that plywood guitars are not a myth.
There is a youtube video of a luthier working on an Epiphone (sorry I don't recall who) and when he pulled it apart is was some kind of wafer board, pretty sure it was a bass guitar. I realize at + 5000 comments in this may have already been brought up.
I've played dozens of different guitars, but one of my all time favorites is the entry-level Jackson JS32t (about $300.) Plays, looks, and sounds as good as many higher end models across brands. The only caveat for a cheap guitar is the quality of the nut, frets, and hardware. Be sure to upgrade them and get a set up done, all of which will still be cheaper than a more expensive guitar.
Very true, i just wish he hadnt cut the guitars in half and maybe removed the pickups and some paint to prove the point, then someone could have changed the nut and had the frets sorted before starting to learn both how to play and how to do some simple modding and maintenance eventually ending up with a decent playing axe with decent pickups etc. Oh well nevermind eh.
Yeah, my old Korean Squire was made of not exactly plywood but several thin layers of (probably) basswood or poplar. You could see it in the neck pocket and the trem cavity on the back, which were unpainted. Maybe 7 or 8 layers. Of course it was probably made in the 80's or early 90's - I bought it used in '95.
@@leob4403 Mine was actually quite light. As for the tuning I don't remember - I haven't touched it since the 90's (after I have acquired "real" guitars) - donated it to my ex's nephew. As far as I remember, for what it was, it was surprisingly not a bad guitar. I remember the neck was actually quite nice. But it had 21 frets, so... meh. 😄
@@Shmalentine lol you're like me then, I only use the 24 fret electric now (acoustic I use whatever). It bothers me when I don't get the full 2 octaves so I can play Metallica, Satriani solos etc. I know it's silly but it even bothers me that for example Yngwie Malmsten signature guitar (and billy Corgan signature etc) only is the 21 fret strat, like why would he not want the full 24 frets? More is more right?😅
@@leob4403 Yeah, I too prefer 24 frets now (I play a lot of Warrior guitars) but I'm OK with 22. I can bend up to the high E, or even F, if necessary. But with 21 frets that D is missing, and I have some solos that require tapping that D. Bending doesn't really help there.
Great resonant and well made guitar. Those Korean squiers. Nothing wrong with ply bodies. The myth here is that the ply was like the stuff you by at your local DIY. It wasn't.
Thanks for the video. There's a few good points here. To qualify myself, I have about 25 guitars in my collection. The most valuable is my 1976 LP Pro. The least valuable is an Ibanez (I don't know the model) that looks like a PRS with solid mahogany and a nice set neck with a low heal. $115 at a pawn shop. I had a set of JB Seymours laying around and had my local tech guy swap them out and upgrade pots and caps. Total price, $400 if I had to buy the pickups. Rosewood fretboard, med/jumbo frets and a set of Jazz Blues pickups.... Its a great guitar. It is very easy to buy expensive junk, why shouldn't it be possible to find (create) an inexpensive jem?
I need some advice… I am looking at purchasing a custom built fender Stratocaster on eBay for right around $500. It is a nice guitar from the description but I’m a little nervous. Can I get a nice electric guitar for $500? Or should I just save a little more, am I wasting my money? Or is it going to be worth it? It is a David Gilmour black Strat replica like I said all custom built.
Cheap Guitars rule!....That's why I only buy Chibson's nowadays - I have 3 and the quality is top notch for just $250 to $500, the pickups are great - high output ceremics, (which you can change to Alnico if you like the vintage tone) but you only need some full set-up/fret level by a luthier and it plays and sounds like the very expensive $4,000 to $10,000 original for a fraction of the price, don't believe those few snobs why say they are crap when they are actually great, I have an original Gibson and a Chibson and the quality difference is unnoticable. Only the elitist snobs are hating on them. (Chibsons, Chenders, Chibanez, ChiE-SP, Cort, Aria Pro, Fernandes, Harley Benton and Eart FTW!)🎸👿🤘
A couple of clamps, and glue using that sanding dust on the table would have made them look more or less fine again in a couple of days. The finish would be affected for sure anyway.
Excellent video. I have been surprised by the relatively high quality I’ve seen in cheaper guitars I’ve bought. Obviously some features are scaled back, but it’s not very hard or expensive to upgrade a “cheap” guitar to a pretty darn good one!! Thanks for taking time to dispel ridiculous myths.
The only guitar I ever had that was--let's call it--'fake' wood, was my very first, an Epiphone Les Paul Special, the first version (I got mine in 1997). I had another guitar that I wanted to take the paint off and was trying out different paint strippers on that Epi. Once I got a large chunk of the paint off, the 'wood' was exactly that, like a woodchip/waxy plastic composite. Wouldn't have known otherwise though. It was a great guitar to learn on and I even played a handful of my first gigs with it.
@Guitar MAX - You are braver than I, cutting one-handed with a reciprocating saw! I'm scared of those things even using both hands... Thank you for your sacrifice towards unveiling the truth about these low cost guitars that are shaking up the industry. Hopefully, we'll get more "upscale" brands following up with premium features like SS frets.
I LOVE pro consumer content like this. Keep it up! Several of my fave guitars are my cheapies. It’s been really fun buying something cheap and then upgrading a few things. A new pickup or 2 and some locking tuners and a good set up and you’ve got an awesome guitar. Probably…
I know a bit about guitar construction, and I agree 100% with you. The LP style guitar is constructed exactly the way a maple top guitar is supposed to be, you will see the same thing if you were cutting up a top name brand guitar. most guitars these days are all about even as far as materials are concerned. the real difference is in construction, playability, and hardware / electronics.
@Lamster66 your right there if you saw Scott on you top proving tone on an electric guitar has no effect because of the wood I have to agree with him it's all about the hardware bridges , nuts , pickups etc and where they are placed can all effect the tone or the turning of guitars not the wood. Now on acoustic guitars wood does matter, but some of the older guitar companys Martin,Gibson, Fender and a few more are using woods that are laminated which is plywood ,who knew? I can notice a big difference in the tones of what these cheaper guitars sound like even though they are made by the big boys sort of speaking.
mdf of that thickness is quite expensive. ive seen a dirt cheap half mdf half cheap pine strat. it was heavy. you could see the mdf layer when you open the pickguard.
Well done! Also note, most semi-hollow body guitars (including Gretsch and Gibson USA made guitars!) are plywood. They take 3 veneers (and make sure the grain on the veneers are going opposite directions) glue them together and then heat press them into shape, that is how your 335 was made. There ARE some carved body semi-hollow body guitars by Gibson but they are like $10,000 or more new. Eastman make a carved semi-hollow body guitar too for like nearly $3k
@Daniel - You are correct, but those aren't the "plywood guitars" he meant. I think the plies in a 335-style top are laid out so the grains are running at angles other than 180° (opposite).
No, they are not "plywood", they are laminated ply construction like a Stradivarius violin, which is how most orchestral instruments are made. In fact all plywood is NOT the same, marine plywood has no voids like the cheaper builder grade sheets do, that means it's both stronger and flexible like the higher grade laminates use for instruments.
Awesome video Max! In 1989, at the height of guitar shreddness in Los Angeles, I stopped by my local music shop and bought a metallic red Holdsworth Charvel with a single hand wound JB for $100...with a case! And how could I get this guitar which would go for a fortune today for so cheap? Because the scene was so trendy in those days that a guitar like that could sit on a wall for months without anyone batting an eyelash at it. By '89 it was all about Jems, RGs, and other 24 fret locking trem shred sticks. Therefor you could get yourself mint condition used Dan Armstrong plexiglass guitars, BC Rich, Yamaha SBGs, and used Gibsons and Strats for next to nothing. Because it was all about the new new thing. Compared to the craftsmanship of that Charvel, Ibanez was making less worthy guitars, as were Kramer and many other companies. But they were considered "fresh" and "new" and the 22 fret standard trem Charvel was considered old hat. Meanwhile I had a Kramer Barretta that appeared to be made out of particle board. So I would not worry about what the trendy, guitar buying public thinks. Use your own mind, your own instincts. If a guitar sounds good, plays good, and feels solid, and it's at a good price, then go for it. I played more gigs with that Charvel than any other guitar I owned, including a gig at The Roxy, at a large Mexican restaurant with a massive patio, a huge party at a mansion, a gig at the Magic Castle in which my band filmed two music videos, gigs in Pasadena and Eagle Rock, and so many more. The Charvel stayed in tune perfectly whereas all my locking trem guitars went out of whack right away. Think for yourself. You'll thank yourself later.
I thought Mahogany was considered an open grain wood. My guess is that the meat of the body of the Firefly is Maple with a tight grain and the arch top laminate is Mahogany. My guess that is.. Basswood and Alder wood (which are common for cheaper guitars) have a tighter grain too from from what I have seen.
I have several firefly guitars, including 2 Les Pauls. With the pickups removed, I was able to inspect the construction & wood. They are copies of Gibson guitars and made in the same manner, mahogany body & neck with a maple cap and rosewood or similar wood as fretboard. The cap is definitely maple. However, it is not high grade wood, which would have to be imported into China & would be prohibitively expensive for these guitars. After some research, I think it is a Chinese variant mahogany wood called toona which is plentiful and cheap in China. I can say for sure whatever wood it is, is very similar in density & grain to South American & African mahogany and makes excellent tone wood. As an aside and just FYI, if the body was maple, the guitar would weigh a lot more, in the neighborhood of 15 pounds.
