Over the weekend, my brother in law called me up and said he wanted to start playing guitar and wondered if I would help him pick a good one. I was thrilled, nothing I love more than looking at guitars.

Since he'd never played before, we wanted to keep it as cheap as possible. Cuz who knows in a month, it may be sitting in the closet collecting dust. So we decided to try and get guitar and practice amp for under $200. Pretty big challenge.

I know you can find some decent deals online, but to me, buying a guitar is a feel and hear type of experience. Plus I worry about a guitar getting damaged in shipping. So we set out to the local music stores and pawn shops.

The three things I was mainly concerned about was feel, sound and price. And then the other things, such as look of the guitar, does it stay in tune, condition, etc.

I tried to keep the action in mind, since he's a beginner I wanted something with low action and a nice comfortable neck.

We found a few Epiphones in his price range and lots of Fender Squires. I am not a fan of Fender guitars. I have a cheap Epiphone Les Paul that I love. We stumbled onto this Washburn guitar that was $100 at a pawn shop. It felt really good, sounded great, and played like a dream. It was in really nice condition. I haven't ever really played any Washburn's before, but for the price...it seemed like a steal.

We also found a great little Fender practice amp. It had a really nice tone, was loud, but didn't have any distortion. Not a problem as I had an old distortion pedal he could use.

So at the end of the day we had a guitar, practice amp, cables, strap, picks, guitar book, for around $180. Not bad. We had twenty left for beer. Way under budget.

I think the moral of the story is, check everywhere when looking for a guitar, even pawn shops. Play everything and pay close attention to how it feels, the action and the sound quality. Bring someone with you who plays, who can offer some advice along the way.

Technorati Tags: buying a guitar