it’s because the manufacturers and the guitar media in concert with 'em propagate the notion that you ONLY achieve superior anything when you spend maximum bux...
Advertising wording is "engineered" to make you believe one thing at the subconscious level, while saying another in a way that can be legally defended... dont get excited.. it's how business and promotion works...
If the manufacturers told ya what I'm about to tell ya, they would have a hard time supporting manufacture of the "luxury" guitars...
The simple truth is the electric guitar is a ELECTRONIC signal generator... thus as long as the unit functions correctly... it is satisfactory for the job at hand. Melding with, Mojo, your emotional connection, your liking it, or not are not responsibilities of the maker..
Tone is nothing more than another product of the promotion scandal... you are led to believe that a 400 dollar guitar CANNOT produce the same sonic enjoyment as a 3000.00 guitar... not true..
As a signal generator... once that signal is generated, it can be manipulated electronically to sound like anything you want it to…
Again, though, the prevailing dialogue, compels you to believe that unless the guitar sounds good straight into a ’51 Deluxe, it sux… never considering that virtually NO ONE uses the guitar that way on stage. Yet the onstage performers are the ones promoted as getting the “sound” from specific guitars we should emulate.. what’s never mentioned in the multimillion dollar cascade of electronic manipulation that happens after the signal leaves the guitar’s electronics..
Cheep guitars are intentionally built with subtle nuisances, built it to sway you to a more costly guitar.. That’s as basic to Marketing as Citronella is to a July 4th evening watching fireworks in the South East USA. Swat!!
examples are, sharp fret ends (fixable) funky shaped necks… ( fixable but more difficult) cheep feeling other stuff… (replaceable)..
but the most basic Squire, as an example, can be made in to a superb sounding, playing guitar by anyone with a little “shop proficiency” and the “strength of character” to resist the “cork sniffers" that would suggest that despite how you and your talent can command the room, the fact that you aren’t playing a 3000.00 custom somehow diminishes your music…
All the funky guitar electronics thrown into what is basically the same guitar are, again, basic marketing strategy… taught in every marketing class on the Planet.. You can’t flame ‘em for doing it.. it’s how ya stay in business today… and it's what "caveat emptor" is all about… It’s your responsibility to know when you’re being BSed . .
Next thing that usually pops up in such discussions ..”Well then how can you sell expensive guitars….?”
There are those that are perfectly happy telling time on a 29.95 Timex, and there are those that find pleasure in telling the same exact time on a 10,000.00 Rolex, because they revel in the knowledge that the Rolex is assembled with excruciating care and attention, whereas the Timex is made of a 39 cent digital circuit thrown together in some remote province in some long forgotten corner of the planet.
And for those that think the Rolex is all about broadcasting "your" status in life... there are other watches, far superior to the Rolex.. that cost several orders of magnitude more, that look as "plain Jane" as the 29.95 Timex.. the only one that knows the Breguet cost 1.5 million is the guy that bought it...
Same thing about those that are perfectly content in a 10 year old Honda, vs the guy that does the same exact routine every day in his 2018 Mercedes… Not everyone is alike, not everyone's needs are alike...
Advertising creates the need, the manufacturer makes the goods to fill it, and you max out the credit card pursuing utopia… and everyone is happy . . except those that somehow think it’s someone else’s responsibility to be responsible for them… and the wife when she sees the bill... ouch!!
rk