Glad you pointed out that in the past there was guitars made of plywood. I had a jazz bass probably made in the 80's that the body was made of plywood. Reason I know this was because around 2010 the bass had issues and had not been taken care of. It was a garage sale find that I picked up for $5.00. Took it apart and noticed in the neck pocket and pickup cavity it appeared to be plywood so I sanded back the finish in the pickup cavity and yes it was indeed plywood. After seeing that I halted trying to restore this instrument but did keep the neck because it is mahogany with maple fretboard. Does have a functional truss rod as well. Kept it around because who knows maybe one day I will either make a body or stumble upon one that I can attach this neck to. Oh and if you are planning on tossing those two guitars toss them my way. Will pay shipping. I keep a collection of used hardware and such for some of my own guitar builds.
I also have a First Act body sitting around that I know is plywood, since the neck cavity shows it clearly. And yet it had (until I ruined the neck) fantastic sustain and felt good to play because it was so thin and light. I intend to one day find a matching neck to get it working again since it was my first guitar and it's nostalgic, but this was one of their earliest models that are hard to find and their later necks don't fit.
Thanks for the video! Very informative. I grew up playing the plywood/MDF stuff. I've graduated now, but I do own a 1995 Ibanez Talman TV-650. It's body came from the "Resoncast" forests of southern Japan LOL! The Kent Armstrong pickups make it sound great!
I think I'd have stuck them in a vice before cutting. Also, should have done before and after tone comparisons to show how the pickups are the only thing that matters in an electric guitar. Cool video Maxx!
The inside and back cavities are painted.
Can I have the guitars you destroyed? 😢😭😭
I'm glad you pointed out in the end that there have been some guitars made with plywood back in the day. I was literally thinking through the whole video about an old Honer guitar I have (my first guitar when I was a kid) that is made of plywood. I once had to replace the neck and you could see clearly inside the neck pocket that it was plywood. It was a cheap guitar made probably sometime in the 90s. But you're right, these days with CNC machines and whatnot, guitar building has gotten much less expensive to do and fewer corners are cut given the massive decrease in production time with the new tech.
I just deleted my comment after reading this.
You could just sand it inside beside destroying it, a cheap guitar is just a cheap guitar for privileged people, for the other 95% of humanity it's the only guitar somebody could afford.
@@NobodyAtAll420 drill in spots for a few dowel pins put it back together good as new a little ca glue or liquid nail and no one would know
Cheap doesn’t always mean poor quality…expensive doesn’t always mean top notch
Yeah. And I wish this 24 minute video went a little more in depth exploring this notion, as the title kind of eludes to. But sadly no. We spent 24 minutes exploring something that this guy could have thoroughly covered in maybe 3 minutes. “Guitar not made of fake wood. Guitar made of real wood”. The title was a little click-baity.
My fender squires sound and play better than my Les Paul ever did. I still have my squires...My les Pail got sold.
I got my guitar, amp, and picks all for only $115, and it was way better than I expected it to be
lawsuit Ibanez, Greco era "copys" guitars will eat most (if not all) recent Gibson custom shop guitars on the market.
@@chrissturley823Did we watch the same video? Where did the extra 8 minutes come from lol
People just can't stand the fact that we can have great guitars for really low prices.
As Max says. We are in the golden age of guitar
@@lioninthesun8833 indeed.
It’s usually the elitist in the hobby. Just like in the watch community, I’ve learned in the community, having a great value for money item in the market is just damning to an elitist. Something that shouldn’t exist, couldn’t exist but it does and “average people” can afford it. Boils their blood right quick. I’ve run into Gibson snobs that literally laughed at my Epiphone Black Beauty for being a Chinese “fake”. It’s funny because Gibson authorized their creation and it was also built in Korea 😂 but even if it was Chinese, modern Epiphones are made in China now and you can get an ebony board, Gibson CTS500 pots, real 7ply binding and real MOP in the headstock inlays! Can’t beat it. But again to an elitist, it’s a cheap hack.
The people who make those "cheap guitar" comments probably work for the expensive guitar makers. 🤔
People who spend massive amounts of money want to believe they have acquired a vastly superior instrument compared to the guy who bought a budget guitar, despite both being fully capable of making great music. It's a strange obsession with a false sense of status. People should just get the least expensive guitar that does the job and go make some music. The quality of your music matters far more than the name on the headstock.
At minimum, if the body and neck are constructed well and the frets are done right, everything else can be easily upgraded for cheaper than a big name guitar. If you put good hardware and electronics in it, it can be better than a Shitson or a Bendover for a fraction of the price. If you buy a boutique guitar, you're paying for the labor of a custom build, which is fair. The mass produced guitars, such as Fender and Gibson, have no right to cost thousands of dollars. They're charging for the name. I give zero fucks about names. If it feels good and sounds good, it's good. It doesn't matter if it says Glarry on it.
"Remember to wear eye protection". Doesn't wear eye protection.
Let's just ignore the improper use if a bladed tool that can cut arteries and bone
It’s his eyes, if he don’t care about them …..
@@gdiaz8827 Yeah, that wasn't the safest technique for using of power tools. A vice grip would of been handy.
@@gdiaz8827 indeed! 😅
Homage to Crazy Russian Hacker
PLAY THE CUT GUITARS !!!!
right?!?!?
Frankly, it would have been interesting to do a before and after comparison of the sound of the two.
@@philipershler420 There would be literally no difference in sound...
PLAY YOUR RUBBER BOAT SHOES !!!!
The sound of an electric guitar does not come from the body, it comes from the metal strings vibrating above the magnetic pickup, and that Signal gets send to an amplifier and played through a speaker.
You can make an electric guitar out of solid metal and it would still sound killer
My first electric guitar was a plywood SG copy; Japanese-made, single coils in humbucker housing and all. It was with m for about 5 years, during which time my playing improved incredibly, so I'll always be grateful to have owned it, for all its sins.
The best guitar is the one in your hands.
that was because it was japanese made. Indonesians and chinese are not japanese
I would argue: "the best guitar is the one you like" instead.
My first guitar was atrocious. It was literally injuring me to play, but I didn't know any better, I thought that's how it used to be. Nowadays, I have many guitars, some of them being fully custom USA made instruments and yet, I find myself gravitating towards some of my least expensive instruments still. I will always say this to newer players looking for a new guitar: "choose one that inspire you and feels good TO YOU"
Say that last line louder for those in the back. 🎉
@@q-perspective8989 time to get off the internet, grandpa
@@pilotamurorei I have seen plywood instruments from all countries including USA and double basses.
Now let us take a moment of silence in memory of the two guitars that were sacrificed in the making of this video. May they rest in pieces.
we are gluing and screwing that sh** back together
Doh!
NAY! MAY THEY ROCK IN PEACE! :)
Very eloquently expressed, sir. Well done.
I would love to have both of them.....remove some more wood...fill in gaps with tinted resin
I've been hot rodding pawn shop guitars for years. I think it's absolutely amazing that we can now own a great guitar without taking out a second mortgage.
That’s my whole deal! I have very specific taste in guitars and it’s all in feel. I’ll take a MiM Strat home and modify the hell out of it. Nothing against the American ones, I just can’t afford them haha!
Yep. The best pickup I ever split was an unknown generic I found at a pawn store. The coil is now half generic/half Seymour Duncan. It is now a full humbucker.
I have a guitar parts graveyard that I go full mad scientist with and build complete abominations.
I have a pawn shop strat body with decidedly suspicious 'wood' that I put a pawnshop neck on. Changed the pickups, tuners and pots and it's now my go to guitar for playing slide.
@@tantibusking7095 do you post any videos of your works?
I cut all my. Guitars in half to check. Turns out they are all high quality. Whew.😅
Solid wood = / = high quality
😂😂🤣🤣😂😂
@@dsan94correct, because not all wood is the same. Hell, not all mahogany is the same. Sometimes solid wood comes from trees that were very weak and sickly in their lifetime, maybe weakening thanks to a fungus infection.
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
Too funny!🤣
I bought a $69 Kramer that is all plywood, modified it gutted it and installed Fender Fat 50s pups and fronted a surf band for over ten years. I still have it and I still love it.
The KS-400 in Sunburst? I’ve got one myself, great guitar.
Plywood works just fine!
Yep, I have a ‘90 Aerostar that I rebuilt and love.
Plywood isn't even a cheap material, it's a construction material of reall wood veneers sandwiched together. Ppl also forget semi-acoustic guitars costing thousands of dollars have the main body (not the place where the pickups are mounted) made from plywood, although it will be called laminated wood of course even though it is the same thing.
I have an ‘86 Kramer 100ST that’s “composite” and it sounds better than many high end modern guitars. It just has this thing about it. And the neck is exceptional.
My first electric guitar was a Cort M200 that I bought new (along... long time ago) for around $200. I still have it and I still play it. What a great guitar! Stays in tune and the frets were finished correctly. I've played guitars that cost over a $1000 that I've lost skin on the frets (yep, Gibson). Expensive doesn't mean good and cheap doesn't mean bad.
my old guitar teacher taught me that the expensive guitars are very consistently made, wether that’s good or bad. and the cheap ones are looser in their QA but it means you can score a blinder OR you can find a dud so you should just try them in the shop.
and he’s right- i have a couple of €1000+ guitars but my first electric- a €120 squier strat is still my favourite thing to play, it feels fantastic.
I have an expensive PRS Custom 22 and an SE. About $2000 difference in price from the "same" manufacturer. I prefer the SE. The Custom is all that and a bag of chips but the SE is the whole meal lol. I also bought a Gibson Les Paul Standard back in the day and it was a real POS. Played nice and all but man did it look like crap when you took a close look. You would swear it was a cheap Chibson based on the finishing flaws. If I hadn't bought it from a reputable dealer I would have sworn I was ripped off.
i gotta cort x series that i love and ive had it for 20 yrs ...
Actually the lesson from that is that Gibson no longer make good guitars - this is well known amongst guitarists
A long time ago $200 was equal to $1,000 today. Inflation.
As a middle aged guitar player, I gotta admit, I'm actually jealous of the guitars you can buy today for less than $500. Back in the 70's and 80's, $300 would get you a unplayable pile of lumber. As far a new, cheap guitars go. You younger players, this is the golden age for guitars. Between UA-cam, Instagram and the equipment you can buy, you've got it made. I think back to learning songs from a album or cassette. Everything was by ear. But, there was a benefit to that. I learned to hear keys without playing. Or at least close. Which became really helpful while I was still gigging. Keep playing
Peace ✌️
Don't forget the guitar VST plug-ins. Young'uns can now produce riffs and shredding in 10 minutes without learning to play guitar.
Interesting….in 1995 I bought a used 66’ SG Junior….actual Gibson …..for $500, with its Gibson branded case at a tiny shop in Venice Ca. where the guy lived in back…Rose Ave.
Attention MAX!
He is now having a store closing sale all these years later, discounts!
If I never played it, it was a fantastic investment, ya all know how much that would cost now!
A hand built era guitar!
And later I found out that that one year, the neck tenon is much longer, (better stronger) they never made one like it before or since the ‘66 model year. I’ve since added a Tone Pros replacement for the Leo Quan adjustable wrap bridge, and SD PU and refretted it, someone put Grover’s on it before I bought it! So back in the day new was just as you say, you didn’t get much for under $500 new….but fab deals were available used, now, modern manufacturing makes new guitars for amazing prices. WHY would you shell out $5k
for a new Gibson, especially when an axe like an AIO is set up to play brand new for under $500😳
I'm middle aged too. You know they sell these cheap guitars to us too. I bought a couple myself. They're great project guitars or beaters.
I totally agree with you. I would have loved to have began on a cheap guitar like they are made today. People don't understand how good they have it now. Cheers!
"Pile of lumber," 😂😂😂. But growing up in the 90s, anything under $499.00 was absolute garbage.
"If my $3,000 guitar is this bad then I bet cheap guitars are made out of sawdust!!!!!" - Gibson owners
I see so many cheap guitars that just need half an hour of setup and they're basically a model worth $500 more.
Assuming the hardware isn't poor quality, yes. More often than not, the tuning pegs are terrible and have to be replaced. Everything else you can get away with, even pickups.
Funny thing is, sometimes even expensive guitars need a set-up
@@proudbrogressive315 Even alot of the lowest cost guitars nowadays have 'acceptable' quality tuners, bridge etc. The 'low end' bar has definitely gone up. Cheapest guitars right now are like, 10x better than cheapest guitars even 15 years ago
If you know how to do a little fret work ...even better
Thanks for putting that one to rest. But I gotta say.....reciprocating power tools and unrestrained long hair are a nasty combo.
This would have been a fantastic opportunity to show us the power of flex seal.
That's a lot of damage!
Lol or JB weld
@@kickfighting1015 Didn't Paul Harvey used to do adverts for JB Weld?
@@justaskin8523 not sure
coulda just peeked behind the pickups to look at the grain
There's a further consideration: the "so what?" factor.
My brother is a retired architect, so I hear about new materials or new uses of traditional materials pretty regularly, and am often surprised at how what used to be considered impossible is now commonplace: softwoods on soil, fibreboard bathroom floors, compressed pine in place of hardwood for structural used... the list is almost endless.
The bottom line with a solid body electric guitar is how it plays through an amplifier, not its resonant qualities. The issue with materials is how well they stand up to the rigours of tension, transport and trauma. People are building guitars from carbon fibre, fibreglas, aluminium and ofher composites,
If a non-traditional material or a non traditional construction method meets the criteria for effective playing over the long term, so what?
I like the look and feel of wood, but the only time I really think of materials is if I damage a guitar, something I have fortunately only done to replaceable plastic or metal parts.
silverstreettalks343: I just went into detail in a comment similar to yours...such that what matters with electric guitars is the electronics, setup, playability & cosmetic appearance...and the core of the thing "be damned". And, in general, the only exception, in regard to all guitars, is with the top of acoustics (& probably any acoustic stringed instrument).
I am pleased that most of the commenters here agree with us, with comments of, basically: (Sound quality, playability & durability is all that matters...).
Frankly, just to prove a point, it was not worth it to destroy a couple of guitars that, at worst, could have been properly set up and donated to those who could not afford the instruments.
I worry more about fret wire materials and picks affecting tone more than the body wood.
@@Nobody-11Byeah i think even just changing your strings would affect the tone more than the wood tbh lol
Frets might matter more but wood matters. If you have ever owned multiples of the same guutar type like a strat you would see that wood and how it matches adds to the quality of the tone. And I dont need to plug in a strat to buy I know when a strat has good resonance and the neck and body work together. If you just try a bunch of the same model at a shop you can feel this. But thats my expierence.
@@Airhead348 Sorry but standard pickups convert strings vibrating in a magnetic field to electricity. They don't respond to sound from the guitar body or the air. You are attributing tonal qualities to the resonance of wood, that derive from entirely different things, even with multiple models of the same guitar: Strings, intonation & setup, bridge & nut composition. Plus, electronic components (resistors, capacitors & "pots") have a tolerance compared to their nominal rating...typically 5-10%...so supposedly identical components in two different guitars will rarely actually be identical. Component manufacturers can't guarantee better than those tolerances for items that rarely cost more than $1.00 And NO-ONE pays the enormous price for precision rated components that are available for critical applications
To prove this assertion wrong, you would have to do more than compare examples of the same supposedly identical guitar model: You would have to swap guitar bodies of different materials, while keeping EVERYTHING else identical, from neck to electronics to setup.
Tonewoods matter with acoustic instruments, but not with solid body guitars. There are even guitars that, effectively, have no body....little more than a long neck with a bridge at one end, & tuning pegs at the other end, and they sound great. For that matter, I've seen a solid concrete guitar that also sounded good.
I bought a fake ESP explorer from eBay for $280 and changed the pickups to actual EMG 81’s. Not one single person at a local music shop knew it was a fake. They only thing they noticed they couldn’t figure out was white ESP logo was placed differently on the headstock. I finally told them and they just knew it was the $2900 dollar original. Only THEN they wanted to say “ok the bridge looks cheap, the tuners seem off, the knobs turn weird……etc.” about a year later I brought in a fake Jim root Fender and they did that shit all over again. I have four total fake ESP’s and after playing for 30 years all you have to do is change all hardware (tuners, pickups, bridge/tremelo) and it’s mysteriously a $1800 guitar.
I do the same with an OLP it sound like the Real LUKE since i put some Schaller autolocked tunner and Real Steve Lukather EMG pickup it was night and Day compare to the shity mics and pot they put on it same for the Schaller tunner, it make the guitar playable and in tune, but it was not a Musicmann but an Ernie ball OLP from the same company .
sorry but no, that those guys didn't spot it doesn't mean the guitar is any better, don't fool yourself
I still have my 1st electric guitar. Got it in 1977 for Christmas. It is plywood. I keep it for nostalgia and sentimental reasons. It's still pretty cool to me. It came from the old Sears catalog.
Mine from Sears 1963, in Amp hard case! Sound and playability- was great through any number of amps!
Plywood guitars are actually really useful depending on the make up. You can make your own composites to get some really interesting tone depending on how it travels through the material.
I started out the same myself with several Sears guitars, one that was even a no name but is a single coil strat style that is just as good as my other guitars. The real secret to great sound is in the processing. I've kept all my old cheap guitars because even they end up surprising me whenever I can get new FX pedals and processers to play them through.
@@jonlangfittI have a plywood strat that resonates like hell. Its been one of my go to guitars since I was 18.
Got a 1994 Squire strat mik cort factory. Bought it off my mate in 95. Just set it all up again with new Wilkinson tuners strings fret polish and intonation set. Cheap 3 single coil pups pots and plywood body. Maple neck is actually brilliant with worn in frets butter to play and great tones. Love it no other guitar I’ve played sounds like it just love it
I was totally amazed that the Chicago Electric saw actually completed the two cuts....and didn't catch on fire or such!
Lmao, kind of a hypocrite when it comes to giving a review, 😂
Chicago Electric angle grinder owner here. Yep - got about 45 seconds before it burst into flames.
I haven't had any Harbor Freight tools burst into flames......either the mechanicals fail first or they just quietly stop working, while getting rather warm. They usually work once. It's the second time that's a surprise.
Here we go, "cheap tools" comments since guitar myths have been busted!
😂
Ironically, my first guitar way back in the 60s was a Silvertone single pickup that had the amplifier in the hard case. I can't tell you how cheap it was new but my (ever so supportive) Mom bought it from a friend and started my journey. That "cheap guitar" model is priced today on Reverb in the range of anywhere from $600-2,000. So, quite obviously, time has a strange way of altering the meaning and perception of words in unpredictable ways.
I'm most definitely a member of the group of players who kick themselves for not keeping the vintage gear they've owned at one time or another. I long for that '63 J-45 Gibson, or the 60's Epiphone Sheraton, the Gibson tweed GA-5 amps, especially the very early Fender Telecaster that I routed out to put a Gibson Humbucker, many years before Fender thought of it. Hey I was only 15 in 1969, vintage wasn't a thing, but I can't imagine the value that guitar would have today in the pristine condition I originally got it in. Sure there's more, but it's that first "cheap guitar" that's launched most every star into fame, so any of those who leave comments that are negative towards them, will no doubt never be touched by the magic inherent in the art. Virtuosity comes not with a large price tag, but from a priceless breath that falls from the Creator to permeate that first spark that wakes the love of sharing your gift...
Safety first . . . 😂
Moms rock!
That point is so well made that some of it could be the advertising blurb on a cheap guitar! " One day, You'll be Proud to say my first guitar was a (insert name here).
I still have my lefty Ibanez acoustic from 1977 and my heart still bleeds for the Ibanez Rick bass stolen from the shop in 1976 that I ordered but never got to play. I hurt over the Rickenbacker 4001 that I sold because we "needed the money".
I now have a Benton Chickenbacker, a Benton 335, a lefty Variax 300 and rightly Variax 500. They will be worth thousands in about 30 years time!
Damn, doing the Vitto Bratta thing in 69...
The reason why those Silvertone guitars go for a lot of money is because they're collectible. Although the same can be said of vintage Gibson and Fender stuff, those are a bit different in my opinion. Unlike many things from that era, guitars from the late 50's into the late 70's were incredibly well-built. Because of this, musicians with a lot of money to throw around will spend big bucks for the feel of an old guitar - as well as a particular sound they may have heard on an old record.
The same can't really be said for a Silvertone because they were never good guitars to begin with, but ironically some people (like Jack White for example) really love that "bad" sound. Vintage guitars are a rabbit hole that A TON of people get sucked into. My take on it is that if you're a really good musician making records and playing a lot, then it makes sense - just like any professional has the right tool for the job.
There are actually some old jackson guitars that have plywood body. I had to take off the finish from a pink jackson to change the color and surprise surprise, it was all plywood.
Even though it wasn't a production quality instrument, I still shed a tear when you took the saw to that Firefly. And as for how they can make quality instruments for such low prices...alien technology.
They're cheap because they require so few man-hours to produce, lol
@@TheDarkXn Less man/woman/child labour time, is that a bad thing? Most players set up their own guitar anyway.
@@TheDarkXn That is not the point. Materials wether cheap or not cost money.
@@levinav2297Not too much money, as of nowadays
Little wood glue and it's close enough to good as new.
Man I appreciate you. Not all of us can afford big brand guitars. Not to mention being snubbed for buying them. So thank you for being a voice for us 🙂
Who is doing the snubbing of which you speak?
@@richsackett3423Are you really trying to act like you don't know how insufferable Fender and Gibson fanboys can be? You know exactly the kind of person who snubs people for using cheap guitars. You probably know a few, yourself.
@@razztastic I've been playing music with other musicians for forty years with more one-offs than I care to remember. Hundreds and not one being weird about somebody else's gear. Anyone who's any good only pays superficial attention. "That weird thing's your ride? Cool." I've played auditions where they didn't notice I was playing fretless until I was putting it in the case. Can't find any "jazz snobs" either, fwiw.
@@richsackett3423You know, I think what he is speaking of is way more prevalent in the online forum community than amongst musicians. I find lots of tone snobs online, but what I've encountered playing with other people is an attitude of "play what you got" or "play what you can afford".
@@darringalloway Makes total sense. I appreciate the explanation. You really can't be like around other musicians irl if you want to be asked back.
Keep in mind, it is not about how expensive a guitar costs or that it has the best materials. Case in point, Queen's Brian May built his Red Special guitar, which cost him 8 GBP in 1964, which is equivalent to 161 GBP in 2023, which is about $203 usd today. The main body of the guitar was blockboard (a type of plywood) and oak. It had a neck that was from a century old fireplace mantle, buttons used for it's fret board markers, saddle bag holders for the tremolo arm, motor cycle valve springs to tension the trem arm, a knitting needle tip for the end of the trem arm. All these were things mostly laying around the house. The most expense part of that 8 GBP was the pickups. His homemade pickups just had the wrong magnetic polarity, otherwise, those would have worked too. So when you think about it, it's mostly what's in the player's mind and the player's fingers! Brian could probable play one of today's cheapest guitars and he would still sound like Brian May!!!
Yep, imagine how much better his career could have been if he used real wood for that guitar 😂🤣
I don't really understand the obsession with wood type on an electric guitar. On my acoustics i feel like the wood has great impact on the tone but on electric i generally have no clue what materials they've went with.
@@braveheart4603 Same, I don't care about the tone difference with different wood. The only time I'd consider the wood type is for aesthetics lol
Funny thing is, Inyen Vina (IYV on the headstock) actually now makes a replica of Brian May’s Red Special! At around $300 used on Reverb, I may snatch it up in a moment of weakness! 🤣
@@jaybirdk7414 The body looks a little different from a real one. But looks pretty close. I picked up a replica years ago (can't remember brand). Slapped some Burns Tri-sonics in it and happy days.
I got an Epiphone second hand for next to nothing. Not sure how old it is, but it had a plywood body.
I dont know what to say, it played like a guitar. The only real difference was the weight, it was a thick body but it felt lighter than it should. Painted and modified it and it was an awesome guitar
Who even cares what it's made out of? If it plays good and sounds good what does it matter?
I have 2 plywood guitars that I quite like. They were both rebuilt though so components are great.
BUT MUH INVESTMUHNT
@@indifferentuniverse3991 That's actually the point. It's not the wood, it's the components.
You could have simply removed the pickup to see what is under the paint.
@@seanfagan7384not as entertaining 😂
Thanks for the video...I am a wood turner and use spalted maple quite a bit. The spalting comes from intergranular fungus growth after the tree is cut. I get my spalting by leaving my logs outside for a few months before drying. It costs nothing except time and everyone loves the look!
All good stuff. In addition to everything you said, by the time people have run a guitar through the 94 pedals everyone has on their board these days, the original instrument and whatever woods and wires it's made from mean nothing; all that counts is how accurate and comfortable the thing is to play. Also, you could probably glue those sections back, kick the instruments down a fire escape a few times and sell them as 'relics'.
Nice one
I was going to ask Max to send them to me to repair and re-finish.... I like a project. But relics... you got a business idea there, mate!
I've been saying for a long time, "a lot of guys have no idea what their guitar sounds like, or their amp."
IMO when they are running 97 effects, no matter the gear, they all sound exactly the same, like crap. And if there's two guys in a cover band, both using 97 effects, it escalates to absolute shit.
Hey Max, thanks for another great video 👍.
I have a’69 Fender Mustang that I have owned since 1970. I never play it because I have 5 other guitars and the Mustang has a grounding problem.
I have considered have it upgraded with new pots, new pickups etc.
Please let me know what you think or should I leave it original ?
Surprised the Firefly had a cap. Usually the cheaper brands just use a veneer. Looks like a well made guitar.
I have a Firefly LP guitar. Its made well. The binding Rocks. Love mine. Only thing id change would possibly the pickups. It's a good guitar for the money 👍✌️
Was….
@@NoNameNo.5😂😂😂
@@mikestroud9969how does it play? I'm not an LP fan at all but I've considered buying one of their other models but haven't done it.
@@MainPrism it plays well. Heavy like a Gibson. Neck is good. I was shocked how well it was put together.good guitar for the money buddy. Going to put some Seymour Duncan pearly gates pickups in it when I get enough money. You know bills uggh.
To me there are NO bad guitars. They are all uniquely beautiful both with sound and shape. All works of art. You can put a decent guitar player on a Stella Harmony and it will still sound good.
And almost any defect or deficiency can be fairly easily fixed.
@@jeffbosch1697 Within reason, agree, but if the neck is twisted it can be a problem not easily fixed and can take the kind of effort and expertise that would make it not worth fixing.
@@ericmills9839 Well, I did say "almost". 😁
I should probably clarify that I wasn't referring to damage but to deficiency in the guitar design or manufacturing.
@@jeffbosch1697 LOL, I say it from experience. My first acoustic was a cheap Ibanez and it developed a twist. Was a goner at that point, as it would have cost more to get it fixed than get a new one!
@@ericmills9839 I can relate. Back about 30 years ago I spent the money to have my acoustic six and twelve strings set up. Man, they just about played themselves. Then I moved to Arizona in the summer. Tweak!! Both guitars twisted and became decorations.
My first guitar (in the 80s) was a really cheap Les Paul knock off by Cort. It had a bolt on neck. I naturally knew very little about guitars when I bought it, but eventually decided to replace the pickups.
When I did so, I found that the curved top was in fact a separate, thin piece of plywood that was bent over some curved forms attached to the flat back.The back of the guitar was likewise plywood. The pickups were actually single coil disguised behind humbucker chrome covers.
This is probably where these myths come from. I have no doubt that cheap guitars these days are much higher quality, we really used to have to put up with some awful guitars in the bad old days!
Just curious, what do you mean by old style frets?
I have an early '80s Harmony strat (the only parts left of the original guitar are the body and bridge).
The body is plywood, and it's the most resonant and sustaining guitar I have for some reason.
It was my first guitar and the only one I would never ever sell.
Nothing wrong with plywood, even though it's not exotic.
My first guitar (1990 Hohner ST Special) also was a plywood body and also was ridiculously loud and resonant unplugged! 😂
@72Dodge340. I bought a neck and some parts from a guy for a Jackson and he had a Platinum series BC Rich he had taken apart to refinish and saw the body was plywood so he lost interest and basically threw it in with the deal for the parts just to get it out of the way. Just recently I refinished the body and put all new electronics a good humbucker I had and got it together. last week finished the set up and I was blown away how good it sounds hahaha, and like yours this body is quite resonant to. Kinda goes against what you'd think. Plywood body should not sound this good, but it does. Damn thing got a spot on one of my daily player wall hangers .
Been playing 20 years. I just keep buying cheaper guitars and modifying them. The last 5 guitars I bought were like $80-160 DIY kits or Tele knockoffs. Replace the pickups, add a ground wire, and conductive isolation paint in the cavities, maybe replace the tuners and then you have yourself a way cheaper great sounding guitar. 95% or more of the electric guitar’s sound is the pickups and distance from strings. That last 5% is a mix of wiring, and other hardware deadening the strings. Wood has very little if any tonal impact. Might get a bit more sustain, but could also get that from wiring as well.
3D printed guitars, metal guitars, and plastic guitars all sound great with the rest of the hardware being good. The wood is just the platform or medium everything else is mounted to.
You got it haha, i think the biggest bottleneck in any guitar is the person playing it, a great player can even make a Hello Kitty guitar sound good
It's really too bad that some folks need such a graphic demonstration. And - sorry to see these beautiful objects cut up even though they are low priced. Thanks for your videos.
That "kit" guitar, it speaks volumes he said he would not SELL it to someone he HATES.
@@treetopjones737Even so, the cheapo could have been worked on. But *_I really don't care that he cut both of them up,_* I'm just saying that if he wasn't into making videos for this and if he had tools to do it, the fret ends could have been trimmed back and anything else could have been fixed with the right time, tools, and educated effort.
74 yrs young here - Good wood glue, dowels and clamps would be a good start to reunite the severed pieces! The result might be a better sounding guitar, you never know!
Years ago, I bought a couple of Jackson Dinkys (while Fender was still the parent company) real cheap at GC for $109 ea. I flipped one and painted the other psychedelic. I didn't like the first paint job I did on the body, so I stripped it and found the top and bottom layers were *_masonite_* (like what a workshop peg board is made of but smooth both sides and very dense). The specs said the body was paulownia, which probably were the center pieces. For the price, I wasn't complaining except the specs could have been more honest. It probably cost the factory more to add masonite then just stack rows of the correct thickness paulownia. The ax was little light, and I bet the masonite not only allowed for thinner body pieces, but added needed weight to balance a standard weight neck. With decent replacement pickups and switch, it plays and sounds just great else I wouldn't have kept it. I like the slightly larger but not jumbo frets a lot.
Also, the separate top for the arch-top solid body is standard and was innovated by Les Paul. They're all like that. Those quilt tops are not called quilt solids. 12:00
I think Martin Stingers were made of plywood, but they were still decent guitars. Actually, I think the wood is a pretty small factor in a solid body electric. Taylor made some acoustics from pallets to prove the point that wood type is not a crucial importance.
Pallets are usually made from a pretty dense hardwood. Ask any truck driver.
Cant say for sure about the original Stingers but I still have my ST2 (Dinky body style,) that I modded in the 2010s, I cut off the sharp ends of the horns and turns out the body is made from MDF.
@@BatFan1 Martin stingers are made out of piano-grade plywood. It's a better than average manufactured tonewood. They are still just a cheap strat guitar, but the bodies are heavy and hard.
This explains why Taylor’s sound so bad. Tonewoods indeed are the lifeblood of the acoustic guitar. That, and neck joint design
I've come to opine that "tone wood" DOES exist... it's just that it entirely applies to necks & fretboards, not at all to bodies.
This even includes aluminium necks which have a tone of their own. (This opinion is not set in stone and I'm open to the insight of others.)
I have bought several inexpensive guitars and recently a bass (firefly and sawtooth) that I learned about on this channel. I am very happy with them. Thanks Max for the education and entertainment!
One of my favourite guitars (I have 11) is a cheap Squire Stratocaster that I bought when I was working in Saudi Arabia for 8 months. I REALLY needed a guitar to bide my time, and that's the only guitar the music shop even had. The paint job was atrocious (I've left it that way, 'cos the drip lines are fantastic for the memory of it all) and I had to file the frets so they'd stop cutting my fingers. I strongly suspect it is counterfeit because even the cheapest Squires I see at home don't have paint streaks. When I got back home, I replaced the pickups with old Charvelle pickups a friend gave me, and now it's a serious shredding beast. I use that guitar a lot, and it sounds amazing! Oh, and I scalloped it, because why not? (All my electrics are scalloped btw... only my bass, acoustics, and ukes are not)
My first electric guitar was a Gibson Sonex, basically a sawdust epoxy guitar I think, heavy as hell, but I loved it. They were cheap but looked and played great.
That wasn't Gibson's first go-round with composite bodies, their Kalamazoo line from the late 60s was made out of the same material Kohler used back then to make toilet seats
Well, the Sonex actually has a solid wood core with an outer layer of resin. I have one as well. Its a crudely made guitar but a great player. Looks cool too IMO :)
Look at EVHs career with a homemade guitar. I've played for 50 years and I don't spend a lot on my guitars. I will buy a cheap guitar and if I don't like something I may change some of the electrical parts and I've filed down frets so I can get the sound and performance I want. My most expensive guitar was around $5000 my parents bought me. I personally have never spent over $500 for a guitar. It's often the person playing the guitar that's the issue. Some people think they are going to become a better guitarist by spending a lot of money. If you suck at $150 you're gonna suck at $5000.
Bravo! Finally someone who knows what's going on these days. I've been watching you for a long time. You broke it open with honesty and integrity.
Man, I’m really glad you did this video. I fix and mod guitars for people in my spare time, so I’m pretty familiar with the woods companies use. Like you, it gets on my nerves when people accuse makers of using “fake wood”.
It's funny how this fake wood is made from real wood
@@hemidart7 It is also funny that all these "tonewoods" were just cheapest and easiest to work woods Fender and Gibson could find in 50's to 70'a, and they magically all were the best wood for it for some reason!
I've been more and more impressed by cheap guitars lately... precisely in the sub 300 dollar range... way better than what we used to get 20 years ago. In addition, I was given a sub $100 guitar ( that appears to be a 2x4 center with hollow wings). Not terrible. No joke. I'm almost more into cheap guitars that I can mod that are the price of kits, that I have to assemble and still will spend money upgrading.
I have a 1966 Sears Silvertone 1452 (Danelectro Hornet) which are famously made of "scrap" wood. It has been painted with a brush, but all the hardware is intact (including the lipstick pickups). Thinking of a slow rubdown to try and expose the original finish. Otherwise it will be refinished in satin black with a flat back pick guard. No chance of improvising a Jaguar type body cut on the back - they're hollow Masonite.
My first guitar was a knockoff of a Tokai my parents bought at Service Merchandise (this was early 80s). It was plywood. And I'll argue that it doesn't matter. It still sounds great, it hasn't started to separate or anything. Its been routed and re-routed a dozen different ways (its the guitar I learned to mod on) and its still solid. Tonewood is a myth.
Tonewood only applies to speaker cabinets anyway.
@@dionr1168 In all fairness, tonewood became a thing because of ACOUSTIC guitars- where the wood of the soundbox IS the speaker and cabinet combined. Of COURSE that would have a notable effect. But once you go electric and the signal is generated by magnetic pickups, yep- you can make the body out of concrete if you want, it's the speaker cab and speaker that make the sound.
@@dionr1168even at that, the rest of the cab's material is trivial compared to the speaker baffle
Thumbs up for the Service Merchandise reference!
The tone-wood debate (with regards to guitars) is like the pre-amp tube debate. It will never end. Your knock-off guitar sounds like it has tons of character. Such guitars are what defines who we are.
I'm impressed that the Harbor Freight saw lived long enough to cut through 2 guitars. I used my brand new HF recip. saw to help my brothers cut up an abandoned boat, and it only lasted a few minutes before dying. It was dead--not just stopped by thermal protection. It went into the dumpster along with the boat.
How many extension cords were you using with small guage wire ? That'll burn it up.
@@firebald2915 1. Either 50' or 100'. I don't recall.
@nellayema2455 I'm not busting on ya, but under powered electrical equipment will burn up rather quickly. They design them to work properly at x amount of amps or they just get hot enough to melt. If you had a 15+ Amp cord at 100 ft it looses 5 Amp to operate a 15 Amp tool. So the tool is getting 10 amps and that's not enough to operate properly. Hence, it got hot and melted the windings on the motor. Good thing Harbor Freight stuff is inexpensive. But heavier extension cords are not.
BTW, I've done the same thing you did and burnt up a $500.oo air compressor. Use longer air hoses. Oops! Hahaha
@@firebald2915 The other 2 non-Harbor Freight saws didn't fry under the same circumstances. I've run a number of saws and drills using the same cord and never had one fry.
Maybe you should cut apart that HF saw to dispel the myth that they are junk.
Eye protection Max, please. Once you lose an eye, it is too late. Safety glasses are not expensive.
And ear protection. Reciprocating saws are quite loud. Foam ear plugs at Home Depot/Lowe's are super cheap.
Do what I say not what I do! ,\m/. \m/
Goggles for a sawzall? It's too loud? Stop
I’ve seen too many idiots at work hurt themselves with a recip saw, this video gave me anxiety! Holding it with one hand fuck me!! You’re already destroying it just put it in a vice!
Ears, too. Musician. Hearing. Hello?
Max, I had a old Titana 6 string I can't remember. Do a video on this guitar 🎸 and it's full potential. What year was this guitar it was black with orange pinstripe. Volume knob with a 3way pickup switch. I didn't have a pedal and was wondering how this guitar sounded with a pedal. I'm very interested because sadly my guitar was stolen 2 months after I bought this at a garage sale with bag $100.
They're called "Haters". No matter what you do to bring a great, honest production to the public, there's always people who will hate.
I played guitar in quite a few bands for years (20+ for sure), 10 years ago I stopped playing but now I'm starting again. Thankfully I came across your channel. I really appreciate and love watching your videos. Thank you and keep up the great work.
Let haters be their miserable haters.
Hear the same thing in the gun world. Barrels, Trigger mechanisms, the type of steel the bolt is made from, tolerances... If the gun is cheap it's made from inferior materials, Blah blah blah. Might be true but also might be made in a country with cheaper labor and cost of material.
Hate usually means jealous. But not always.
But can be. Depends what we are hating.
But but but man nothing there are always a faster rat. I wish I could get guitar's like what you can get today for these prices. It was a real struggle as a young kid.
Youust definitely own a cheap guitar lol too bad.
Through the '90s it was common knowledge that cheap guitars were made of plywood. This is where the stigma comes from. They literally actually were made of plywood. I'm 45, in 1989 when I was 11, my first guitar was a Harmony from JC Penny. 100% plywood body. I know from sanding off the finish to refinishing it from red to black. PRS' rise in popularity, CITES treaty changes and offshoring manufacturing, and the advent of CNC manufacturing caused a change to real wood being more cost effective.
In the early 2000's, I had a small luthier business in Houston. Some of the "pawn shop specials" that people brought in for repairs were made of what I could only describe as dense cardboard. It appeared to be granular like particle board, but it would flake apart in layers where damaged. The worst I ever saw was a SG clone made from a one-inch thick piece of Low-Density Fiberboard. Thankfully, the manufacturers stopped doing that stuff sometime after the 2000ish timeframe.
I learned on a Harmony acoustic f hole guitar that was given to my older brother for Christmas by our parents around 1970!
My Squier Strat that I've been playing for 30 years is plywood, plays well, stays in tune, though I did swap the pups for Fender Noiseless.
@@coop1311 If it actually was, they are not made that way now. Squier has contract with Fender to make Fender copies using their design.
@@treetopjones737 it's not the stuff you'd put in an attic, but it's clearly plywood. They stopped using plywood around 1996.
The particle board guitars do exist. I've seen them with my own eyes. It's just something that used to be a lot more prominent back in the day it seems, as EVERY single cheap guitar I have seen in the past 15-20 years has been regular wood.
Yeah in the 90's Washburn had a line of guitars named GW Lyon that were like that.
Brian May's original Red Special that he built with his father had a bog standard pine blockboard body with mahogany veneer facing. No magial mythical tonewoods.
Only a fool would consider it to be a poor quality instrument.
@@samknox4706 Probably because what material an electric guitar is made of doesn't make a hell of a lot of difference. Pickups, their positions & strings are contributors of the sound--and the other 80-90% is the signal chain, amp & speakers.
Me too. When materials were proportionately more expensive and true mass production as we know it today was not yet a thing in the 70s and 80s there were some makers using "fake" wood or more layers/smaller pieces. I certainly have a decent Japanese strat with a body made of two layers of 3 pieces each.
@@ZiddersRooFurry, those Lyon guitars were made with the cheapest materials available at the time, but they were no joke when it came to delivering the goods!
I guess I found the only guitar which has a finish that doesn't match the internal wood. I just stripped an unbranded guitar I wanted to repaint and it has some kind of plastic coat (around 1/2 mm thin) all around it. Even the seem between the neck and body is barely visible through it. You can tell there's wood inside, but I don't know if I should remove it. Can't find anything online about that.
I liked the woodgrain on that strat, and I wonder if it could have been salvaged with a decent replacement neck and an upgrade of all the electronics.
I started playing electric guitar as a teen in 1994, and my first dirt cheap strat copy was definitely made of particle board. It’s amazing how the quality of cheap/budget guitars has improved since that time. I have an SX Liquid that was under $200 and it not only is a great player and looks cool, but has a half sawn maple neck, which is great for that price point.
It's incredible. I got a 350€ guitar that is just like a 1500€ guitar. Had name brand PAFs too... 200-400€ today is a real sweet spot for incredible instruments. I want to try a cheap Jackson Rhoads next.
I have a cheap guitar from the 80s that is half the thickness of my other electric guitar, but it weighs more than twice as much....no way in heck it is wood unless it is some super heavy rare wood....it still plays fine though.
I guess taking out the pickups and showing the woodgrain was not good enough
Times have changed, old man. (Joking)
@@blacklikethesun go extreme or go home lol
Got a plywood job about 6 months ago. A Karrera strat copy. So they are still around. can see the layers when you take the pickguard off. after a fret level sounds fine.
I own a Firefly LP, and as an novice player I can assure others that it is real wood. Being a hobbyist wood worker helps too. Thanks to Max for dispelling this fake wood myth to the non believers!
Remember, safety first, use safety goggles! *proceeds to not use safety goggles at all*
I was thinking that. Doesn't clamp guitar, uses Sawzall one-handed, no gloves. Could've been a disaster.
I was wincing seeing him cut through the guitar like that, could’ve easily gone very very wrong
@@Dell-ol6hbstill that upload would have gotten a lot of views 😂😫
In the 70 and 80’s it wasn’t uncommon to find low budget guitars made out plywood… they really weren’t bad guitars… I loved my Washburn g force IV … what really matters is how it feels in your hands.
Nothing wrong with plywood guitars. I had a couple that sounded incredible.
I have a plywood Korean Squire from the late 80's early 90's...not a thing wrong with it. Though it is one of the heaviest Strat types that I've played.
Yep I commented above that I have a 70s Harmony solidbody that's straight up laminated plywood, and it legit sounds amazing. Feels awful but that's due to the atrocious neck, which is solid wood.
My first electric guitar was a plywood Hohner Les Paul copy. I played that for 5 years before I bought my Gibson. It was a really good first guitar.
Wood tone only applies to resonant instruments such as acoustic guitars, violins, cello's, and any other stringed instrument like a Mandolin or Lute, including a piano, etc. The Stradivarius violins, etc. were fashioned from a forest that survived a fire. The wood was more dense and as a result it resonated more vigorously. Most half-hollow and hollow body guitars don't sound any different from a solid body. The exception being a hollow body guitar with an internal piezoelectric pickup since it relies on the sound board and resonate cavity. The main pickups are capturing at the string while the piezo captures the sound from the resonating body.
Most of the cost of high end electric guitars is the use of exotic materials, high craftsmanship and artistry. Does it affect the sound? Not so much. You could buy an electric guitar for under $200 and have a luthier set it up and upgrade the pickups, fix any neck, nut, or bridge issues and provide the action you desire. A great guitar doesn't need to cost thousands of dollars.
Another myth? String gauge doesn't matter unless you want a workout for no reason. Billy Gibbons recalls when BB King strummed his guitar, "I was in the dressing room and BB said to me, ‘Can I play your guitar?’ I said, ‘Sure man.’ He strummed it a few times and handed it back to me. He looked at me rather quizzically and said, ‘Why you working so hard?’ I said, ‘What do you mean?’ He said, ‘Those strings. You got real heavy, heavy strings.’ I said, ‘Well, isn’t that how to get the heavy, heavy sound?’ He said, ‘No! Don’t be working so hard!’"
As a forestry consultant, I was privy to Chinese forests. They have an abundance of quality hardwoods and it's not surprising that they would supply us with solid hardwood guitar stock.
“Make sure you wear eye protection”
*proceeds to not do that*
2 almost perfect straight cuts without having fixed the instruments before! Well done Max 👌👏
I have a 90s fender p bass. It's so ordinary that you can see the seams in the 3 piece body through the nitro, and where the router didn't do a smooth job near the neck pocket.
My Gibson LP has tool marks on the neck binding.
I remember walking into a Best Buy some 20 years ago, and looking at a Lyon by Washburn Les Paul Special clone. Flat top, bolt on neck, and very clear plywood laminations. Cheap guitars have gotten so much better. I just picked up a Glarry Jazz Bass for less than a hundo, and while it did need setup, it's a perfectly playable instrument.
@Deathrape-if4kl I'm well aware, my main axe is an Epi LP Special, plywood body. It was just the fact you could see the ply laminations through the finish.
Time for a new myth (?): As a teen a friend and me “built” a solid body using particle board. The neck was from a cheap acoustic toy guitar. The elements (affordable Dimarzio’s) where mounted using candle wax! The results: As far as ergonomics go it was as bad as one would expect but It sounded excellent and had a great sustain.
I have a Firefly and several other "affordable guitars". I love them all. And love your videos on the subject matter. Keep them coming. You are the MAX !!
Great video! 74 yrs young here. Learned by ear 1967. 1st bass GuyaTone UGH!!! Action galore. 2nd bass Hofner Violin. Gibson EB3-F (yes fuzz!) Fender Jazz, Kramer DMZ (still have it) Fender and Squire Strats, numerous other guitars. I recently bought Glarry guitars as project basses and a six string lead to access quality with modding in mind. The Glarry 5 string jazz and 6 string humbucker basses are very impressive, yes, light weight but played well right out of the box. Minor intonation and string height adjustments. Controls are smooth and sound decent for a starter guitar. One can always upgrade with electronics or better pickups. NO NEED TO BUY NAME BRANDS ANY MORE! If you are on a tight budget this is a great alternative.
Great job! I love cheap guitars. I always took very expensive guitars with a grain of salt.
I have both, the expensive ones really just look nicer, with few exceptions (PLEK'd Necks cost money for example) . Some people will never admit it. Sometimes it's a feeling, but you can't hear that feeling back in the recorded mix. It's like the emperor's new clothes. I do get inspired to play different things on different guitars, so I guess there is that aspect. I have found that I prefer different ones at different times. It's certainly never always the more expensive ones and sometimes it is the cheapest ones. Lately I have been preferring my PRS SE to my Custom 24, I'll be damned if I can hear the difference between the nitrocellulose and poly, or whether the pickups were wound in Stephensville, MD or somewhere in South Korea.
@@PeterThibault I have had great cheapo pickups sometimes. Then there are the China squealers I bought a few years back. They sound great low volume and recorded but turn up to play with a band and OUCH! High pitched feedback is so strong it hurt my ears worse than a loud concert! They came out new higher money ones went in and issue is solved... except for the one that is a PAF non-potted which still feeds back way less. I would also say that after I set up and level the frets on a cheaper guitar they usually sound just as good if not better than the ones that cost thousands more. They always play better lol. Why would I spend thousands on a Gibson that plays worse than my $300 China guitar that I put better metal parts on and spent under $1000 on total?!? The obvious answer is I would not.
I’m the opposite. I always found paying cents on the dollar to the worker making the same product, just overseas, to be pretty unethical. We consumers rely on it, and the companies don’t really have a choice if they want to stay competitive. However, if you have the money to buy a guitar that has actual labor cost, it’s a nobrainer for me
@@Nadezi I couldn't agree more. When I said I like cheap guitars I did not take this BIG issue into consideration, which makes me blush to be honest. But on the other hand, sometimes I wonder if we are not paying more just for the logo stamped on the headstock, got it?
I just bought my first Harley Benton guitar, because of your reviews on them, and I love it... I used to buy high end guitars back in the day, and once I discovered that affordable guitars could be hot rodded and set up to play like the high end ones, I have never gone back... And it is so much better to have a guitar that if you bump it on something you dont start crying...
Harley Benton's are well made but they just copy popular designs from bigger companies, if you're comfortable having a knock-off, go for it.
@@Monkeypole Harley Benton company was made by 4 long term guitar builders who worked at Gibson that didn't want to move their families out of state when Gibson moved it's factory in America. Harley Benton guitars are for the most part hand made at their factories like Gibson's are and their quality is top notch on most of their models...If you think I'm over exaggerating the way they are made look up their videos on UA-cam... Harley Benton are some of the best made BUDGET "Not cheaply made" guitars on the market...I don't even own one but I played on several of them in guitar stores in my area and they are set up pretty well from the factor, frets play well, no issues with neck warp or string buzz at all. I bought a Epiphone Les Paul Custom Pro for $950.00 that felt and played better than the Cherry Gibson Les Paul Custom that was $2999.99. I didn't find out until looking it up afterwards that the Epiphone Les Paul Custom Pros ARE built in the Gibson Les Paul Custom shop in Mexico...Yes it's a Gibson but marketed as Epiphone for 1/3 the price...Their are great deals to be found out there, you just gotta be able to find them...
Well made? I don't think so.
@@ChristianNachtschatten-bv5vt Compared to other budget guitars, yes.
I have a 1981ish Harmony Marquis bass (it resembles a P-Bass) that has a plywood body. It has a translucent sunburst finish and you can see the plies through it. I bought it new when I was in high school and I think it cost $170 or so 40 years ago, and that was cheap back then! I still play it now and then and it's never let me down. The pickups are supposedly DiMarzio and the tone is not bad. But I can confirm that plywood guitars are not a myth.
Thats because plywood is stronger and better than a solid piece of wood
@@hemidart7 Yeah, you'd think it would be great for a guitar body but it's very looked down upon. I like my bass.
@@bondhughbond Only from people that know nothing about wood
There is a youtube video of a luthier working on an Epiphone (sorry I don't recall who) and when he pulled it apart is was some kind of wafer board, pretty sure it was a bass guitar. I realize at + 5000 comments in this may have already been brought up.
I've played dozens of different guitars, but one of my all time favorites is the entry-level Jackson JS32t (about $300.) Plays, looks, and sounds as good as many higher end models across brands. The only caveat for a cheap guitar is the quality of the nut, frets, and hardware. Be sure to upgrade them and get a set up done, all of which will still be cheaper than a more expensive guitar.
Very true, i just wish he hadnt cut the guitars in half and maybe removed the pickups and some paint to prove the point, then someone could have changed the nut and had the frets sorted before starting to learn both how to play and how to do some simple modding and maintenance eventually ending up with a decent playing axe with decent pickups etc. Oh well nevermind eh.
isn't that the wooden Roads V guitar?
Yeah, my old Korean Squire was made of not exactly plywood but several thin layers of (probably) basswood or poplar. You could see it in the neck pocket and the trem cavity on the back, which were unpainted. Maybe 7 or 8 layers. Of course it was probably made in the 80's or early 90's - I bought it used in '95.
I had one of those, it cant keep the tuning right and its really heavy?
@@leob4403 Mine was actually quite light. As for the tuning I don't remember - I haven't touched it since the 90's (after I have acquired "real" guitars) - donated it to my ex's nephew. As far as I remember, for what it was, it was surprisingly not a bad guitar. I remember the neck was actually quite nice. But it had 21 frets, so... meh. 😄
@@Shmalentine lol you're like me then, I only use the 24 fret electric now (acoustic I use whatever). It bothers me when I don't get the full 2 octaves so I can play Metallica, Satriani solos etc. I know it's silly but it even bothers me that for example Yngwie Malmsten signature guitar (and billy Corgan signature etc) only is the 21 fret strat, like why would he not want the full 24 frets? More is more right?😅
@@leob4403 Yeah, I too prefer 24 frets now (I play a lot of Warrior guitars) but I'm OK with 22. I can bend up to the high E, or even F, if necessary. But with 21 frets that D is missing, and I have some solos that require tapping that D. Bending doesn't really help there.
Great resonant and well made guitar. Those Korean squiers. Nothing wrong with ply bodies. The myth here is that the ply was like the stuff you by at your local DIY. It wasn't.
Thanks for the video. There's a few good points here. To qualify myself, I have about 25 guitars in my collection. The most valuable is my 1976 LP Pro. The least valuable is an Ibanez (I don't know the model) that looks like a PRS with solid mahogany and a nice set neck with a low heal. $115 at a pawn shop. I had a set of JB Seymours laying around and had my local tech guy swap them out and upgrade pots and caps. Total price, $400 if I had to buy the pickups. Rosewood fretboard, med/jumbo frets and a set of Jazz Blues pickups.... Its a great guitar. It is very easy to buy expensive junk, why shouldn't it be possible to find (create) an inexpensive jem?
I need some advice… I am looking at purchasing a custom built fender Stratocaster on eBay for right around $500. It is a nice guitar from the description but I’m a little nervous. Can I get a nice electric guitar for $500? Or should I just save a little more, am I wasting my money? Or is it going to be worth it? It is a David Gilmour black Strat replica like I said all custom built.
Cheap Guitars rule!....That's why I only buy Chibson's nowadays - I have 3 and the quality is top notch for just $250 to $500, the pickups are great - high output ceremics, (which you can change to Alnico if you like the vintage tone) but you only need some full set-up/fret level by a luthier and it plays and sounds like the very expensive $4,000 to $10,000 original for a fraction of the price, don't believe those few snobs why say they are crap when they are actually great, I have an original Gibson and a Chibson and the quality difference is unnoticable. Only the elitist snobs are hating on them. (Chibsons, Chenders, Chibanez, ChiE-SP, Cort, Aria Pro, Fernandes, Harley Benton and Eart FTW!)🎸👿🤘
A couple of clamps, and glue using that sanding dust on the table would have made them look more or less fine again in a couple of days. The finish would be affected for sure anyway.
Just call it an extreme relic finish.
Excellent video. I have been surprised by the relatively high quality I’ve seen in cheaper guitars I’ve bought. Obviously some features are scaled back, but it’s not very hard or expensive to upgrade a “cheap” guitar to a pretty darn good one!! Thanks for taking time to dispel ridiculous myths.
Also like a car...economies of scale matter. Its more expensive to make the metal/electronic work than the wood slabs on an assembly line.
You actually HAVE to cut them in half, right?? So you can count the rings and find out how old it is.......??
The only guitar I ever had that was--let's call it--'fake' wood, was my very first, an Epiphone Les Paul Special, the first version (I got mine in 1997).
I had another guitar that I wanted to take the paint off and was trying out different paint strippers on that Epi.
Once I got a large chunk of the paint off, the 'wood' was exactly that, like a woodchip/waxy plastic composite.
Wouldn't have known otherwise though. It was a great guitar to learn on and I even played a handful of my first gigs with it.
Those are collectable now. I wish I had one.
Glad you did this vid! I always wondered if the inexpensive guitars were made of plywood or paste board! You totally answered my curiosity. Thank you!
@Guitar MAX - You are braver than I, cutting one-handed with a reciprocating saw! I'm scared of those things even using both hands... Thank you for your sacrifice towards unveiling the truth about these low cost guitars that are shaking up the industry. Hopefully, we'll get more "upscale" brands following up with premium features like SS frets.
15:28 Yep, I remember my Aria Pro ii XR Series was made of plywood. You could see it from the cavity.
I LOVE pro consumer content like this. Keep it up!
Several of my fave guitars are my cheapies. It’s been really fun buying something cheap and then upgrading a few things. A new pickup or 2 and some locking tuners and a good set up and you’ve got an awesome guitar. Probably…
I know a bit about guitar construction, and I agree 100% with you. The LP style guitar is constructed exactly the way a maple top guitar is supposed to be, you will see the same thing if you were cutting up a top name brand guitar. most guitars these days are all about even as far as materials are concerned. the real difference is in construction, playability, and hardware / electronics.
@Lamster66 your right there if you saw Scott on you top proving tone on an electric guitar has no effect because of the wood I have to agree with him it's all about the hardware bridges , nuts , pickups etc and where they are placed can all effect the tone or the turning of guitars not the wood. Now on acoustic guitars wood does matter, but some of the older guitar companys Martin,Gibson, Fender and a few more are using woods that are laminated which is plywood ,who knew? I can notice a big difference in the tones of what these cheaper guitars sound like even though they are made by the big boys sort of speaking.
That firefly is the EXACT finish I want. And it absolutely broke my heart to see it die. 😢
It was very pretty ):
Sad but just buy another one for $200, hardly breaking the bank for an affordable axe
It’s super cheap. There really isn’t any reason you couldn’t afford one, outside of some extreme handicap
Honestly, I never see guitars in the cool-to-warm purple burst color I love.. So I just learned to do it myself. No regrets. Make what you love, dude!
mdf of that thickness is quite expensive. ive seen a dirt cheap half mdf half cheap pine strat. it was heavy. you could see the mdf layer when you open the pickguard.
Well done!
Also note, most semi-hollow body guitars (including Gretsch and Gibson USA made guitars!) are plywood. They take 3 veneers (and make sure the grain on the veneers are going opposite directions) glue them together and then heat press them into shape, that is how your 335 was made.
There ARE some carved body semi-hollow body guitars by Gibson but they are like $10,000 or more new.
Eastman make a carved semi-hollow body guitar too for like nearly $3k
@Daniel - You are correct, but those aren't the "plywood guitars" he meant.
I think the plies in a 335-style top are laid out so the grains are running at angles other than 180° (opposite).
That's called a laminate. Not the same thing as plywood you buy at Menards.
No, they are not "plywood", they are laminated ply construction like a Stradivarius violin, which is how most orchestral instruments are made. In fact all plywood is NOT the same, marine plywood has no voids like the cheaper builder grade sheets do, that means it's both stronger and flexible like the higher grade laminates use for instruments.
@@johnjones928 Most high quality violins are made of hand carved flamed or quilted maple.
@@BrunodeSouzaLino Tops and backs yes, but iv'e always heard the backs and sides were formed laminated strips.
Awesome video Max! In 1989, at the height of guitar shreddness in Los Angeles, I stopped by my local music shop and bought a metallic red Holdsworth Charvel with a single hand wound JB for $100...with a case! And how could I get this guitar which would go for a fortune today for so cheap? Because the scene was so trendy in those days that a guitar like that could sit on a wall for months without anyone batting an eyelash at it. By '89 it was all about Jems, RGs, and other 24 fret locking trem shred sticks. Therefor you could get yourself mint condition used Dan Armstrong plexiglass guitars, BC Rich, Yamaha SBGs, and used Gibsons and Strats for next to nothing. Because it was all about the new new thing. Compared to the craftsmanship of that Charvel, Ibanez was making less worthy guitars, as were Kramer and many other companies. But they were considered "fresh" and "new" and the 22 fret standard trem Charvel was considered old hat. Meanwhile I had a Kramer Barretta that appeared to be made out of particle board. So I would not worry about what the trendy, guitar buying public thinks. Use your own mind, your own instincts. If a guitar sounds good, plays good, and feels solid, and it's at a good price, then go for it. I played more gigs with that Charvel than any other guitar I owned, including a gig at The Roxy, at a large Mexican restaurant with a massive patio, a huge party at a mansion, a gig at the Magic Castle in which my band filmed two music videos, gigs in Pasadena and Eagle Rock, and so many more. The Charvel stayed in tune perfectly whereas all my locking trem guitars went out of whack right away. Think for yourself. You'll thank yourself later.
I fear those days may be long over. The tastes are so widely varied now that few brands/models go unnoticed for long.
Those locking terms and the Buzz nut joke were all the rage.😂
I thought Mahogany was considered an open grain wood. My guess is that the meat of the body of the Firefly is Maple with a tight grain and the arch top laminate is Mahogany. My guess that is.. Basswood and Alder wood (which are common for cheaper guitars) have a tighter grain too from from what I have seen.
I have several firefly guitars, including 2 Les Pauls. With the pickups removed, I was able to inspect the construction & wood. They are copies of Gibson guitars and made in the same manner, mahogany body & neck with a maple cap and rosewood or similar wood as fretboard. The cap is definitely maple. However, it is not high grade wood, which would have to be imported into China & would be prohibitively expensive for these guitars. After some research, I think it is a Chinese variant mahogany wood called toona which is plentiful and cheap in China. I can say for sure whatever wood it is, is very similar in density & grain to South American & African mahogany and makes excellent tone wood. As an aside and just FYI, if the body was maple, the guitar would weigh a lot more, in the neighborhood of 15 pounds.
What would you suggest for a good, cheap, 7 string? Would you review them please.
Glad you pointed out that in the past there was guitars made of plywood. I had a jazz bass probably made in the 80's that the body was made of plywood. Reason I know this was because around 2010 the bass had issues and had not been taken care of. It was a garage sale find that I picked up for $5.00. Took it apart and noticed in the neck pocket and pickup cavity it appeared to be plywood so I sanded back the finish in the pickup cavity and yes it was indeed plywood. After seeing that I halted trying to restore this instrument but did keep the neck because it is mahogany with maple fretboard. Does have a functional truss rod as well. Kept it around because who knows maybe one day I will either make a body or stumble upon one that I can attach this neck to. Oh and if you are planning on tossing those two guitars toss them my way. Will pay shipping. I keep a collection of used hardware and such for some of my own guitar builds.
I also have a First Act body sitting around that I know is plywood, since the neck cavity shows it clearly. And yet it had (until I ruined the neck) fantastic sustain and felt good to play because it was so thin and light. I intend to one day find a matching neck to get it working again since it was my first guitar and it's nostalgic, but this was one of their earliest models that are hard to find and their later necks don't fit.
Thanks for the video! Very informative. I grew up playing the plywood/MDF stuff. I've graduated now, but I do own a 1995 Ibanez Talman TV-650. It's body came from the "Resoncast" forests of southern Japan LOL! The Kent Armstrong pickups make it sound great!
I think I'd have stuck them in a vice before cutting. Also, should have done before and after tone comparisons to show how the pickups are the only thing that matters in an electric guitar. Cool video Maxx!
Shoulda....Coulda...Woulda...
@@geraldhenrickson7472 That's actually a really good idea.
A guitar god like Max has no vices! 😆
Should refinish that corner into a tidy flowing curve that matches the surrounding finish .should continue to function fine .
The quality of the guitar doesn't matter. What really matters is the quality of the guitarist.
Exactly man, i am sure if, for example Clapton, would play one of theese...we will hear Clapton!!
@@danilodan-vx7ju fo sho
This, a few years ago i saw a video of Joe Satriani playing with an Ibanez Gio and it sounded the same as when he uses his signature guitar.
Mick Ronson said as much
Cheap guitar info, valuable.. Facial expressions while using saw, priceless.
Quite the sound difference when sawing the softer strat syle vs. the LP with the maple cap. Good video, thanks for your sacrifice!